How to Recognize False Teachers: A Word from Jeremiah

By Mark W. Christy, PhD

In this technologically advanced era, anyone who is perusing the internet and seeking some sort of guidance from a Christian pastor will undoubtedly find a deluge of resources even while they may be left all but helpless when trying to determine to whom they should lend their ear. Though humanity has not always had the pastoral world at their fingertips, they have always had a multitude of voices declaring supposed truths that are mutually exclusive. In the Bible, one will find many examples of God-approved prophetic voices clashing with voices that falsely claim divine approval. One such voice was that of Jeremiah, a prophet who confronted an entire nation which had fallen prey to false teachers “who [were] destroying and scattering the sheep of [the Lord’s] pasture” (Jer 23:1).[i] From his extensive witness on this problem, one can discern three characteristics common to false teachers that inversely correspond to three characteristics of those called of God.

To begin with, false teachers engage in the same moral depravity as those who are of the world. Lamenting on this, Jeremiah observes that his country is “full of adulterers” who only do evil instead of that which is right and lays the responsibility for this at the feet of those claiming to represent God: “’For both prophet and priest are polluted; Even in My house I have found their wickedness,’ declares the Lord” (23:10-11). As if their engagement in wickedness were not enough, these false teachers even performed their sinful deeds at the temple of the Lord.

On the surface, it would seem that anyone who cares to look should be able to recognize such wanton depravity in a minister of the gospel, and yet doing so frequently becomes quite challenging in this fragmented society where most relationships are maintained at a distance through a screen. When one does venture into some sort of personal relationship, it typically remains skin deep. When one has such loose connections to fellow church members, then one remains essentially impaired when it comes to adequately assessing a minister. To move beyond these common relational habits and ensure that one finds a godly minister whose life is morally pure and in line with the example of Christ, one should engage in an ever-deepening fellowship with a local church and seek out a pastor who is held accountable to the standards of the Bible by his church and through a close association of his peers within the church (e.g., elders and deacons).

When a minister is held directly and personally accountable to Scripture by his church and a designated group of peers within the church, the church (assuming they seek to be properly aligned with God’s Word) will be able to quickly address a second characteristic of false teachers. This second aspect, which is linked to the first, involves the teaching of wickedness by those whose lives testify to their submission to it and their love for it. According to Jeremiah, the false prophets of his day who taught in Northern Israel used Baal as their source of instruction and “led [God’s] people Israel astray” (23:13). Likewise, the prophets in Jerusalem in the day of Jeremiah “strengthened the hands of evildoers” by “committing adultery and walking in falsehood…so that no one turned his back from wickedness” (23:14). Such was the leadership and faulty example of the pathetic religious teachers that none of their parishioners were led to the path of righteousness. One of these prophets, Jeremiah records, even came into the temple of God in Jerusalem and “counseled rebellion against the Lord” (28:16).

Unlike these hard-hearted and rebellious teachers, true ministers of God’s Word will preach the Word and remain faithful to it when speaking on its message. Such as these will confront the errors among those who come under their teaching. These precious saints will boldly stand against erring believers when they persist in ignoring God’s counsel. Like Jeremiah, they will be God’s steadfast spokesmen and these words from God to Jeremiah will become true of them as well: “You will become My spokesman. They for their part may turn to you, but as for you, you must not turn to them” (15:19). When the people of God “delude themselves just as unbelievers do,” “become blind to aspects of God’s teaching, fool themselves that they are living committed lives, and produce sophisticated rationalizations for sin,” the man truly sent by God will remain steadfast upon God’s Word and resolute in his opposition and his exhortation of those who are seeking to depart from its tenets.[ii]

These faithful ministers will not only exhibit moral purity in line with Scripture while calling upon all others to join them in their cause for Christ, they will also trounce upon any and all worldly hopes that compete against the only true hope that is found in Christ. This stance, however, is diametrically different that the one taken by false teachers. From them, one will find feel-good messages laced with false hope. Employing this third characteristic of false teaching, false prophets will gladly tell people about the bountiful blessings of God and assure them of His peace irrespective of the current quality of their lives. They will falsely say, “You will have peace,” and “Calamity will not come upon you” (Jer 23:16-17; cf. 6:14; 8:11). At the same time that these words are muttered and the people who hear them are feeling the temporal bliss from the false hope offered unto them, the Lord’s message which has been left totally obscured by the lies of the false teacher is one of judgement and doom.

A word of judgement and pending doom like the one preached by Jeremiah under the authority of God is certainly not the Word sought by many who look to God for hope (especially if one considers the upbeat, feel-good, inspiring, and supposedly Christian messages commonly on display on Facebook). Nonetheless, this was God’s message to the Israelites even while it was not the message they wished to hear. In obedience to God, Jeremiah pressed on. Whereas the false teachers continued to offer feel-good messages that arose “from their own imagination,” Jeremiah dutifully pressed forward with the Word of God (23:16).

Those who would follow Jeremiah may at times find a degree of outward success when God’s people choose to return to the Lord in faithful obedience to His Word. This possession of this success, on the other hand, is not the definitive characteristic by which one should gauge their ministry even though this is unfortunately almost always the case when one considers those who are called (at least in the SBC world) to speak at conferences, to publish books, and undertake significant convention leadership responsibilities.

Unlike these saints who are lauded by their peers and blessed with overtly significant ministries, many of God’s precious ministers will find themselves being accorded similar treatment to that of Jeremiah who was rewarded by God’s people by being rejected (7:27; 13:10; 17:23; 18:12; 19:15), beaten and confined in stocks (10:1-2), sentenced to death (26:11), contradicted (28; 43:1-2), imprisoned (32:2), ignored (36:23), starved while left abandoned in a cistern (38:6-10), and slandered (43:2). Despite such poor treatment which Scripture reveals is to be expected, God will, like He did for Jeremiah, enable these faithful ministers to stand firm: “Then I will make you to this people a fortified wall of bronze; and though they fight against you, they will not prevail over you; for I am with you to save you and deliver you” (Jer 15:20).

By God’s power, such ministers will continue to preach God’s word even when it is “out of season” (2 Tim 4:2). They will preach the truth and call sinners who love their sin to repentance even when those sinners prefer a message of hope built upon the lies of this world. Their gloomy message of judgement against sin and God’s demands for holiness even while their hope for the people who listen is that they will submit themselves to God’s judgement by coming to the Lord humbly in repentance of their sins. While they preach a message that cuts straight through the pride of all people, they also desperately hope that all people will harken unto this word from the Lord: “You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart” (Jer 29:13).

[i]All Scripture references are taken from NASB1995.

[ii]John Goldingay, God’s Prophet, God’s Servant: A Study  in Jeremiah and Isaiah 40-55 (Carlisle, UK: Peternoster, 1984), 50.