What Do We Do About False Teachers?

The problem of false teachers comes up in several New Testament books. Christ predicted them, and they quickly became a plague on the early church. One book gives very practical guidance on how to respond to this situation, but it can be easy to get lost in the weeds and not really see what we’re getting.

When we talk about Bible study, I think we usually picture digging deep into the text, looking at the minutia like verb tenses or repeated terms or doing a word study. Taking a microscope to scripture is important. But so is getting a macro view. I recently shared several resources that talked about outlining. Outlining is not cool, and you don’t need high powered tools to do it. But I want to share an example of how it can open up a passage to us.

The short little letter of Jude is kind of odd, but I also think it’s kind of fun, so I find myself reading it when I don’t have time to really dig into something else.

Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. (3-4)

For the longest time, I regarded verse 3 as the meat of the book. After this, it launches into a series of comparisons and denunciations of these “certain people”, the false teachers who are stirring up so much trouble. But when I finally sat down to study the little letter, I was surprised. I picked at the grammar and looked up the passages he referred to. I contemplated the repeated terms. Then I pulled back and said, “OK, let’s outline this thing.”

Here’s what I came up with:

1. Greeting (1-2)
2. Appeal (3)
4. “Certain people” (4-19)
5. Instructions (20-23)
6. Doxology (24-25)

It’s easy to get so caught up in the denunciations and the weird quote from Enoch that you miss Jude coming back to the beginning. He wrote appealing to them, and us, to contend for the faith because of the false teachers that had crept into the church. But how do you contend for the faith?

First he tells us what to do for ourselves:

But you, beloved, by building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in God’s love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life. (20-21)

“Keep yourselves in God’s love”, a phrase that should remind us of Christ’s instructions to remain faithful and obedient, “as you wait for the mercy” of the Lord, which seems to be an expectant waiting, we might even say “watching”. And we do this “by building yourselves up” in the faith; in other words, making certain you know the truth, which we accomplish by being in the scriptures. And by “praying in the Holy Spirit”; we do not assume we can stand strong under our own power.

And then he turns our gaze outward:

Be merciful to those who doubt; save others by snatching them from the fire; to others show mercy, mixed with fear—hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh. (22-23)

Don’t just circle the wagons; help those who are wavering, even those who have stumbled and fallen if you can do it without infecting yourselves.

It’s obviously very important to Jude that we know that these false teachers are going to be judged and dealt with. I don’t want to minimize that, but I don’t think that’s the meat of the passage. What about us? What do the faithful do while we wait for that day? That’s how Jude closes out his letter because that’s the meat of it.

So what do we do about false teachers? Do we tar and feather them? Do we run them out of town on the rail? Do we put up billboards denouncing them? No, we contend for the faith by devoting ourselves to the scriptures and to prayer to keep ourselves faithful as we watch for the Day of the Lord and try to rescue as many of their victims as we can. The teachers themselves we leave to the Lord.

Do we have false teachers around today? We have every flavor Jude had and more. So let’s study the scriptures, send out the lifeboats, and trust God.


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