How much is false teaching a threat to our churches?

I was teaching recently and as part of the session asked the group I was with what dangers their churches faced.  There were lots of dangers listed but no-one mentioned false teaching, which struck me as odd because the New Testament seems to see false teaching as a very real threat.  It's dangers are commented on in Acts 20 in Paul's warning to the Ephesian elders.  False teaching features heavily in the letters to Galatia and Colossae.  Romans 6 suggests another potential source of false teaching, 1 and 2 Timothy, 1 John and Jude warn against false teaching and in Jesus' letters to the 7 churches in Revelation he warns a number of churches about it.  How have we come to assume, something the bible takes so seriously, will not be a problem for us?

It's worth saying that there is a difference between bad or inadequate preaching and false teaching, and between mistaken preaching and false teaching.  False teaching is in error about something central to the Christian faith (e.g. denying Jesus is the Messiah, or was a real flesh and blood man, or which redefines sin so that things the Bible says are abhorrent are called good).  False teaching holds on to that teaching even when it is shown to be unbiblical, they will not be corrected even by God's word.  False teaching actively teaches this error to the church.

Now I wanted to be exact about that because it matters that we are careful in our definition of false teaching.  It is not false teaching if someone disagrees with us about mode of baptism, or number of times the church should meet or the like.  It is false teaching if they deny Jesus died for our sins or anything else central to the gospel.  It is not false teaching if their mode of teaching is just different from ours.  One of the great problems in our day is tribalism, but just because someone is different doesn't make them a false teacher.  We need to carefully listen and discern using the above three criteria.

But back to the question how much of a threat is false teaching to our churches.  False teaching is as big a threat in our day as it was in the apostles.  It is real it is alive and it is hollowing out churches by drawing them away from the gospel and into Christ-less salvation-less religion.  That is why the Holy Spirit has preserved the bible for us so that we weigh what we hear in light of what God's inspired word reveals to us.  It is where the authority and truth lies.

So if false teaching is a real threat what should we do?

1. Pray for those who teach you.  Pray that God will speak to them as they work hard at his word to teach it faithfully and apply it to our lives.
2. Listen Carefully.  Listen with your brain switched on to what you are being taught, taking notes may help, discussing it afterwards may help, you can often listen to it again via mp3 or podcast.  Don't sit back and turn your brain off, listen actively.
3. Look at what you are being taught.  Have the bible open in front of you.  Unless you know the whole bible word for word you need to be checking with the written word that what you are being taught is what the passage says.  It's even better if you have also read the passage and jotted down some questions before you come, it helps your brain be engaged and you are already thinking through issues.
4. Engage with the preacher.  The preacher doesn't want a that was a nice sermon on the door.  He wants you to ask him questions about the passage, to straighten out anything he didn't explain well or you just didn't get.  He wants to help you apply it to your life in detail in ways you can only do one on one.
5. Look at lives don't just listen to words.  In the New Testament ungodliness is a mark of false teaching, this makes it vital that we examine peoples lives as we listen to their teaching.  Not in terms of judging or being critical but in terms of looking to see the gospel lived out, sin fought, good done, and sinners called to follow Jesus.  Pray for your bible teachers here too, that they would be changed and thank God when they are.

Can you imagine the difference doing those five things would make to your listening, and as a preacher let me tell you a secret, it would also encourage and probably improve the preacher and their preaching.  They should be the norm as we seek to avoid false teaching by loving and pursuing and encouraging good teaching of the word of God.