Follower of Jesus Christ: Do You Examine the Teachings You Hear?
Many who identify as Christians preach, teach, write books, hold conferences, and so forth. Numerous believers listen to them, look up to them, and even quote them. But here is the essential question: Do believers examine the teachings they receive?
Scripture gives us wisdom regarding how we are to receive teaching, as demonstrated by the Bereans (Acts 17:11).
To make this practical, let us consider the example of the spiritual disciplines. We often hear much teaching on practices such as prayer, reading the Word of God, fasting, solitude and silence before God, praise and worship, repentance, service, and more. However, these teachings are often presented as if these disciplines are the end goal of the Christian life. The message tends to sound like this: If you want to improve your Christian life, you must pray more, fast more, repent more, and so on.
The problem with this approach is that it reduces the Christian life to a set of tips on how to do Christianity—an approach that is fundamentally flawed because it misrepresents the nature of true Christian living.
The goal of this message is to examine what is wrong with this approach, which is so widespread in Christian circles.
In reality, we do not “do” the Christian life by our own efforts, for such an approach results only in spiritual activities that are powerless and fruitless. Rather, the Christian life is the person of Christ expressed through the believer, as the believer walks in intimacy with Christ by means of spiritual disciplines such as prayer, meditation on the Word of God, fasting, repentance, praise, worship, thanksgiving, service, and more. Understanding the difference between these two approaches is essential. When spiritual disciplines are taught without being presented as means to encounter the manifested presence of Christ—who alone brings the needed transformation—the approach is inaccurate. Spiritual disciplines are not the end goal; they are the means to the end. The end goal is the manifested presence of the Lord Jesus in our situation, and as He becomes involved, He brings life. Jesus Christ is the wisdom of God and the power of God; He is the end goal. This principle applies to all Christian teaching: no matter the topic, if the teacher does not ultimately point to Christ as the essential and sufficient presence, the teaching is not accurate, for Christianity is entirely about Christ (John 15:5; Colossians 3:11).
It is vital to understand that prayer, fasting, meditating on and memorizing Scripture, and all other spiritual disciplines do not produce power or victory in themselves. Their purpose is to lead our hearts into intimacy with Christ through faith and the Holy Spirit. This intimacy ushers in the manifested, experiential presence of the Lord, and it is Christ’s presencein a situation that accomplishes all things.
More often than we realize, many Christian teachings are simply tips on how to perform the Christian life. This inevitably leads to spiritually dead activities, self-righteous but fruitless deeds, and consequently to a life of frustration and powerlessness for many believers. Any teaching, devotion, or study that does not lead believers to pursue intimate connection with the Lord Jesus—who alone brings counsel, healing, strength, comfort, or anything else we need—but focuses merely on multiplying disciplines is inaccurate and misleading. Scripture commands us to seek God and His presence continually (Psalm 105:4). The presence of God is what makes the difference; though He is always with the believer, His experiential manifestation comes through intimate relationship with Him, which is the true aim of spiritual disciplines. When spiritual disciplines are practiced without the deliberate goal of seeking deeper intimacy with Christ—when they stand alone as ends in themselves—they become mere activities and tips for “doing” the Christian life, which lead only to dead works.
Therefore, believers must first understand the proper place of spiritual disciplines in the Christian life and then remain watchful. We must never assume that someone who preaches to large crowds or publishes widely is necessarily correct. Believers need to examine all teachings they hear, using Scripture as their standard. This is urgently needed today, perhaps more than ever, given the multiplication of voices and messages around us—even from popular Christian teachers and leaders.
The topic of spiritual disciplines has been used in this message to illustrate the broader point, but the ultimate purpose of this post is to call believers to awaken to the necessity of examining every teaching they encounter—regardless of the source—in the light of Holy Scripture. We must also remember the serious warning against assuming that well-known or influential teachers are always right. Neglecting to be watchful will certainly expose believers to false teachings and their harmful consequences. If you accept false teaching, you believe lies, and you are no longer standing in the truth of Christianity, making you vulnerable to deception.
Finally, this highlights how essential it is for followers of Christ to study and know the Word of God (Psalm 1; Joshua 1:8), for how can we evaluate teachings if we do not know and treasure God’s Word?
My prayer is that each person who reads this post will be given the grace to love God deeply, to cherish His Word, and to be a faithful Berean—and to teach others to do the same (Matthew 5:19).