Let's
turn to the question of why false teachings are promulgated in the
first place and why we sometimes believe them. Here are just a few
causes that I want to discuss today in somewhat random order with
examples where the underlying motives are pretty easy to detect. Some
causes apply more
to those who spread false teachings in the first place and others
apply more to those who believe in them later.
Publish
or perish
A
new tool
Financial
gain or other self-interest
Pet
interests
Mistaken
defense
Over-reaction
Message
in search of a text
Over-simplification
Gnostic
tendencies
Distrust
of authority
Attract
seekers
Some novel teachings arise
from the academic world, because even in seminaries it is a case of
publish or perish. And the only way to really make a name for
yourself is to come up with a brand new theory, which may be quite
untested. The thesis of one scholarly study on the Book of Revelation
that I have in my library is that the author of Revelation is really
John the Baptist. The author's theory is unlikely to sway anyone's
opinion who reads it, and even other scholars are not convinced that
there is any truth in the claim.
Another aspect of academic
studies is that they get especially excited about any new tool that
comes along. When I was starting my chemical research, the latest and
greatest was nuclear magnetic resonance. In 15 seconds you could get
a scan that was about the closest thing to looking directly at the
structure of an organic
compound that you can get. It
revolutionized my field, and the temptation
was to ignore any of the old technology and use nmr as the sole tool
to rely on. This sort of temptation gave rise to the well known
saying attributed to Maslow: “If you only have a hammer, you tend
to see every problem as a nail.” Here are some examples from
biblical studies.
Mitchell
Dahood was the world expert on the Ugaritic language, an ancient
language somewhat related to Hebrew. He wrote what I consider to be
the most useless commentary on the Book of Psalms ever published, at
least for a general audience. Instead of truly commenting on the
text, he spent three large volumes re-interpreting the psalms because
of supposed similarities he saw between
the
original Hebrew with parallels in the Ugaritic language. As one
reviewer said of this book, there is
a
slim chance that one or two of Dahood's insights will last the test
of time, but the rest are rather far-fetched and will soon be
forgotten.
When
the texts of the Dead Sea Scrolls were at last published, Bible
scholars had a field day because here was a wonderful new tool to
use. Certainly the scrolls have been extremely valuable to OT textual
scholars because they provide a Hebrew text 1,000 years earlier than
any other manuscripts we had previously. But NT scholars were equally
excited because many thought they detected similarities between the
Dead Sea sect's own writings and those in the NT. This gave rise to
all sorts of unsubstantiated statements that obviously Jesus, John
the Baptist and/or Paul belonged to the Dead Sea Community at one
time and that was where they got many of their key ideas. Now that
the furor has died down, it is obvious that the differences in the
teachings are much stronger than the similarities.
I am
certainly not immune to this temptation myself. I only truly realized
it earlier this year. I have been spending the better part of the
last 30 years viewing the Bible from one particular point of view,
that of structural criticism, looking for various forms of symmetry
in the OT and NT writings. A friend of mine was in the middle of
writing a devotional commentary on the Book of Habakkuk and he asked
me to proofread the first draft for him. Well, I couldn't just stop
there. I diagrammed his book and pointed out to him that if he would
only delete his first interlude and add discussion questions to the
end of his Chapter 3 along with a new interlude, he would have a
perfectly symmetrical structure to his book. He politely thanked me
for my proofreading and wisely ignored my other suggestions. I had
one tool, a hammer, and his commentary looked like a nail to me.
The
motive
of gain is clearly identified in the NT as one of the reasons false
teachers arise.
“Whoever
teaches otherwise...imagin(es) that godliness is a means of gain.”
(I
Tim. 6:3-5)
"There
are also many rebellious people...teaching for sordid gain what it is
not right to teach.” (Titus 1:10-11)
“Because
of these teachers the way of truth will be maligned. And in their
greed they will exploit you with deceptive words.” (II Peter
2:2-3)
“These
are grumblers and malcontents...flattering people to their own
advantage.” (Jude 16)
While I know that we
should be hesitant in judging other people, the basic motive behind
certain Christian teachers certainly looks like nothing less
than financial gain.
For example, I am naturally suspicious
of any prophecy “experts” who attempt to pin down the time of the
Second Coming, even in a rough time frame. So it seems like more than
a coincidence that the best selling of these books
all seem to zero in on a time frame about 5-10 years in the
future – a close enough time period to get people excited enough to
buy their books, but far enough in the future to ensure a good run of
sales before their conclusions are proved false. I was especially
suspicious of one prophecy Bible that came out about 10-20 years ago.
It firmly predicted the end of the world in about 10 years, but they
advertised the book as being available in a special leather binding
guaranteed to last for 100 years. I always like to contrast these
prophetic books with William Hendricksen's commentary on Revelation,
More Than Conquerors, first published in 1939, which has never
gone out of print or needed updating.
Of course, there is the obvious example
of popular TV preachers who plead with their audience for more money
needed desperately to keep their valuable ministry going, often
appealing to the promise of material gain in return. It is probably
unlikely that any of the Health and Prosperity preachers in
mega-churches are hurting financially because of their ministries.
But sometimes Scripture twisting
results from admirable motives. Several years ago, our home Bible
study group called in a special speaker for a month to talk to us. He
had a local ministry where he had put together his version of a Walk
Through the Bible course, which is now available on YouTube.
His lessons were filled with outrageous and unsubstantiated
statements: the blood of Jesus had been found and analyzed to contain
no paternal DNA, the mysterious nephilim of Genesis were definitively
identified as Neanderthal men, references to dinosaurs were found in
the OT, etc. etc. And, by the way, if you want to know where God's
home town is, the speaker had found the answer. It says right it in
Habakkuk 3:3: “God came from Teman, the Holy One from Mount Paran.”
I tracked down the very few sources he provided for his facts – one
was a website put out by a group of Singaporean businessmen and
another was an article in an obscure Australian newspaper. His
comment when I questioned him about the accuracy of all these
teachings was that he knew some of the things he said were perhaps a
little dubious, but he defended himself by saying, “Exciting
things like this get people's attention; it attracts them so they
want to hear more about the Bible.” In other words: the ends
justify the means. So again, I applaud his motive but not the fact
that he felt he needed to shade the truth
quite a bit in order to achieve it.
There is a cartoon I have seen that
describes me on at least past occasions. A woman is approaching a man
who is reading. The caption says, “Don't bother me. I'm looking for
a verse of Scripture to back up one of my preconceived notions.”
Many years ago I shared preaching duties with several others at the
small church we belonged to in upstate NY. I thought of a great
sermon topic and spent about two weeks vainly scouring the
Bible to see if God agreed with me. At least I had the wisdom to
abandon that particular idea when I couldn't find it anywhere in
Scripture.
Unfortunately, the temptation is to try
to force-fit our own ideas into the teachings of the Bible in support of a
pet concern of ours. I have already given some such examples. Here is
an additional one where the underlying motivation for a teaching is
reasonably clear. You can find a number of people on the internet
claiming that the reason Paul had to take up a collection for the
poor in the Jerusalem church was that their poverty was the direct
result of their ill-founded experiment in setting up an economic
commune. The fact is that there was a widespread famine in the land
that affected everyone, not just the church. Why would someone insist
that the church sharing their goods with those in need was a bad
idea? I think it stems from an absolute abhorrence of the idea that
the Bible might be used by someone somewhere to support communism.
Here
is an interesting question posed by a Christian animal rights
organization: Did Jesus kill 2,000 pigs? On their website, they
explain that of course Jesus didn't kill a herd of pigs when he cast
the legion of demons out of the possessed man because this
wasn't a miracle story at all. Instead it is a political parable put
into the NT to teach that the Jews needed to expel the Roman
“legions” from Israel, not legions of demons at all. This is a
prime example of the trend C. S. Lewis once described. People start
out by talking about the Bible and animal rights, then it becomes
animal rights in the Bible, and finally their true motive comes out
when they deny the clear meaning of the Bible if it doesn't fit in
with their prime concern, which is animal rights. The
end result from all these attempts to read into Scripture what we
want to see there is called eisegesis. It is trying to get a square
peg to fit into a round hole.
Then there are
other teachers who, for the best of motives, want to strip away the
complexities found in the Bible in order to present a more simplified
version with no ambiguities that might confuse people. Unfortunately,
this can cater to the desires of the many who
don't like to be challenged in their faith with any unnecessary facts
that might cause them to reexamine their already set ideas. For
example, there are various
chronological Bibles which combine parallel passages together so that
they can be read more easily as a continuous narrative. These are
certainly very useful for following the overall thrust of biblical
history as long as they don't become as a substitute for reading the
Bible as it was written. The problem is that such books by necessity
have to leave out a wealth of details present in the original.
Using
The Daily Bible
as an example,
here is one verse from the gospels chosen at random.This
is how its account of Matthew 16:1 and its parallel Mark 8:11 reads:
“The
Pharisees and
Sadducees (1)
came to (2) Jesus and tested him by asking (3) him to
show
them a sign from heaven.” (Matthew
16:1;
Mark 8:11)
(1)
“Others” (Luke 11:16)
(2)
“began to argue with” (Mark 8:11)
(3)
“kept demanding” (Luke 11:16)
To
get this reading, the editor basically chose Matthew's longer
version, which includes a reference to the Sadducees not found in
Mark's Gospel. This should raise the question as to why Matthew felt
the need to emphasize the presence of the Sadducees. Or
alternatively, why did Mark leave them out? If you look at an
analytical concordance you will find that this difference in emphasis
is consistent with what Mark and Matthew do elsewhere. Mark only
mentions the Sadducees once to Matthew's seven references. That
fact
alone might prompt a major Bible study in itself, but you would miss
it entirely if all you relied was The Daily Bible.
Then
there is the question of the Pharisees and Sadducee's motive. Both
Matthew and Mark agree that they were trying to test Jesus, but Mark
makes it stronger by saying that they began to argue with Jesus, a
phrase left out of The Daily Bible, which also omits a possible
parallel passage found in Luke 11, which is almost identical to the
story in Matthew and Mark, but places it in an entirely different
chronological setting. So that brings up the confusing question of
whether Jesus had two such identical encounters in his ministry, or
whether Luke has maybe placed the story in a different setting for
some literary or theological reason. That sort of possibility really
disturbs some Christians. And, as if the situation weren't
complicated enough, there is another possibly parallel account in
John's gospel which is left out of The Daily Bible entirely. There
is an admirable motive behind this sort of over-simplification, but
unfortunately it also has the side effect of eliminating much of the
richness of the original, so it is definitely a trade-off. We really
have to be prepared to wrestle with a little ambiguity in the Bible
when we run across it and to slow down in our reading at that point
even if it runs counter to our desire to speed-read without really
comprehending.
A
better approach if one is studying Jesus' life, for example, is to
use a “harmony of the gospels” so that you can compare the
various accounts
side-by-side instead. Most will include all four gospels in
side-by-side columns, some even highlighting in color the phrases
that the various accounts have in common.
I
used to feel that the only one to blame for false teaching was the
teacher himself or herself. After all, it says in James 3:1 that
teachers will be judged more strictly. I always hoped that God would
let those who follow false teachers off the hook because they
probably didn't know any better. Now I'm not sure that is really
true. Here are two interesting passages in the OT historical
accounts. In the first story, David wants to build a temple for God,
and the prophet Nathan says without consulting God on the matter,
“Go, do all that you have in mind; for the LORD is with you.” In
the rest of the chapter, God reveals to Nathan and David what God's
true will in the situation is. And surprisingly, God doesn't chastise
Nathan at all for his bad advice and taking God's name in vain.
Instead, He bawls out David for listening to Nathan.
In the second
story, someone only identified as a man of God has been told by God
to leave Bethel without stopping to eat or drink. But he is followed
by an old prophet who tells the man of God that an angel has appeared
to him with a different message. According to this supposed new
revelation, the man of God is to stop and have supper with him first.
The man of God believes him and stops to eat. Then, just as the case
of Nathan and David, God bawls out the man of God for listening to
the false prophet while He doesn't chastise the false prophet at all.
In both cases, the lesson seems to be that those who follow false
teachings have at least some culpability in the matter. They should
know better. So let's continue with some possible motivations for
false teachings that also can be motives for us as listeners to
believe them.
Probably
the most common origin of problems in interpretation arises from our
badly wanting certain things to be true. We don't need Sigmund Freud
to tell us that we should be suspicious of believing something that
turns out to be in our own best interest. John Wenham says this
regarding the doctrine of hell, but it applies to other issues as
well. “Beware of the immense natural appeal of any way out that
evades the idea of everlasting sin and suffering. The temptation to
twist what may be quite plain statements of Scripture is intense. It
is the ideal situation for unconscious rationalizing.” (The
Enigma of Evil, p. 38)
Look at these
paired beliefs. Which of the two in each case do you want to believe
in?
1. Eternal security vs. possibility of
apostasy
2. Escape from the “Tribulation”
vs. having to participate in it
3. Promise of health and prosperity vs.
promise of hardship and persecution
4.
Universalism and annihilationism vs. eternal punishment in hell
5. Christ's
imminent return vs. an extended delay
Regarding #1, I
was teaching a Sunday school once and mentioned in passing that some
verses in Hebrews seem to indicate the danger of apostasy when one
completely turns his back on God after an earlier profession of
faith. Afterward, an elder's wife came up to me almost in tears and
told me that I really shouldn't teach such things. I found out
afterward that her son, who had grown up in the church, had now
renounced Christianity completely and of course she wanted
desperately to believe that he was still saved.
My
wife and I also ran into two interesting cases regarding #5 years ago
when The Late Great
Planet Earth first came
out. My wife overheard one lady in a Bible book store openly bragging
that she was running up bills on her credit card to the maximum limit
buying things she had always wanted to have. She said that the best
part was that Jesus was going to come again before she had to pay any
of the bills off. Then, there was another lady in our Sunday school
class who said that she used to worry about her young children
growing up and whether they would accept Christ later on, but now she
wasn't worried at all about their Christian education because Christ
was going to come before any of them reached the age of
accountability. Both of these events happened about 40 years ago, and
I often wonder what happened to those two women.
Now remember that
just because one belief in each pair above may be more to your
advantage, that doesn't necessarily mean it is incorrect. But you do
need to test it objectively against what the Bible truly teaches.
In II Timothy 4:3
Paul talks about this problem of people in church only wanting to
hear what is to their advantage. He calls this having “itching
ears” that beg to be scratched. And if a teacher or preacher
refuses to cater to their particular wants, they will hunt around
until they find one more to their liking.
Here
is another motive that is a little more altruistic: I have already
talked in previous lessons about misguided attempts to defend the
Bible or God Himself. So
let me describe another category: defending the “heroes” in the
Bible. One noted example is how some people try to defend Abraham's
actions in twice misleading rulers who wanted to take Sarah as their
wife. Both times Abraham said that she was only his sister, in order
to save his own neck. One particular internet source concludes that
Abraham may have deceived those rulers with his half truth (she was
related to him), but that isn't at all the same as actual lying. Then
there are other commentators who try to explain that it was the
custom for a patriarch who had a favorite wife to also adopt her as
his sister. So Abimelech misunderstood
Abraham when all he was trying to do was explain that Sarah was an
especially dear wife to him.
Concerning the
rather embarrassing episode of the golden calf, here are some
examples of ancient rabbis trying to defend the actions of characters
in the incident, taken from Brevard Child's commentary on Exodus:
“Why Aaron
chose to make expressly a calf is not explained in the text, but has
evoked a variety of theories from commentators. B. Jacob's
explanation that Aaron wanted to make something completely
nonsensical to expose their folly misses the mark badly.” (p. 565)
In reply to
Aaron's statement that he threw the gold into the fire and a calf
came out, “Jewish commentators tend to defend Aaron and accept his
defense at face value.” (p. 570)
“Israel as a
nation was not chiefly to blame, but the trouble began with the
'mixed multitude' who came from Egypt.” (p. 576)
And
there are many other examples in rabbinical commentaries trying to
explain away the dubious actions
of Miriam, King David, etc. These sorts of justifications might make
sense in a works-based religion but they have absolutely no place in
a religion of grace.
Then there are those beliefs geared
toward those who have a somewhat gnostic tendency and want to be
completely in the know regarding everything in the Bible, with all
the I's dotted and the T's crossed. Try googling “Dispensational
Charts” some time and see what you get. You will find page after
page of wall charts explaining the whole of God's plan for the past,
present and future. Dispensationalists found out early on that the
only way people could even begin to grasp all of the complexities of
their scheme was with
visual aids. I belonged for years to a church that had this basic
view of theology, and even the assistant pastor's wife (who had
graduated from DTS) had to ask her husband at one of our home Bible
studies to explain it one more time since the exact order of
future events always confused her.
And during one sermon, our
senior pastor told us that the pastor at another congregation had
remarked to him that our church had the perfect theology, the perfect
form of church government, the perfect method of Bible
interpretation, the perfect view of the future and the perfect type
of preaching. Our pastor didn't actually dispute any of these
statements, as I had fully expected him to, but he did admit that
with all this perfection we needed to be careful that we still leave
room for the Holy Spirit's leading.
Joseph Smith, of course, took another
more extreme approach in supplying answers to questions that were the
most pressing for early 19th century American Christians:
Why isn't America even mentioned in the Bible and what is its unique
place in God's plan? Where did the darker-skinned races originate
from and should they be considered equal to the whites? Is our
current KJV Bible an accurate translation even though the Bible was
in the hands of the Roman Catholic Church for years? What is the
meaning of obscure references to baptism on behalf of the dead and
the Urim and the Thummin? What happened to the lost tribes of Israel?
Why doesn't the Bible condemn sins such as smoking? And will I still
be married in heaven? Couple this with a promise that you can become
a god equal to Christ and you have a potent mix that caters perfectly
to people's various desires.
The
next motive we need to be aware of is spiritual one-upsmanship: my
faith is superior to your faith. Years ago, I was teaching a series
on the parables at a home Bible study. A man from the neighborhood
found out about the study and visited once but he didn't really like
my approach. He explained to us that God had revealed to him in a
dream that he needed to understand everything in the Bible as a
literal event, and that included the parables. When Jesus says,
“There once was a man, etc.” if we take that as anything less
than the literal truth, we make Jesus a liar.
The
motive of spiritual pride may also be present in some who insist on
six literal days of creation or believe in a flat earth on biblical
grounds. Sometimes it seems that they think their faith will be
greater the more that the facts and reason contradict it.
Another reason for false
interpretations arising and being followed by others is a common
problem best seen in politics today. We tend to think only in
extremes, and any form of compromise is looked upon as selling out to
the enemy. In spiritual matters, the great Christian writer G. K.
Chesterton was quoted as saying “Every heresy is a truth taught out
of proportion.” I had heard a slight variation on that quote: “A
heresy is a truth taken too far.” And if
heresy
is a truth taken
too far, then it can be taken too far in more than one direction.
Newton's 3rd
Law says that every action gives rise to an equal and opposite
reaction. Unfortunately, in religious disputes the situation
often appears to be more complicated. Consider that the truth is
represented by a straight line. We recognize an error in
interpretation departing from the
line in one direction so we try to avoid it as much as
possible by swinging in the opposite direction, which causes an even
more extreme counter-reaction from the first party when they see how
far off the truth we are, etc. etc. Much of the history of
Christianity can be charted this way, with the truth sometimes
getting completely lost in the process. Here are two examples
I have seen recently. I have known people who were so bombarded
growing up with the idea of Jesus coming any minute that they swing
to the opposite extreme by becoming full preterists, denying that
there will be any future coming at all. The same thing happens when
people start denying the existence of Satan because they have been
around those who overemphasized
Satan's influence in the world.
While we are mentioning reasons for
false or incomplete teachings, I don't want to ignore ignorance as a
cause. As Benjamin Franklin noted, “Being ignorant is not so much
a shame as being unwilling to learn.” I think of the example of
Apollos who accepted the superior truths of Aquilla and Priscilla as
soon as it was explained to him. Over my own lifetime of moving from
one city to another, I think it has been a blessing that I have been
a member of six different denominations, which has exposed me to a
variety of viewpoints. But I must admit that it has been a culture
shock at times and it has exposed my own ignorance of other
approaches to the Bible.
Here are just three example of how
traditions can become so ingrained that it is a real
surprise to us when we first see to a new perspective:
Definition of grace – Back in
high school I got into a theological discussion with my best friend,
who was a Catholic. He started ranting and raving about what a
horrible person Martin Luther was. My comment was that at least he
emphasized the important and neglected doctrine of grace. My friend
couldn't understand what I was talking about. He said that the
Catholic church teaches grace and they even provide a number of ways
for you to earn it. Of course, that wasn't at
all my definition, or the accepted definition, of
grace.
Mode of “baptism” – One of
my pastors told the story of
the time when he led a church in Australia. He was at an ecumenical
luncheon and was seated next to an Anglican bishop. The bishop turned
to him and said, “I see by your name tag that you belong to the
Disciples of Christ. I have always wanted to ask someone from your
denomination where you got your quaint custom of dunking people in
water to baptize them.” Our pastor asked him if he had been
taught Greek in seminary. The bishop got into a huff and said, “Of
course so.” “Then what is the meaning of baptizmo?” The
bishop said, “immerse” and then got very quiet. He had never even
considered the original meaning of the word before that time.
Eschatology
– I'll tell the third story on myself. For about the first 30 years
of my life I attended the same denomination and their view of the
future, I found out later, was called amillennialism. At the time, I
assumed that it was the only
accepted
view. Then I started attending an American Baptist church. In one of
the Sunday school classes, the members started speculating about what
life during the millennium would be like, wondering if all the
animals would become vegetarian and whether we would age any. I
realized later that their belief fit in the mold of another accepted
view of the future called historical premillennialism, but at the
time I thought that I had inadvertently wandered into some sort
of weird cult.
Then I moved to Texas and attended a church where I occasionally
taught Sunday school. I was covering the various views of the future
and when I got to explaining and defending amillennialism, one
visitor to the class started fuming. He blurted out, “How can you
possibly call yourself a Christian with that sort of belief?” It
turned out that he had only been exposed to a third view of the
future, dispensationalism, and couldn't see how any other perspective
could possibly be true.
Well, how do you cope with the fact
that different denominations and teachers have differing
views of Scripture? How do you sort out what is true and what is
false? Here are two opposite tacks I have seen taken, both of which
themselves can lead to Scripture twisting.
There are some
churches which have such a distrust of any sort of spiritual
authority that they practice a completely democratic approach to
studying the Bible. There was a church in upstate NY that I visited
once that took this to an extreme. The Sunday school teacher (and I
wouldn't really call him a teacher at all) would read a verse and
then go around the room asking each person in turn, “What do you
think this means?” and then he would summarize the results by
saying, “We have two votes for this interpretation while three
people think it means such and such, etc.” And then we would
proceed to the next verse. Now there is nothing wrong with getting a
good discussion going in class. But without some sort of direction
from a leader who has spent time in preparation, it soon becomes an
exercise in sharing our collective ignorance.
But the opposite approach is no better
and that is to follow blindly the teachings of an authority, such as
a best selling author. The
Left Behind series had a total sales of 63 million copies
at the last count. I realize that these are fiction books,
but they are based on one particular view of the Bible's teachings on
future events and have had a huge popular influence in getting people
to accept that branch of theology because of the many people who have
read them and seen the movies based on them. Or consider this, when I
first moved to Texas, my next door neighbor came by to introduce
himself and invite me to visit his church. He said that I just had to
attend it because it was the largest church in town, with three
services, and they even televised their church services. The idea he
was conveying was: that many people can't possibly be wrong. Just
consider the theology taught in many mega-churches to easily dispel
that notion that truth is established by popularity.
I will have a little more to say later
concerning the matter of spiritual authorities; however, keep in mind
these two passages:
“But even if we or an angel from
heaven should proclaim to you a gospel contrary to what we proclaimed
to you, let that one be cursed.” (Gal. 1:6) He repeats his words
for emphasis in verse 7.
And Paul lived out these words in Acts 17:10-11. “That very night
the believers sent Paul and Silas off to Beroea; and when they
arrived, they went to the Jewish synagogue. These Jews were more
receptive than those in Thessalonica, for they welcomed the message
very eagerly and examined the scriptures every day to see whether
these things were so.” Notice
that the Bereans aren't criticized for questioning Paul's
teachings. Instead they are
commended for going to the Bible to see if they are true. We should
never feel afraid to question teachings if we think they don't
represent what is in the Bible.
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