Does anyone know what Gather25 is about? Is it similar to IF:Gathering?
This past weekend was IF:Gathering 2024. I shared my article about it on social media and one of my followers asked this question. I’m glad she did so I could give you a heads up and so you can have a whole year to warn your church and your friends away from it.
According to its website, Gather25 is a 25 hour global simulcast of “prayer, worship, repentance, and commissioning” (i.e. sending people out under the auspices of the Great Commission, ostensibly, to share the gospel) which will take place in March 2025.
“Gather25 is being organized and led by an alliance of Christian organizations: IF:Gathering, YouVersion, illumiNations, Right Now Media, and many more international ministries and churches. The original vision for Gather25 was cast by Jennie Allen.”
Jennie Allen is a false teacher and founder of IF:Gathering, an annual conference for evangelical women (and, no doubt, some men) which routinely platforms false teachers, women pastors, and women who preach to men.
YouVersion is hosted by Craig Groeschel’s LifeChurch.TV. He is a false teacher and platforms many other false teachers and women who preach to men.
illumiNations seems to be a Bible translation and distribution organization, which may be just fine, but I’m concerned that all of the evangelical celebrities they currently and proudly list on their home page as supporting their organization (Elevation Worship, Lecrae, Sadie Huff, Passion, IF:Gathering, MVMNT Conference, and Chris Tomlin) are false/woke teachers, or conferences and individuals that platform false/woke teachers.
And these are just the four organizations mentioned by name on the FAQ page. There are many more sponsors, and the ones I’m familiar with are all doctrinally unsound and/or run by false teachers. This thing is absolutely saturated with false teachers.
This event is going to sucker in a lot of undiscerning pastors, because, “What could possibly be wrong with prayer, worship, repentance, and commissioning people to share the gospel? We can just set aside the ‘secondary issue’ differences we have with these people and join them.”. But Scripture forbids us from having anything to do with false teachers. And if your pastor invites these false teachers into your church via simulcast, he is disqualified from the ministry. Titus 1:9 is part of the biblical qualifications for pastors and elders:
He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it.
Titus 1:9
Furthermore, what sort of false gospel might these false teachers be “commissioning” people to spread? What sort of unbiblical prayer and worship practices will they lead participants in? What is the definition of “repentance” these false teachers hold to? Will they lead participants to “repent” of things like “whiteness,” refusing to baptize practicing homosexuals, oppressing women by not allowing them to be pastors, and such?
If you think your pastor might be the type to have your church participate in this event, I would recommend you start praying now, start preparing now, and prayerfully consider whether or not you should warn him about Gather25 now so that he has plenty of time to be obedient to the Titus 1:9 mandate the Lord has given him.
If you have a question about: a Bible passage, an aspect of theology, a current issue in Christianity, or how to biblically handle a family, life, or church situation, comment below (I’ll hold all questions in queue {unpublished} for a future edition of The Mailbag) or send me an e-mail or private message. If your question is chosen for publication, your anonymity will be protected.
If you are considering commenting or sending me an e-mail objecting to the fact that I warn against certain teachers, please click here and read this article first. Your objection is most likely answered here. I won’t be publishing comments or answering emails that are answered by this article.
This article is kept continuously updated as needed.
I get lots of questions about particular authors, pastors, and Bible teachers, and whether or not I recommend them. Some of the best known can be found above at my Popular False Teachers tab. The teacher below is someone I’ve been asked about recently, so I’ve done a quick check (this is brief research, not exhaustive) on him.
Generally speaking, in order for me to recommend a teacher, speaker, or author, he or she has to meet three criteria:
a) A female teacher cannot currently and unrepentantly preach to or teach men in violation of 1 Timothy 2:12. A male teacher or pastor cannot allow women to carry out this violation of Scripture in his ministry. The pastor or teacher cannot currently and unrepentantly be living in any other sin (for example, cohabiting with her boyfriend or living as a homosexual).
b) The pastor or teacher cannot currently and unrepentantly be partnering with or frequently appearing with false teachers. This is a violation of Scripture.
c) The pastor or teacher cannot currently and unrepentantly be teaching false doctrine.
I am not very familiar with most of the teachers I’m asked about (there are so many out there!) and have not had the opportunity to examine their writings or hear them speak, so most of the “quick checking” I do involves items a and b (although in order to partner with false teachers (b) it is reasonable to assume their doctrine is acceptable to the false teacher and that they are not teaching anything that would conflict with the false teacher’s doctrine). Partnering with false teachers and women preaching to men are each sufficient biblical reasons not to follow a pastor, teacher, or author, or use his/her materials.
Just to be clear, “not recommended” is a spectrum. On one end of this spectrum are people like Nancy Leigh DeMoss Wolgemuth and Kay Arthur. These are people I would not label as false teachers because their doctrine is generally sound, but because of some red flags I’m seeing with them, you won’t find me proactively endorsing them or suggesting them as a good resource, either. There are better people you could be listening to. On the other end of the spectrum are people like Joyce Meyer and Rachel Held Evans- complete heretics whose teachings, if believed, might lead you to an eternity in Hell. Most of the teachers I review fall somewhere in the middle of this spectrum (leaning toward the latter).
If you’d like to check out some pastors and teachers I heartily recommend, click the Recommended Bible Teachers tab at the top of this page.
Alistair Begg Not Recommended I do not consider Alistair Begg to be a false teacher at this time.
photo courtesy of Truth For Life on Facebook
“Alistair Begg has been in pastoral ministry since 1975. Following graduation from The London School of Theology, he served eight years in Scotland at both Charlotte Chapel in Edinburgh and Hamilton Baptist Church. In 1983, he became the senior pastor at Parkside Church near Cleveland, Ohio. He has written several books and is heard daily and weekly on the radio program, Truth For Life.”
Alistair Begg has a long and solid history as a doctrinally sound pastor and Bible teacher. Until a few years ago, he was one of the featured teachers at my Recommended Bible Teachers page. I was pleased and happy to recommend him to my followers as a trustworthy teacher of Scripture.
Unfortunately, in mid- to late 2022, one of my followers made me aware of a 2019 sermon Begg had preached in which he endorsed the idea of a woman preaching or teaching the Sunday morning message in church (in other words, preaching/teaching to men) as long as she has been invited and given permission to do so by the pastor and elders. Begg has invited and permitted at least one woman to do this at his own church. This is unbiblical.
It was the second (see below) significant red flag with Begg that I had become aware of, and I was disappointed to have to remove him from my list of recommended teachers. But, having removed other teachers for similar things, I felt that in order to be fair and consistent about who I recommend, it had to be done.
Listen as Begg explains in his own words in this sermon (starting around 30:12) on 1 Timothy 2:9-15b. (I would encourage you to listen to the whole sermon – in which he says many good things – for context.)
Transcript of relevant portion, beginning at 30:50:
“…One of the chestnuts that always comes up says, “Well you did that thing on 1 Timothy 2 and then you had Helen Roseveare here come to the church. Nananananana. And she spoke on a Sunday morning, and she’s not allowed to speak on Sunday mornings because of first Timothy.”
Yes, she’s allowed to speak on Sunday mornings if the elders determined that we’d like her to. She’s not going to speak as the pastor and the teacher. She is not going to speak in a position of rule and authority, but she has something to say and we’d like to hear it.
There are women who have unique abilities in relationship to, for example, dealing with bereavement. And if that woman has something to share with a fellowship in the context of the Lord’s Day worship then she can come and share it providing it does not negate all that we have said.
In other words, loved ones, we can’t take a principle and make a law out of it. And legalists always make laws out of principles.“
Again, this is unbiblical. When God says no – especially in a pastoral epistle like 1 Timothy, instructing pastors about how to run God’s church – no pastor has the right to say yes. Pastors have no right to give anyone permission to sin. Alistair Begg’s personal opinion that a woman who speaks in his church is not speaking “as the pastor and the teacher” or “in a position of rule and authority” is not the deciding factor here. God has commanded pastors that women are not to pastor, preach, teach the Scriptures to men, or exercise authority over men in the gathering of the Body. And when God tells us not to do something and we do it anyway because “we’d like her to” or “we’d like to hear it,” that is sin.
I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet.
1 Timothy 2:12
Furthermore, it is not “legalistic” (as Begg unbiblically judged those who apparently took him to task at the time) to boldly declare that Christians must obey any rightly handled, in context command of Scripture. Begg can call 1 Timothy 2:12 a law, a principle, or whatever he wants, it doesn’t change the fact that God said, “Don’t do it,” and Begg said, “I want to, so I’m going to.”.
Several questions have arisen about Helen Roseveare: whether or not she was a missionary, the content of what she said at Begg’s church, and the possibility that she may have been giving a personal testimony.
None of that matters as it pertains to the issue at hand. The red flag is what Beggsaid about it in his sermon, which I’ve just addressed.
Prior to my follower making me aware of the incident above, the first red flagI was (already) aware of also happened in 2019, just a couple of months after the incident above. Alistair Begg announced that he would be speaking at Baylor University’s National Preaching Conference, sharing the stage with Beth Moore (also Tony Evans and others), much to the chagrin of and numerous protests from his followers. In response to a follower who expressed concern, a statement1 from Begg’s ministry indicated that he accepted the invitation to speak without knowing who any of the other speakers were. Rather than going to the organizers and explaining that he could not share the stage with:
false teachers (Tony Evans and Beth Moore),
a woman who preaches to men (Beth Moore),
a woman “pastor” (Mary Hulst),
and that he could not speak at a conference at which pastors and future pastors -men- were being instructed in pastoring by two women – sanctioned by the seminary and voluntarily attended by these men – Begg kept the speaking engagement.
I did not remove Begg from my recommends at the time of the Baylor incident because I was hoping it was a one time goof that would teach him to use greater wisdom and discernment in the future. We all do dumb things from time to time, and well known pastors are no exception.
The Baylor incident following so quickly on the heels of the “women preaching incident” (above), was troublesome. And Begg’s statements in the women preaching incident are not a one time lapse in judgment. They are the well thought out, planned, and implemented policy of the church he pastors.
Once might be an “oopsie”. Twice was the beginning of a pattern of Begg doing or saying unbiblical things and then either doubling down, or lashing out, or both at those who tried to biblically correct him.
In this September 2023 episode of Truth for Life entitled The Christian Manifesto (an interview with Begg about his recently released book by the same title), he explains how a grandmother wrote to him asking for counsel about whether or not to attend her grandson’s “wedding” to a trans-gender person. With seemingly no qualms whatsoever, he advised her that, as long as her grandson knew she didn’t approve, she should not only attend the wedding but take a gift as well. In Begg’s reasoning, refusing to attend the “wedding” would just reinforce the grandson’s opinion that Christians are mean, unloving, etc. Ironically, he then immediately quoted James 3:1.
Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.
Transcript of relevant portion, beginning at 28:45:
“…we field questions all the time that go along the lines of my grandson is about to be married to a transgender person and I don’t know what to do about this, and I’m calling to ask you to tell me what to do. Which is a huge responsibility.
And in a conversation like that just a few days ago – and people may not like this answer – but I asked I asked the grandmother, “Does your grandson understand your belief in Jesus?”
“Yes.”
“Does your grandson understand that your belief in Jesus makes it such that you can’t countenance in any affirming way the choices that he has made in life?”
“Yes.”
I said, “Well then, okay, as long as he knows that then I suggest that you do go to the ceremony, and I suggest that you buy them a gift.”
“Oh!” she said. She was caught off guard. I said, “Well here’s the thing, your love for them may catch them off guard. But your absence will simply reinforce the fact that they said these people are what I always thought: judgmental, critical, unprepared to countenance anything.”
And it is a fine line isn’t it? It really is, and people need to work out their own salvation with fear and trembling. But I think we’re going to take that risk, we’re going to have to take that risk a lot more if we want to build bridges into the hearts and lives of those who don’t understand Jesus and and don’t understand that he is a king.
This is pastoral malpractice, and is the very reason God included James 3:1 in His Word. Our personal opinions about someone’s anticipated reaction is not what governs our actions as Christians – Scripture does. We are to obey Scripture regardless of what we think the outcome will be. And in this case Scripture tells us:
Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous. Hebrews 13:4
We’re not to be ashamed of the gospel – a major component of which is “the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men” (Romans 1:16-18) – rather, we’re to be willing to shed our own blood for obedience to Scripture (Hebrews 12:4). Compromising with sin is one form of being ashamed of the gospel.
Jesus did not come to bring peace between pagans and Christians, but a sword, and anyone who puts loyalty to family ahead of loyalty to Jesus and His Word is not worthy of Him: I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matthew 10:34-39
If even pagans aren’t to give approval to sin, how much less are Christians to give approval to sin? Romans 1:32
are not those who eat the sacrifices participants in the altar?… I do not want you to be participants with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons. 1 Corinthians 10:18-21
Do not…take part in the sins of others; 1 Timothy 5:22
He who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the righteous are both alike an abomination to the Lord. Proverbs 17:15
Anyone, pagan or Christian, who knows anything about weddings (and Begg, a pastor who performs them, certainly should) can tell you that by being a non-objecting witness at a wedding, you are making the statement that you support and approve of the union. Why would any pastor suborn the sin of hypocrisy by encouraging a Christian to express disapproval of the union and then turn right around and demonstrate support for the union by joyfully attending the “wedding” with a gift? And, in the future, how is the grandmother, when sharing the gospel with her grandson, to call her grandson to repent of his sin when she has already approved of its codification by attending his “wedding”? More hypocrisy!
Furthermore, though the grandson may know of the grandmother’s biblical disapproval, does his “intended” know? Does the rest of the wedding party, the officiant, and all of the other guests know? Do all of her friends who know she’s attending the wedding know? To all of them, many of whom will know she’s a professing Christian, her attendance means she approves of the “marriage”. (All of these are also reasons Christians don’t attend homosexual “weddings”.)
Shortly after the video above went viral in late January 2024, American Family Radio, which carries Begg’s Truth for Life program on 1800 radio stations, contacted TFL leadership to plead with Begg to repent. He doubled down on his position, and AFR made the decision to stop carrying TFL.
A few days later, in his sermon at church, Begg addressed the backlash and calls to repentance he had received by saying he had no intention of repenting and had nothing to repent of. He then proceeded to cast those who decried his unbiblical advice to the grandmother as “Pharisees” and the older brother in Luke’s account of the prodigal son.
Begg was subsequently disinvited from speaking at the 2024 Shepherds Conference, and TFL was dropped from (Ligonier’s) RefNet’s lineup.
For more details and links regarding this incident, please listen to Talk Back: Alistair Begg at A Word Fitly Spoken, and check the show notes for more links.
Alistair Begg is not a new Christian or a young pastor who made a rookie mistake. This question should be a no-brainer for any Christian, let alone a seasoned pastor with many decades of experience and a world-wide public ministry. Counseling a sheep to base her behavior on a sinner’s opinions and feelings rather than to submit to and obey God’s clear Word, refusal to repent when corrected, and mishandling God’s Word belies a foundational problem with his theology as do his aforementioned errors. And because of that, I believe we will continue to see Begg make these kinds of blatant errors in the future.
I’m not saying Begg is a heretic on par with Benny Hinn or Kenneth Copeland. Far from it. I don’t even consider him to be a false teacher at this time. I just no longer feel comfortable saying, “Hey, this is a great teacher. I recommend that you follow him,” (i.e. putting him on my list of recommended teachers) when there are others I decline to recommend who also unrepentantly hold the same or similar erroneous positions.
Earlier in the “women preaching” sermon Begg humbly admits (as should every good pastor) that he and his church don’t claim to have everything right, but that they will continue to grow in Christ and make corrections. If and when he corrects his errors (and any others that might come to light), and publicly repents, I’ll be delighted to reconsider him for inclusion on my Recommended Teachers list. Until that time, however, I cannot recommend that you follow him.
1This is not a website I endorse. It is linked only as evidence of the statements in this paragraph.
It was brash. Extremist. Rude. Rather one dimensional and completely devoid of nuance. And it made me mad, too, since I used to be a young woman with a husband and kids. (“Used to be,” as in, I still have the husband and kids and I’m still a woman, but “young” would be a stretch at this point.)
I was all set to write a blog post in response about the value of wifing, mothering, and working outside the home. You know, whatever God has called you to. So as prep for my article, I read the article again. And again.
And, like a toddler yanking at the hem of my skirt to get my attention, an epiphany pushed and shoved its way into my consciousness.
It wasn’t real.
Or maybe I should say: I suspect it wasn’t 100% sincere.
Have you ever visited a mega-blog like Buzzfeed or Mashable? They churn out tons of cheap content every day, which means lots of hits on their web sites and lots of posts that go viral, which means lots of money from advertisers. (Nothing wrong with that, but it’s usually not terribly deep stuff. Sometimes people want a little mind candy, and that’s OK.)
Guess what? Lots of people want a piece of that pie and it’s easier to copycat than to innovate, so there are lots of other upstarts out there trying to become the next mega-blog. Like Thought Catalog, which published the aforementioned article on young women with husbands and kids.
As they say, there’s no such thing as bad publicity, and in a PR move that would make even Miley Cyrus chartreuse with envy, Thought Catalog threw out a Molotov cocktail of an article, stood back, and watched the crowd gather. Nearly a quarter of a million shares on Facebook. Almost 2000 re-tweets. Over 11,000 comments. From a PR standpoint, there’s pretty much no choice but to admire them.
Is Amy Glass, the author of the article, a real person? Maybe she is, or maybe it’s a pseudonym for someone who works for Thought Catalog as a content writer. If she’s a real person, are these her genuine thoughts and feelings, or did she throw in a hearty dose of hyperbole to push her readers into clicking, tweeting, sharing, pingback-ing, and writing response articles?
I don’t know.
There’s a lot of deception going on out there these days (I’m not saying Thought Catalog is being deceptive. Honestly, I haven’t poked around over there enough to know.) and it’s not just “out there.” It’s inside the walls of the church, as well.
There are plenty of “Buzzfeed” pastors, leaders, and Christian authors who are throwing out cheap content and bombshells…
…2014 is going to be the year God turns everything around for you! …Just say what you want! If you can say it, you can have it! …God wants you to achieve all your dreams, so reach for the stars!
The glass breaks, the flames fly, and the crowd gathers. Their churches are overflowing with people. Their books become best sellers. They’re invited to speak at all the big conferences. And when the little guys start copying them and their methods, they know they’ve arrived.
But are they telling you the truth? And if you’re one of their devotees, how do you know whether or not they’re telling you the truth? Do you even want to know, or are you just happy with being entertained or being told what you want to hear?
There’s a way to find out. Get your Bible out and study it. Don’t just give it a surface reading– do the work and dig. Use the brain God gave you and pursue the knowledge of His word. Ask Him to open your eyes to understand the truth of Scripture. Love God with your mind, not just your emotions. Don’t be deceived.
Because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord, would have none of my counsel and despised all my reproof, therefore they shall eat the fruit of their way, and have their fill of their own devices. For the simple are killed by their turning away, and the complacency of fools destroys them; but whoever listens to me will dwell secure and will be at ease, without dread of disaster. Proverbs 1:29-33
I hate having to warn women against false teachers. I really do. I would like nothing better than to write Bible studies all day long, but, like Jude said, sometimes contending for the faith is more urgent at the moment. Today, as it was in the New Testament church, false doctrine is rampant. You can hardly throw a rock out the sanctuary window without hitting a false teacher, particularly female false teachers.
You can hardly throw a rock out the sanctuary window without hitting a false teacher, particularly female false teachers.
Invariably, when I warn against a specific popular false teacher I get a few responses from disgruntled readers jumping to that teacher’s defense. (I understand where those feelings come from. I’ve had to hear hard, biblical truths about teachers I’ve followed, too. It’s no fun.) I tend to hear the same arguments over and over (which is one reason I wrote this article). But there’s one thing all of these arguments have in common:
As Christians, we are supposed to base everything we believe and teach upon the truth of Scripture. And the women defending these false teachers aren’t doing that. They’re basing their defense of a false teacher on twisted, out of context Scripture and/or their own opinions, feelings, experiences, and preferences.
As Christians, we are supposed to base everything we believe and teach upon the truth of Scripture. And the women defending these false teachers aren’t doing that.
Sometimes these ladies will try to appeal to Scripture to defend the false teacher. I applaud them for that. Genuinely. At least they know that we’re supposed to be basing what we say and do on the Bible. That’s a step in the right direction. Unfortunately, most of these attempts only reveal how poorly they’ve been taught the Bible by the false teachers who have trained them.
“Did you meet privately with this teacher before writing this article?”
“You’re just judging! The Bible says not to judge!”
“You’re creating division in the church!”
Most of the time these women have no idea where those Scriptures are found, or even precisely what they say, much less the context of the verses they’re appealing to. (In order not to misunderstand their intent, I usually have to respond by saying, “Are you referring to Matthew 18:15-20?” or “I’m sorry, could you tell me which verse you’re talking about?”) They don’t know or understand the Scripture they’re alluding to, they’re just repeating what they’ve heard from the false teacher (or her other followers) defending herself and lashing out at those who call her to account.
Nothing More than Feelings:
Perhaps more disturbing are the near-Stepford gushings of some defenders:
“I’ve never heard anything so mean! How could you say such things about this wonderful teacher?”
“I just love her and the way she teaches!”
“You’re just jealous of her success.”
“She’s been such a help and encouragement to me!”
These ladies don’t even attempt to bring the Bible into the discussion, and their loving support for the false teacher is often coupled with vitriolic, completely un-Christlike, devoid of any fruit of the Spirit, attacks on those who dare to question the false teacher. I like this person. I’ve had a positive experience with this person. I have good feelings and opinions about this person. And that – not the Bible – is what I’m basing my decision to follow her upon. How dare you speak against her?
And is it any wonder? When women sit under the teaching of pastors and teachers who skip through the Bible ripping verses out of context and twisting their meanings, who say “the Bible says” followed by their own agenda and imaginings, who point women back to themselves as their own authority, rather than Scripture, by basing their teachings on their own ideas and life experiences instead of the Bible, what do we expect?
Jesus said in Matthew 7:15-20:
“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorn bushes, or figs from thistles? So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.”(emphasis, mine)
Ladies, look at the fruits of these false teachers: women who believe false doctrine because they are unable to properly read, understand, and handle God’s Word, and who base their belief system on their own feelings rather than on the authority of Scripture. That is bad fruit from a diseased tree.
Look at the fruits of these false teachers: women who believe false doctrine because they are unable to properly read, understand, and handle God’s Word.
Christian women must be properly trained in the Scriptures. How? By eradicating false teachers and all their sundry materials from our churches, homes, and Bible study classes. By properly training Sunday School and Bible study teachers. By teaching the women of our churches proper hermeneutics and sound doctrine. By exercising biblical church discipline against false teaching. And most of all, by reinstating the authority of Scripture to its rightful preeminence in our lives and in our churches.
It is imperative that wetrain Christians to understand and embrace that Scripturealone decides what we believe, which teachers we allow into our churches and our lives, and how we are to worship and practice the Christian faith. Basing these things on our feelings, opinions, and preferences is folly, a house built on the sand, because our hearts are deceitful and desperately sick, and we will always trend toward having our ears tickled with smooth words rather than having our souls pierced by the sharp two edged sword of God’s Word. “Sanctify them in the truth,” Jesus prayed in John 17:17, “Your Word is truth.” And, indeed it is. It is the only trustworthy basis for life, faith, and doctrine that will never lead us astray. When our feelings and opinions rise up against God’s Word, God’s Word wins.
When our feelings and opinions rise up against God’s Word, God’s Word wins.
May we hold high the banner of Sola Scriptura, training the precious souls of women to understand and submit to the authority of God’s Word, that one day, bad fruit and diseased trees might become a thing of the past.
Discernment- it’s a dirty job, but somebody’s gotta do it. While I’m a women’s discipleship blogger rather than a discernment blogger, discernment is part of discipleship. And it’s sorely lacking among Christian women today, which is why it’s regularly featured in my writing.
I’ve been very encouraged by the hundreds of e-mails, messages, and comments I’ve received from women who have turned away from false teachers or helped their loved ones and churches to forsake false doctrine because of something I have written. (I claim absolutely no credit for that. God and His Word get all the glory. He is the one who changes hearts, not me.) It’s such a blessing to hear from so many women who are actively pursuing Christ and the truth of His Word.
Unfortunately, there are also occasional comments and messages from women who are disciples of the false teachers I warn against, who take me to task for doing so. The same unscriptural accusations are raised again and again against me and against others who take a biblical stand against false teachers and false doctrine.
Here, in no particular order, are the most frequently raised objections to my discernment work and my answers to them. Many readers have told me that these same objections have been raised to them when they warn others of false teachers. Please feel free to use this article as a resource if these objections are raised with you.
Amy Spreeman and I recorded a series of A Word Fitly Spoken podcast episodes dealing with each of the items in this article. I’ve included a link to the appropriate episode in each section in case you’d like to listen.
1. Did you contact Ms. Twisted Sister in obedience to Matthew 18:15-20 before publishing this article about her?
No, I have not confronted Ms. Twisted Sister about her false teaching. Here’s why:
a. The Matthew 18 passage does not apply to public false teaching. It is about sin in the local congregation where you actually know the offender personally and have access to him/her. It has to do with correcting sin in the local church and removing the offender from the local church if she refuses to repent. Jesus, Paul, and others refuted public false teaching publicly without following the (again, inapplicable) steps in Matthew 18 many times. D.A. Carson, Josh Buice, and Randy Alcorn have each written excellent articles further explaining the inapplicability of this passage to public false teaching. The real question is, why hasn’t her own pastor placed her under church discipline for teaching men and/or teaching false doctrine?
b. I have no doubt that others have confronted her about these things. Plus, she has a Bible and supposedly knows it well enough to teach it. If so, then she is well aware of what the Bible says about these issues. If not, she does not know the Bible well enough to be teaching (James 3:1).
c. I have attempted plenty of times to contact people like Ms. Twisted Sister. One of two things happens: either I’m ignored altogether, or one of her underlings gets back in touch with me to defend her. It’s a complete waste of time.
d. What if I had contacted Ms. Twisted Sister and she flatly refused to repent of the false doctrine she’s teaching? Would you then be in full support of my article which warns against her? No? Then whether or not I attempted to contact her is not the issue you have with this article, so why bring it up?
2. You say that Ms. Twisted Sister is in disobedience to Scripture because she preaches to men. You’re just as guilty because you have a blog and social media pages that men can read.
All this accusation does is to demonstrate the accuser’s lack of understanding of Scripture and how to correctly study it in context, which are fruits of sitting under the “instruction” of false teachers who don’t train people in proper hermeneutics.
Having a blog in the public square for women that men “trespass” on is not the same thing as intentionally and unrepentantly preaching to men in the church setting as I’ve explained in further detail in this article.
Furthermore, when “trespassing” takes place, who is at fault- the person trespassed upon or the trespasser himself? If a man is improperly receiving biblical instruction from a blog for women the man is the one at fault, not the woman blogger who has no intention of instructing him.
3. But look how many people Ms. Twisted Sister is helping! I’ve grown so much in my relationship with the Lord because of her!
No you haven’t. It is impossible to grow to biblical, Christian maturity by following someone who teaches false doctrine, just like it’s impossible to grow physically healthy by eating a diet of poison. The only kind of growing you can do by following a false teacher is growing away from the Lord, despite what you may think or feel. Second Timothy 3:7 clearly says that those who follow false teachers are “never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth.” If it’s impossible for a teacher to lead you to know the truth of Scripture, how in the world is she helping you or anybody else?
False teachers are not “helping” anyone but themselves. Just like the false teachers Paul spoke out against, they are “teaching for shameful gain what they ought not to teach.”
The size or apparent success of a false teacher’s ministry also does not prove that she is helping people or teaching God’s Word correctly. Jesus always taught biblical truth, and yet we read in John 6 that after one of His teaching sessions, “many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him”. The size of a ministry is not an indicator of whether or not it is biblical.
Finally, the “help” a ministry provides is not an indication that the false teacher is doing what is right in God’s eyes. Did you know that several medical procedures that have helped many people were discovered in World War II concentration camps during torturous experiments on inmates? Does the fact that those medical procedures have helped so many people justify the torture the Nazis inflicted on their victims? The ends do not justify the means, especially in Christianity.
4. You’re creating division and disunity by speaking out against Ms. Twisted Sister.
No, again, this demonstrates a lack of knowledge about what the Bible actually teaches. Scripture is abundantly clear that it is the false teachers, not those speaking out against them, who are creating division and disunity. See Jude 18-19 and Romans 16:17-18.
The solution to this division and disunity is for false teachers to repent of their false doctrine, learn how to rightly handle and teach God’s word, and begin to teach sound doctrine, not for discerning Christians to keep quiet.
5. You’re slandering Ms. Twisted Sister by warning against her.
The dictionary definition of slander is: “to make a false spoken statement that causes people to have a bad opinion of someone.” (So, technically the correct word would be libel when we’re talking about writing, because slander has to do with verbal speech.)
The key word in the definition of slander is “false.” When I demonstrate that someone is a false teacher, I do so by providing ample truthful video, audio, or text evidence of what the person says or does and compare it with what the Bible says. This is not slander. This is similar to what a lawyer does in court when examining someone accused of a crime. The lawyer provides evidence of the accused’s words and behavior and compares it to the law so a judge or jury can decide whether or not the accused is guilty of breaking the law. The fact that you don’t like the verdict doesn’t mean the lawyer is slandering the accused by exposing her own words and behavior.
6. You’re being unkind, unloving, ungodly, divisive, hateful, self-righteous, mean, critical, etc. for calling out false teachers.
Every single book of the New Testament except Philemon warns against false teachers or false doctrine. Jesus called out false teachers. So did Peter, Paul, John, Jude, and other New Testament figures. And they usually did so much more harshly than I do. Are you ready to say that Jesus Himself and the apostles writing under the inspiration of God the Holy Spirit were being unloving, ungodly, hateful, etc., for speaking against false teachers? That’s a very serious allegation to make against the Jesus you claim to follow.
Discernment work, done properly (and I’m not denying that sometimes it’s done improperly) is done out of love– love for the victims of false teachers. It’s the same love that sees an oblivious child in the street with a truck bearing down on him and snatches the child out of harm’s way. It is not loving to let people continue to believe false doctrine that may lead them to an eternity in hell without at least trying to rescue them.
7. Ms. Twisted Sister may not always be right but that doesn’t mean she’s a false teacher. We all get things wrong.
Following that logic, I would be accusing every pastor in the history of the New Testament church of being a false teacher, including Paul and the apostles, because they have all made mistakes in their preaching at some point. And I’m certainly not doing that.
In the same way that a driver, despite taking every precaution, could one day accidentally hit and kill a pedestrian is different from a person who decides to go out and become a serial killer, there is a big difference between a pastor who generally preaches sound doctrine, makes an innocent mistake, repents of it, corrects it, and goes on to continue to preach sound doctrine, and a person who unrepentantly, and despite continued rebuke, wallows in false doctrine and rebelliously keeps teaching it. Let’s not pretend that the two are the same. These are not innocent mistakes these false teachers are making and repenting of. This is the continuous, rebellious, proclamation of false doctrine.
8. Maybe Ms. Twisted sister says some things that are wrong, bibically, but she says some good things, too. I just “chew up the meat and spit out the bones”.
Please show me the Scripture, chapter and verse, in context that says that this is the way we are to deal with false teachers. Hint- it doesn’t. It says exactly the opposite. It says we are to have nothing to do with false teachers, and that if we embrace them, we are taking part in their wicked works. See Romans 16:17-18, 2 John 9-11, 2 Corinthians 6:14-18, Ephesians 5:11,and Titus 1:9-16.
9. You’re judging Ms. Twisted Sister! The Bible says not to judge.
No, the Bible says not to judge improperly or unbiblically. The same Jesus who said not to judge improperly in Mathew 7 also said we are to “judge with right judgment” in John 7.
Matthew 18:15-20 and 1 Corinthians 5:11-13 are clear that it is the duty of Christians to make scriptural judgments about sin in the church and excommunicate so called Christians who unrepentantly persist in sin.
The Bible does not say not to judge at all, it says to do it biblically.
10. You shouldn’t be writing against Ms. Twisted Sister, you should just be praying for her.
First of all, I do pray regularly for false teachers. But to say we should only pray for them and not warn others of them is to say that Jesus and all the other New Testament figures who warned against false teachers and false doctrine – under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit – were wrong to do so and should simply have prayed for them. Are you willing to level that kind of accusation against Jesus and the Holy Spirit?
It’s disappointing for people who idolize a certain teacher – someone they’re so sure is helping them grow closer to the Lord – to hear hard truths about this person they’ve come to love and admire. I get that. I’ve stood in their shoes. It’s like ripping off a Band-Aid or being doused with a bucket of cold water. But, as I said, it is not loving to see people believing false doctrine without at least making an attempt to rescue them, even if it hurts at first. Let us pull them back from the brink in love and patience. Second Timothy 2:24-26 says it best:
And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.
Michelle Lesley 