False Teachers

Shaming

Fifty years ago culture taught women to hide any part of themselves that did not line up with what was “normal”. Women should (and would) be housewives who stayed at home, cleaned their houses, made dinner for their husbands, and wanted children. Any woman who did not fit into this mold was shamed into thinking there was something wrong with her. It was a culture of shame and fear that taught women to hide their vulnerability and fall in line as they “should” or be ostracized.

Comparison Trap

In response to this culture, women began to judge one another. What was worse, emotionally, than judging one another was that women began to compare themselves to one another. Each person had to be better than the next. The concept of “keeping up with the Jones’” became common thinking. When women found that they weren’t measuring up to the same standard as their neighbors, they found that they would be made to feel better than those around them if they simply talked about all of the things everyone else did wrong. If Linda and Lauren could agree that Lisa was somehow unfit as a wife/mother/sister/employee, they would feel like they were somehow more fit as a woman.

Gossip leads to hate. The Word tells us that, “There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers” (Proverbs 6:16-19).

It hurt me to read that and to write it.

Because I am guilty.

And I don’t want to ever do something that the Lord hates, because I love Him.

… then enters social media, and with all of the joys of reconnecting with friends from school and old neighborhood buddies came the platform that everyone always wanted. A platform to share our innermost thoughts about any possible thing imaginable. Blogs, tweets, snaps, and pages gave us the opportunity to put our self-important thoughts on display for all to praise us for.

We can be so easily deceived.

This social validation gave us everything we needed to make it a quick idol.

We’ve often heard the old saying, “time is money”. The Bible says, “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matt 6:21). Our treasure is often our time, also our money, but often our time.

So, what do we do every moment it gets quiet, or we sit down for a second, or stop at a red light? Every time commercials come on or we are put on hold? We scroll through social media.

No, I don’t think that social media is evil. But, like all things, it is what we make of it. Therefore, if we allow it to consume our time, when we fail to make time to invest in our kid’s lives or in prayer or reading the Word. Then yes, it can be evil.

Not only that, but it has become our platform… and everyone else’s platform, to share their opinions, their voice, their perspective on the world around them. It created the opportunity to voice our dissatisfaction with anything and everything, including our neighbors and their opinions. 

Social media gave us the chance to put our culture on display, and then the culture shifted.

Acceptance

Women stopped shaming and comparing themselves to one another in an act of solidarity and began to just accept people as they are. 

Acceptance is tricky because it disguises itself as love.

The truth about acceptance is that when we accept other people’s sin we easily let our guard down and start believing that what everyone else is doing is right.

Acceptance culture and social media platforms have created a home for false teachers.

False teachers

The Bible teaches us the difficult truth of being a teacher.

“Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.  For we all stumble in many ways.” James 3:1-2

In the past, those who taught were leaders. Those leaders were looked at with intensity. Their lives were expected to be perfect and to line up with their teaching. Scripture warns us about how difficult that kind of living would be.

Today, we are all teachers. We each have an audience of people listening and watching our every move.

The Bible says, “Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works, and in your teaching show integrity, dignity, and sound speech that cannot be condemned, so that an opponent may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say about us” Titus 2:7-8.

Based on this, as believers, we should be sure that anything we say in a forum where other people might follow it or glean from it, should be dignified and line up with the truth. The only truth I know is the Bible. So, if I teach anything that does not line up with that, then I am failing in my responsibility of being a sound teacher.

This includes when I tell someone that their behavior is acceptable when it is not.

A person who teaches something that is not the truth is called a false teacher. 2 Peter 2:1-3 says, “… there will be false teachers among you... and many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed. And in their greed they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.”

This type of teaching is so prevalent in the world today. The current message to women is that sin isn’t sin as long as it makes you happy, because that is what God cares about.

God loves you. He wants you to be happy, but not at the expense of your holiness.

Anyone who teaches you that acceptance is love and that God’s will is that you be happy is not teaching the truth.

The platform of social media and the propensity of false teaching is scary. It is scary because there are so many people desperate to hear some sort of truth in their life, and when what they hear lines up with what they feel they have the tendency to believe that it is truth.

Paul warned us in Romans 16:17, “to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them”.

Maybe this means we stop reading the internet and start reading the Bible. Maybe this means we stop talking to our friends about our lives and start talking to God. Or at the very least, we start talking to our friends that love God and love truth. Maybe this means we invest less in what our neighbors are doing and invest more in what God has called us to do.

That is what it means for me.

Because I understand that we want to hear what we want to hear.

2 Timothy 4:3 says, “for the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions”. 

The time WAS coming. I believe that the time is here now.

I am afraid for our world and our culture that we have stopped listening to truth because it is hard to hear and it hurts, and often requires us to stop doing what we want to do.

So instead we started listening for teaching that validated what we feel and what made us happy.

I understand that the very platform I am using to write this is exactly what I am warning against. I know that I am sharing my opinion while warning other people not to share theirs (without prayerful wisdom). I do so hoping and praying that it isn’t my words that are heard, but instead, the truth of the Word of God. I am praying that this message, that has been on my heart for several days now, somehow resonates.