Last week we looked at the four phrases Paul used to describe the believers in Thessalonica:

Work produced by faith that believes there is a larger purpose to our work. Work produced by faith produces a different kind of work. It is work that is motivated by more than ambition or necessity.

Labor prompted by love is work that binds people together. It is work that builds great teams because it values people and not just productivity and accomplishment.

Endurance inspired by hope is not just optimism. It is the ability to endure when everything else has been removed, eroded or burned away. It is the rare ability of a leader to inspire people the belief that their suffering is, in fact, their finest hour.

Faith that rings out is faith that gives unseen others the courage to persevere. It gives an example to follow when they hear about it. In a world of lies, mistrust, betrayal and falsehood it gives people encouragement that it is possible to keep going against the odds.

This morning Paul is reminding them of the difficult time they had in Philippi having suffered and been insulted. But when we look back at that time it’s ironic that the experience at Philippi remains one of the most encouraging and rewarding in all of Paul’s ministry. Clearly, he cannot see it that way now but later he writes to the Philippians and says:

I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

It is right for me to feel this way about all of you, since I have you in my heart and, whether I am in chains or defending and confirming the gospel, all of you share in God’s grace with me. God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus.

And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God.

There is no mention of his being insulted or suffering there. That has long been forgotten but what remains is their mutual love for each other.

What we see now as failure or worthless sometimes turns out to be used by God as a gift in our lives. We can remember it as suffering or insult and lose sight of what God has done with it. Where would the church be without Paul’s relationship with and his letter to the Philippians?

In verse 3 Paul addresses a topic that is one of the major themes in all of his letters – false teaching.  You can find it everywhere. In fact, I read something this week reporting the results of a study done on his letters and they concluded that his concern about false teaching is the one he comes back to over and over again more than any other. We sometimes forget how much he worried about his converts becoming led astray by lies in the name of Christ. Remember his last words to the believers in Antioch as he is on his way to Jerusalem?

“Now I know that none of you among whom I have gone about preaching the kingdom will ever see me again. Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them. So be on your guard!”

There is a difference between false teaching and incomplete teaching. For instance, look at the account of Apollos in Ephesus. 

Acts 18:24-28:

Meanwhile a Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria, came to Ephesus. He was a learned man, with a thorough knowledge of the Scriptures. He had been instructed in the way of the Lord, and he spoke with great fervor  and taught about Jesus accurately, though he knew only the baptism of John. He began to speak boldly in the synagogue. When Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they invited him to their home and explained to him the way of God more adequately.

When Apollos wanted to go to Achaia, the brothers and sisters encouraged him and wrote to the disciples there to welcome him. When he arrived, he was a great help to those who by grace had believed. For he vigorously refuted his Jewish opponents in public debate, proving from the Scriptures that Jesus was the Messiah.

Look at Paul’s meeting of the believers in Ephesus:

Acts 19:1-7

While Apollos was at Corinth, Paul took the road through the interior and arrived at Ephesus. There he found some disciples and asked them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?”

They answered, “No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.”

So Paul asked, “Then what baptism did you receive?”

“John’s baptism,” they replied.

Paul said, “John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance. He told the people to believe in the one coming after him, that is, in Jesus.” On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. When Paul placed his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied. There were about twelve men in all.

It is an important distinction because even today we have false teachers but we also have those who are simply immature or incomplete. They need the wisdom of mature believers and friendly correction – not criticism and quick judgment.

There are even some who preach Christ out of envy and rivalry but, as Paul says, what does it matter? “The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached. And because of this I rejoice.”

Years ago I read a book that helped me understand the double edged sword of a free market in religion. While countries with a State religion have very strict definitions about who is legitimate and who is not, that is not the case in America. We have freedom of religion and that has allowed the growth of all religions without constraint. That is a good thing but it also has come with a downside. There is little definition of what is orthodox and what is not. There is no version of the Catholic Index with a list of what is allowed and not allowed. While the mainline denominations with their authorities, doctrines, committees, and distinct regulations are declining, the independent movements with none of that are growing. There is no Apostle’s Creed or Nicene Creed. There are no well-defined doctrines or statements of faith like the Lausanne Covenant. It is increasingly up to the leader to define what is correct and incorrect, orthodox and unorthodox, biblical and non-biblical. It is an unregulated market and while that allows tremendous growth and freedom it also ends up in heresies, abuse, false teaching, cults and celebrity driven churches. Toss in the power of the media to disperse and amplify the effect of that and you see the other side of the coin. Freedom without accountability is dangerous.

That is Paul’s concern and why Peter says to his readers that Paul is deep and sometimes hard to understand. Doctrine is not for children. Paul knows the importance of people coming to maturity so they will not be blown back and forth by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. He knows what happens when the goal is no longer maturity but growth or shallow faith. He knows what happens when people believe half-truths and outright lies. In fact, it is easier to believe lies than to do the hard work of discerning the truth.

Researchers at The University of Western Australia — who noted several instances of misinformation, such as childhood vaccines cause autism or President Barack Obama was not born in the United States — say that rejecting information requires more cognitive effort than simply accepting that the message is true. It’s easier for a person to believe a simple lie, than to have one’s mind changed by information that is new and novel.

Think about your own experience and how difficult it is to discern the truth from lies that seem so reasonable. What if you had to track down every article, piece of news and opinion to determine if it was true or not? We can’t because it is exhausting and so gradually we come to a point where we believe what aligns with what we already want to believe is true. We call that cognitive bias. When we hear something that agrees with our existing beliefs we accept it as true. In fact, when someone with facts to the contrary disproves it instead of welcoming the correction we dig in even deeper into the false belief.

As well, some of us just lose faith in there being any real truth at all since everything appears to be a lie.  Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrote:  “We know they are lying.They know they are lying, They know that we know they are lying. We know that they know that we know they are lying. And still they continue to lie.”

Hannah Arendt writing after World War II said, “If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything any longer. 
When that happens, people lose the capacity not only to act but even to think and judge. And with such people you can then do what you please.”

Finally, here is another fact that makes resisting false teaching difficult.

People tend to think that what they hear is truthful, even if they have excellent reason not to believe what they hear. Cass Sunstein writes:

“Why do people credit falsehoods? Why don’t they dismiss them? Here is a large part of the answer: Most of the time, we tend to believe other people. When they tell us things, we assume that they are telling the truth. To be sure, we consider some people untrustworthy, perhaps because they have so proved themselves; perhaps because they belong to a group that we think we should distrust. But on average, we trust people even when we should not.

We have what is called a “truth bias”: People tend to think that what they hear is truthful, even if they have excellent reason not to believe what they hear. If people are provided with information that has clearly been discredited, they might nonetheless rely on that information in forming their judgments.

On average, we trust people even when we should not.

Similarly, people are more likely to misremember — as true — a statement that they have been explicitly told is false than to misremember — as false — a statement that they have been explicitly told is true.”

Kevin Kelly writing in Wired magazine said, “The major new challenge in reporting news is the new shape of truth. Truth is no longer dictated by authorities but is networked by peers. For every fact there is a counterfact and all these counterfacts and facts look identical online, which is confusing to most people.”

It’s too difficult to know what is true and what is false. It is hard work and there are better ways to use our time. After all, everyone is lying anyway – except for us and our friends.

There is no Walter Cronkhite to whom we looked for straight news. It is now entertainment and playing to what will get the numbers needed. We want it to be true even if it is a lie.

The early church was flooded with false teaching and lies for hundreds of years. Here are a few of many:

Sabbalianism: Jesus Christ was purely divine, without humanness, and therefore could not truly have suffered or died.

Docetism: Christ was not a real human being and only seemed human to us.

Adoptionism: Jesus was a human being adopted by God at birth and developed a divine nature over time.

Arianism: Jesus was a special creation by God for man’s salvation.

Socianism: Jesus was simply an extraordinary man.

Pelagianism: There is no original sin and we can be saved by good works.

Gnosticism: The belief that we all contain a spark of the divine and that while matter is evil we are saved by receiving special knowledge reserved for the initiated. Jesus was one of the initiated.

People believed myths and legends. They counted as scripture books that were clearly fake and full of false beliefs and stories about Christ and the disciples. It must have been a burden for Paul to know that as soon as he left the false teachers would come in and try to destroy everything he had established. But they did – time after time. It’s a wonder that any of the churches or the truth of the gospel survived.

While we cannot create a perfect tool for identifying and avoiding false teachers, we can look at some of the common characteristics Paul names here. Many of these he writes later to Timothy who is with him now and sees first hand the destructive nature of false teaching.

Their motives are impure.

They trick naive people into believing.

They are focused on pleasing people with their message.

They are greedy but they try to mask it.

They are looking for praise and recognition from others. They want people to speak well of them.

They preach a Jesus that is different from the Jesus Paul has preached.

In other places – especially in his letters to Timothy – he writes:

They promote controversies and divisions. That is the fruit of their teaching.

They are conceited with unhealthy interests in arguments that result in envy, quarreling, malicious talk, evil suspicions and constant friction between men of corrupt mind, who have been robbed of the truth and who think that godliness is a means to financial gain.

They say what itching ears want to hear and not sound doctrine.

What then are the marks of a true teacher?

They are not a burden to the believers and not motivated by money.

They work toward unity and not division.

They are plain talkers and sometimes upset people.

Their motives are pure.

They share their life with people.

As he says in verses 10-12:

“You are witnesses, and so is God, of how holy, righteous and blameless we were among you who believed. For you know that we dealt with each of you as a father deals with his own children, encouraging, comforting, and urging you to live lives worthy of God, who calls you into his kingdom and glory.”

So, what do we do with those who are merely imperfect and open to correction and those who are truly false teachers? How do we keep our hold on the truth in a world as filled with lies, impure motives, greediness, immorality, preaching to please and causing divisions and arguments?

“Federal agents don’t learn to spot counterfeit money by studying the counterfeits. They study genuine bills until they master the look of the real thing. Then when they see the bogus money they recognize it.” That should be our training as well.

We stay as close to those who align themselves with Scripture and not simply opinion and interesting stories.

We look for holy and righteous lives.

We stay away from angry teachers and those who promote controversies and arguments.

Stay away from those who want to be known.

Stay away from those who preach a life without suffering.

Stay away from those who prefer your support to your maturity.

We look for those who are willing to live among us and not separated by a lifestyle that is removed from those who follow.

In the end, I think we have to return to the parable of the wheat and the tares.

Another parable He put forth to them, saying: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field; but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way. But when the grain had sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared. So the servants of the owner came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?’ He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The servants said to him, ‘Do you want us then to go and gather them up?’ But he said, ‘No, lest while you gather up the tares you also uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest, and at the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, “First gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn.” 

Stay focused on the wheat and let God deal with the tares in his time.