Meditations - False Teaching in Your Social Feeds?
by Isaac Overton
Who is influencing you? There are always people in our lives who have a certain social pulling power over us. They are the people that we listen to. People we respect. People we admire and imitate. These days, they are also people we don’t even know. People producing video content watched by millions on social media platforms. The pervasive power of influence can turn up in anything from the choice of shoes that we wear (oh how desperately I wanted to wear Nike shoes in year six!), right through to the worldview, doctrines, and beliefs that we embrace. It can affect (or dominate) our choice of hobby, what we do or don’t eat, or the next choice of vacuum cleaner what we buy. Influence can suck us in to freely giving hours of our attention and time to scrolling our social feeds. Influence is significant, and one of the most crucial things to think about in your life. So, who’s influencing you?
As Christians, especially in the digital age in which we live, we have a fresh challenge before us as well. As well as the usual influencer noise of our culture, there are also more preachers and ministers to listen to today than there has been ever in history. There is more content to watch than what you have time in your entire life. There has been a revolution of accessibility to good Christian literature. You can read all of Spurgeon’s sermons. You can get access to a vast vault of puritan literature. You can listen to a thousand sermons by John Piper and become a disciple of Christian Hedonism. You can listen to nothing but John MacArthur, or cultivate your own select list of the “best” Presbyterian preachers on an internet sermon archive. People start ministries, schools, and publishing houses based on confessional convictions, and even take the names of specific individual theologians or preachers as the name of their institution.
Now, it is true, you can benefit from all or some of these resources – and I strongly support that. You can also be shaped to an unhealthy degree by any of them. This I do not strongly support! Where can we draw the line? How can we discern the difference in our own lives between benefitting from some teaching or literature, and allowing that teaching to have the wrong kind of influence on us?
One answer is that we must be spiritually grounded in the local church, but that is a topic for another time. Another answer is that we must anchor our perception of ourselves in Christ rather than in a church movement, denomination, individual, or tradition, for our identity in truth is defined by our union with Christ (Gal 2:20; Col 3:1-4; 1 Cor 6:17). That too is a topic for another time. The answer I’d like to focus on here is simply this: the scriptures, God’s word, is the standard by which we must measure every creed, confession, doctrine, and teaching. If we learn to rightly evaluate the teaching we receive by God’s word, we will tend to maintain spiritual balance, and benefit from what’s good in the teaching that we receive – regardless of where in the Church of God it comes from. By the way, testing teaching by the standard of the Bible applies right down to how you listen to your own pastor when he preaches. The Berean Christians have the eternal honour of being the scriptural example par excellence in this regard, as they: “received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so” (Acts 17:11).
When it comes to the pitfalls of accessing online ministry resources, the Westminster Confession of Faith has some timeless theological wisdom for us. It’s a one-two knockout blow. In Chapter 1 (Article VI) we read: “The whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for His own glory, man’s salvation, faith and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture: unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whither by new revelations of the Spirit or traditions of men.” What this means is that every preacher, teacher, creed, of confession has a subordinate role to scripture. These resources are not supposed to be original, but rather to be faithful ministrations of the truth found in God’s word. When you’re accessing online ministries, consider this: How prominent is scripture in their message? Is what they are saying clearly coming out of scripture?
Building on this foundational authority of scripture, Chapter 20 gives some more specific direction when it comes to the doctrines and instructions we might hear elsewhere: “God alone is Lord of the conscience, and hath left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men, which are, in anything, contrary to His Word; or beside it, in matters of faith, or worship. So that, to believe such doctrines, or to obey such commands, out of conscience, is to betray true liberty of conscience” (WCF XX.II).
In other words, if some preacher tries to bind our conscience in some way, and what they are saying doesn’t find its origin in scripture, then we are free from it, and ought to ensure that we remain free from its influence on our lives. It can be so easy to allow unbiblical ideas to influence our thought and lives because we have not followed the example of the Bereans. This is especially true if the error comes from someone we respect. But even the best of teachers has impurities in their doctrine.
In addition to listening carefully with an open Bible, it will be helpful if we make sure that we’re not going about elevating preachers, teachers, ministries, or even our church tradition or confession. The Apostle Paul gave us the antidote to Christian celebrity status way back in the first century (oh yes, it is an old problem!): “it has been reported to me by Chloe's people that there is quarrelling among you, my brothers. What I mean is that each one of you says, “I follow Paul, ” or “I follow Apollos, ” or “I follow Cephas, ” or “I follow Christ.” Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, so that no one may say that you were baptized in my name. (I did baptize also the household of Stephanas. Beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized anyone else.) For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power” (1 Cor 1:11-17).
Unquestionably, George Whitefield was one of the most famous preachers in history. He was a massive influencer back in the 18th Century (i.e. 1700s). Countless multitudes have been converted and edified by his ministry, both in his own life and beyond in his preaching, writing and influence. Few men in church history have had as much reason to become prideful of their influence as have George Whitefield. Yet, listen to these words from Whitefield himself, which reflect his thoughts on the question of influence: “Let my name die everywhere, let even my friends forget me, if by that means the cause of the blessed Jesus may be promoted… But what is Calvin, or what is Luther? Let us look above names and parties; let Jesus be our all in all—so that He is preached... I care not who is uppermost. I know my place... even to be the servant of all. I am content to wait till the judgement day for the clearing up of my reputation; and after I am dead I desire no other epitaph than this, “Here lies G.W. What sort of man he was the great day will discover”.
Whitefield is worth imitating, and worth holding up as a test for the attitudes of modern day “influencers.” Whitefield, in turn, no doubt took the example of John the Baptist as his model, who said: “...He must increase, but I must decrease.” (Jn 3:30). Every preacher or teacher in the church must use his influence, whether it is global or limited to the local church, in accordance with this pattern. There is no place for boasting, only Christ must be exalted. In one sense, then, it matters not if your publishing house fails, your church closes its doors, or if some respected teacher you admire gets caught out in some public sin. Even the best of preachers and theologians are but a blade of grass that withers before evening comes. But Christ is our Great High Priest, and he is one who can never die, and who ever lives to intercede for us. Magnify him!
SDG.
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Pastor Isaac Overton
Reformed Church of Box Hill (RCBH)