Characteristics Of A False Teacher

In studying this text, I have made a focused study on a number of texts, including 2 Peter 2 and 2 Timothy 4. I have made some interesting discoveries observations. I will be telling you of some of them now and some later, my focus today will be on “what is a false teacher like?”

The list below (which is not exhaustive) is primarily on the texts of 2 Peter 2, and when I reference a verse it will be from that chapter, unless otherwise stated.

1. False teachers teach destructive heresy (vs 1)
2. They deny Jesus Christ even as they claim to follow Him, usually from within the church (vs 1)
3. They are usually are involved in unrepentant and ongoing sin, usually of a sexual or a covetous (i.e greed) nature. (vs 2; 10; 14 et. al)
4. They lie and deceive for gain, or to put it another way, they deceive people into giving them money (vs 3)
5. They despise authority. This applies primarily in the Church context, where there is no elders to keep them accountable – they do what they like (vs 10)
6. They are arrogant and reckless with demons* (vs 10; Jude 8-9)
7. They blaspheme and cause others, both believers and unbelievers to do the same (vs 2, 11)
8. They go on instinct rather that on scripture (vs 11, 12)

Ultimately, what a wolf will do to the flock is to tear a sheep away from the shepherd and devour it. This is the objective of a false teacher, sometime unwittingly. He or she will lead a person away from the real Jesus, often preventing a person from coming to genuine faith in Christ, their latter end becomes worse than their first and it would have been better if they had never heard. (2 Peter 2: 20 – 22)

Every false teacher has one other thing in common: God will squash them. (vs 1,3,4-8,17 et al) In these passages and others, God makes absolutely no bones about this. But can’t a false teacher repent? I hear you cry, short answer “yes.” I’ll be looking at that issue in a later post.

Soli Dei Gloria

 

 

 

 

*will go into much more depth with this one later