2Pet. 2:1 – “But there were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them, and bring on themselves swift destruction.”
As one ponders the landscape of Christianity in our day he will find an incredible diversity. And the diversity of which I speak in not one to celebrated. O, I happily celebrate godly forms of diversity. I celebrate the true church which comes from diverse backgrounds; I rejoice that our Lord is worshipped from every nation, tribe, and in various languages. Furthermore, I am blessed to observe the varying different parts of the body of Christ, which all are needful and work together for the building up of the whole church (Eph. 4:15-16). But the tragic diversity for which I write today is that of theology and doctrine.
Look upon our world and you will easily see this diversity (or should I rather say division) on display. You have need but to survey your own neighbors, or to turn on the television, or to read the latest article of news, and you will observe, as I have, that people from immensely diverse and contradictory perspectives all call themselves by the same name: Christian. But can all these radically different views really be Christian? O if only there were some standard by which to determine which is true! The Word of God is meant to be that standard, but its truths have been so twisted and adulterated to defend every various opinion under the sun. This practice is so rampant that even the most obvious and ruinous beliefs have some obscure Scripture verse or two upon which they make their spurious stand. The end result is that the spiritual and religious landscape of the world in which we live is incredibly divided and the average person has no idea how to distinguish between them.
How does one even begin to sift through all that mess? Is it even that important to do so? I submit to you that it is of the utmost importance that we are able to discern between that which is true and that which is false, that which is good and that which is evil, that which is right and that which is wrong. There is a word that is not very popular in many “Christian” circles in our day, and that word is: Heresy. The Apostle Peter described heresies as “destructive.” A wrecking ball on a crane is destructive; a stick of dynamite is destructive; a plague is destructive; a flood is destructive – but heresy, by comparison, is vastly more devastating. While those other things can destroy buildings and bring people’s physical lives to an end, heresy has the ability to damn men’s everlasting souls.
In an effort to promote our own steadfastness in the faith, and to protect us from being led astray from the many errors that pervade our world, over the coming weeks I am going to undertake writing a series of brief posts in hopes of helping each of us to identify the nature and danger of heresies. In this dark and divided hour, this course of study is extremely urgent. I hope you will prayerfully attend to these articles and I trust that they will edify you greatly.
2Pet. 3:17 – “You therefore, beloved, since you know this beforehand, beware lest you also fall from your own steadfastness, being led away with the error of the wicked”
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