False Teaching 2

False teaching 2

I recently wrote about false teachings and was challenged on two I didn’t mention – the sinners prayer and infant baptism.

When someone accepts Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour, he or she has to pray something in order to publicly declare the Lordship of Christ and to further declare their intent to repent of their sin and to turn their life around and follow God’s ways rather than man’s. There is no precedent for this Biblically but it does seem to me to be a sensible way to start ones Christian walk. How else would you suggest it begins?

Similarly, with infant baptism. It is simply an outward sign of baby dedication to God and a naming ceremony too. Just so long as no salvation significance is placed on the ceremony nor any assumed commitment for the future - because the child has to make his or her own decision when old enough to take responsibility for that. No harm is done and both child and parents are blessed by the ceremony. The role of God-parents has to be between them and God rather than them and the child or its parents. No – so long as no permanent salvation nor Holy Spirit baptismal significance is attributed, then I see no particular harm in infant baptism. I do fundamentally disagree with the doctrine that says, if you have not been baptised by us then we will not marry you nor will we baptise your children – but that’s another matter.

There are probably many other topics we could raise about false teaching but for now I prefer to focus upon false teachers. Bless them, some of these guys are the most earnest, sincere, genuine people you could wish to meet. But you can be sincerely wrong, or earnestly ill-informed. They are well intentioned too yet “the road to hell is paved with good intentions”.

Ezekiel 34 talks about shepherds and their responsibilities. Many of those propounding false doctrines are the very shepherds whom the Lord says He will judge with a stricter measure than the rest of us. To me, this is so very sad as these well meaning leaders have first themselves been deceived, and then have led those in their flock down the same path of deception. I do not know what will happen at the last judgement, but I do know there may be some very awkward questions to be answered.

I wonder though, where is the accountability that should have at least protected these leaders. This implies that many more than the odd one or two may be affected by the various deceptions. This then implies further, a problem of iceberg proportions – where 90% is hidden beneath the water. This is beginning to look to me like a cancer of false teaching spreading throughout the body of Christ.

The only way I can see to cure that is for the Lord Himself to perform a drastic surgery upon His Bride. Only a move of Holy Spirit can reverse this. Only a fresh conviction of our sin can prevent the spread of this highly contagious disease. As the Word says, God forgives all our sins and heals all our diseases. (Psalm 103:3)