Practicing Discernment

“Now I urge you, brethren, keep your eye on those who cause dissensions and hindrances contrary to the teaching which you learned, and turn away from them. For such men are slaves, not of our Lord Christ but of their own appetites; and by their smooth and flattering speech they deceive the hearts of the unsuspecting.”  Romans 16:17-18

In order to mark and avoid those professing Christian teachers and leaders who are promoting doctrinal heresy (thus causing divisions among Christian believers), it is obvious that we must exercise sound biblical discernment and judgement. This judgement must be based on “the teaching which you learned” from God’s Word. “To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, it is because they have no dawn” (Isaiah 8:20).

Such decisions are not to be based on supposed scholarship, tolerance, or eloquence, for such teachers “by their smooth and flattering speech they deceive the hearts of the unsuspecting.” Instead, we must know and apply God’s word, the Holy Scriptures. We must be like the Bereans, who, when they heard new teachings, “examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so” (Acts 17:11).

It is sadly true today that many who call themselves Christians have compromised with the pseudo-scientific world view of evolutionary humanism that controls all secular schools and colleges, hoping thereby to avoid the “stumbling block of the cross” (Gal. 5:11), and to remain on good terms with “rulers of this age,” and “the wisdom among those who are mature” (1 Cor. 2:6).

They do this for their own personal fain or prestige, however, not serving Christ, “but of their own appetites” (Rom. 16:18). Those who are simple Bible-believing Christians are, therefore, not to be deceived by their “good words,” but to keep your eye on them and avoid them.