Seven Characteristics of False Teachers

Seven characteristics of false teachers from an old Puritan named Thomas Brooks:

1. False teachers are men-pleasers.
2. False teachers are notable in casting dirt, scorn, and reproach upon the persons, names, and credits of Christ's most faithful ambassadors.
3. False teachers are venters of the devices and visions of their own head and hearts.
4. False teachers easily pass over the great and weighty things both of law and gospel, and stand most upon those things that are of the least moment an concernment to the souls of men.
5. False teachers cover and colour their dangerous principles and soul-impostures with very fair speeches and plausible pretences, with high notions and golden expressions.
6. False teachers strive more to win over men to their opinions, than to better them in their conversations.
7. False teachers make merchandise of their followers.

Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices, 230-233

Settled in Sound Doctrine

Thomas Watson, one of the most readable Puritans, in his Body of Divinity notes the importance of being settled in the sound doctrine:

"It is the duty of Christians to be settled in the doctrine of faith. It is the apostle’s prayer, I Pet 5:50, ’The God of all grace stablish, strengthen, settle you.’ That is, that they might not be meteors in the air, but fixed stars. The apostle Jude speaks of ‘wandering stars, in verse 13. They are called wandering stars, because, as Aristotle says, ‘They do leap up and down, and wander into several parts of the heaven; and being but dry exhalations, not made of that pure celestial matter as the fixed stars are, they often fall to the earth.’ Now, such as are not settled in religion, will, at one time or other, prove wandering stars; they will lose their former steadfastness, and wander from one opinion to another. Such as are unsettled are of the tribe of Reuben, ‘unstable as water,’ Gen 49:9; like a ship without ballast, overturned with every wind of doctrine. Beza writes of one Belfectius, that his religion changed as the moon. The Arians had every year a new faith. These are not pillars in the temple of God, but reeds shaken every way. The apostle calls them ‘damnable heresies.’ 2 Pet 2:2. A man may go to hell as well for heresy as adultery. To be unsettled in religion, argues want of judgement. If their heads were not giddy, men would not reel so fast from one opinion to another. It argues lightness. As feathers will be blown every way, so will feathery Christians. Triticum non rapit ventus inanes palae jactantur. Cyprian. Therefore such are compared to children. Eph 4:44. ‘That we be no more children, tossed to and fro.’ Children are fickle sometimes of one mind sometimes of another, nothing pleases them long; so unsettled Christians are childish; the truths they embrace at one time, they reject at another...

It is the great end of the word preached, to bring us to a settlement in religion. Eph 4:41, 12, 14. ‘And he gave some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; for the edifying of the body of Christ; that we henceforth be no more children.’ The word is called a hammer. Jer 23:39. Every blow of the hammer is to fasten the nails of the building; so the preacher’s words are to fasten you the more to Christ; they weaken themselves to strengthen and settle you. This is the grand design of preaching, not only for the enlightening, but for the establishing of souls; not only to guide them in the right way, but to keep them in it. Now, if you be not settled, you do not answer God’s end in giving you the ministry...

Such as are not settled in the faith can never suffer for it. Sceptics in religion hardly ever prove martyrs. They that are not settled hang in suspense; when they think of the joys of heaven they will espouse the gospel, but when they think of persecution they desert it. Unsettled Christians do not consult what is best, but what is safest..."

(Source: Christian Classics Ethereal Library)

Living for the Glory of God - Owen & Peterson

"Living for the glory of God" is so easily assumed, so easily said, in the Christian life. John Owen, Puritan of old, knew this, and in his work on sin and temptation reminds us that "the glory of God" is not simply in generalities but its in the specifics.

And men may persuade themselves that they have a general design for the glory of God, when they have no active principle in particular duties tending at all that way. But if, instead of fixing the mind by faith on the peculiar advancing the glory of God in a duty, the soul contents itself with a general notion of doing so, the mind is already diverted and drawn off from its charge by the deceitfulness of sin. If a man be traveling in a journey, it is not only required of him that he bend his course that way, and so go on; but if he attend not unto every turning, and other occurrences in his way, he may wander and neve4r come to his journey's end. And if we suppose that in general we aim at the glory of God, as we all profess to do, yet if we attend not unto it distinctly upon every duty that occurs in our way, we shall never attain the end aimed at. Ed. Justin Taylor..., Overcoming Sin & Temptation, p. 319

Eugene Peterson, a living author, speaks to the same issue, in his recent The Jesus Way:

The relation between ends (where we are going) and means (how we get there) is a basic distinction in science, technology, philosophy, morality, and spirituality. Fitting the right means to the desired ends is required in virtually everything we do, from things as simple as getting across the street and frying an egg to the complexities involved in a mission to the moon or writing a novel. But here's the thing: the means have to be both adequate to and congruent with the end. Means have to fit ends. Otherwise everything falls apart.

It is far easier to decide on a desired end, a goal, than it is to acquire adequate means...But finding the means for reaching the goal, achieving that identity, is a matter of diligent concentration, responsible perseverance, and keen discernment.

Discernment of means adequate for living to the glory of God and congruent with our identity as baptized Christians has always been demanding, which is why the biblical writers use the metaphor of way so frequently. But with the unprecedented proliferation of technology, discernment makes demands on us in a way not anticipated by our biblical writers. For us technology has taken over the business of means. Technology has a monopoly, at least in the minds of most, on answering questions regarding means. But technology for the most part restricts the term to matters visible: the means for making cars, getting to London, amassing a fortune, winning a game, killing the enemy. It is a very impressive monopoly. In our awed admiration we hardly notice that there is little skill or wisdom or concern given to the way we actually live. A technologized world knows how to make things, knows how to get places, but is not conspicuous for living well.

My concern is that the prominence of the way in our Scriptures and traditions, showing us how to glorify God and realize our baptismal identity, has been transferred in contemporary life into way of getting money, getting jobs, and getting power. The authority of Scripture and Jesus in discerning and employing means has been taken over by technology, the god Technology. And this proliferation of technology obscures the vital organic connections between means and ends in everything that permeates our ordinary living. When technology calls the shots in matters of means, 'standard of living' has nothing to do with how well we live, only with how much money we spend annually.

The way in which Jesus is the Way is not a matter of style or expedience. Nor is it a generality, a vague pointing in an upward direction. Prayerfully and scripturally attentive, Jesus deliberately chose the ways he would live. If we choose to follow him, we must be just as prayerful, scripturally attentive, and deliberate. The other ways are no ways...

So. Jesus the Way, the ways of Jesus. He shows the way. He also is the way...

Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus is the way we come to God. Jesus is the way God comes to us. And not first one and then the other but both at the same time. Not God's way to us on Sundays and our way to God on weekdays. It is a two-lane road. Much mischief has been perpetrated in the Christian community by not keeping both lanes open. The road up and the road down are the same road. (p. 27-28, 38.)