“But I will continue doing what I have always done. This will undercut those who are looking for an opportunity to boast that their work is just like ours. These people are false apostles. They are deceitful workers who disguise themselves as apostles of Christ. But I am not surprised! Even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no wonder that his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. In the end they will get the punishment their wicked deeds deserve.”
2 Corinthians 11:12-15 NLT
The Corinthian church seemed to have been infiltrated by men who called themselves apostles but weren’t, because they made false claims. They were first-century equivalents of fraudsters who found a way to fleece a gullible congregation with the smooth, eloquent words they used. In their approach, they created what was effectively a different Jesus, because they preached a false gospel with content that perhaps watered down the bits the Corinthians were struggling with or even one that contained errors that were more aligned with the Gnostics or Docetism, or perhaps even encouraging the congregation to adopt the Jewish practices that some of them had abandoned. Paul associated these men with being the devil’s servants, men who followed in the footsteps of the serpent in the Garden, with plausible arguments such as the one that deceived Eve. “Surely God didn’t say” was perhaps replaced by “surely Paul didn’t say”, leading to a subtle but significant change in the Gospel that Paul preached, the one given to him by Jesus Himself.
These men have modern-day equivalents in the form of those people who wheedle their way into the confidence of gullible people and end up defrauding them of their savings or performing unnecessary work on their houses. There are all sorts of scams out there, and often they sound so convincing that even tech-savvy people are tricked into installing malware on their smartphones or computers. And it begs the question that if the fraudsters can be so successful in their modern-day scams, what is stopping the devil from doing the same in the spiritual world?
Jesus warned His disciples, and by extension all disciples ever since, about the dangers of false apostles. He said, “Beware of false prophets who come disguised as harmless sheep but are really vicious wolves” (Matthew 7:15). Jesus continued in the next verse with “You can identify them by their fruit, that is, by the way they act. Can you pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?” In today’s church, with its established denominations, there are fewer opportunities for false apostles, prophets, and other forms of leadership to enter a church. I belong to the Elim Movement, a Pentecostal organisation, with churches dotted all over the UK and beyond. Anyone able to preach at one of these churches has been carefully vetted and will usually have been through some formal training at an Elim-recognised Bible college. Error or falseness is a rare event. In addition, the Elim congregations usually have a sufficient number of mature Christians who will soon weed out any form of false teaching. However, some years ago, I was briefly in an independent church with a pastor who seemed to preach all the right messages and was well respected by the congregation. There were a few anomalies with his leadership team, but all seemed good. But then a problem emerged – the pastor had a gambling addiction, and the church collapsed soon afterwards when it came to light. So Jesus’ warning about good and bad fruit was spot on.
In Revelation 2:2, Jesus commended the church in Ephesus for dealing with false apostles. “I know all the things you do. I have seen your hard work and your patient endurance. I know you don’t tolerate evil people. You have examined the claims of those who say they are apostles but are not. You have discovered they are liars”. It might have been helpful to know more about how they weeded out the false apostles, but the devil is subtle in his approaches, and he will erode the margins of doctrine and theology, even Bible verses, introducing error drip by drip.
There was an episode during Jesus’ ministry when His disciples became concerned that someone outside His group was using Jesus’ name to cast out demons. Mark 9:38, “John said to Jesus, ‘Teacher, we saw someone using your name to cast out demons, but we told him to stop because he wasn’t in our group’”. We read what Jesus said in response in the next two verses, ““Don’t stop him!” Jesus said. “No one who performs a miracle in my name will soon be able to speak evil of me. Anyone who is not against us is for us”. From this example, we discern that there may be men and women in other denominations who are preaching the same Gospel we do without error. They may have a different approach or use different words, but their fruit is all good.
Paul ended our verses today with the warning that the spiritual fraudsters, the false apostles who had infiltrated the Corinthian church, would receive “the punishment their wicked deeds deserve”. One day, we will all have to stand before God to give an account of our lives, and anyone who has peddled a false gospel will suffer severe consequences. The minister preaching Universalism at a Glasgow funeral I referred to in an earlier blog would possibly fall into this category. Of course, there are men and women in this world who sincerely fall into error and propagate it through their messages and prophecies. They are not fraudsters, as we understand the term, but they are still promoting a false gospel.
How do we pilgrims avoid falling into error? We do what the people of Berea did. Acts 17:11, “And the people of Berea were more open-minded than those in Thessalonica, and they listened eagerly to Paul’s message. They searched the Scriptures day after day to see if Paul and Silas were teaching the truth”. That is the only way to avoid the subtle and persuasive words of the false apostles. By reading our Bibles.
Dear Father God. Thank You for Your Word, the Bible, and the Holy Spirit within us who is able to lead us into all truth. Help us to keep our eyes fixed upon Jesus, who is the Truth. Amen.
Being a Pilgrim 