Ken Silva's latest on Brian McLaren: --he just might turn away some of his Emergent fans. However, the way I see it, Evangelical mentality is to find truth in everything, so there's no need to totally jettison a false teacher. No, rather they will take the "good" from anyone and anything, ignore the bad, and consider themselves spiritual and fair and balanced, and most of all, loving and tolerant.
Scripture of course, teaches just the opposite. Matthew 7 tells us to reject false teachers. Here are some thoughts from John MacArthur's latest book, “The Jesus You Can’t Ignore” p. 206-208:
Excerpt Quotes:
1Th 5:21 “but test everything; hold fast what is good. 22 Abstain from every form of evil.”
John7:24 “Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment."
We are also called to be soldiers for the cause of truth. The spiritual conflict between the forces
of darkness and the truth of God is, after all, WAR.
That means, among other things, we have some fighting to do. As we have seen throughout this
book, the popular notion that conflict is always to be avoided is simply wrong. There are timeswhen we MUST be confrontive rather than collegial. Tit 1:10 For there are many who areinsubordinate, empty talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision party. 11 Theymust be silenced, since they are upsetting whole families by teaching for shameful gain whatthey ought not to teach. “
If you wince at that or think there’s no way such an aggressive attitude could possibly be a sanctified response to doctrinal error in a postmodern culture, you need to review and rethink what the entire NT says about false teachers and how Christians should respond to them—especially from Jesus’ point of view.
In His final recorded messages to the church, given to the apostle John in a vision of several decades after Christ’s ascension into heaven, we see that the silencing of false teachers was still one of our Lord’s primary concerns, even from His throne in heaven. He addressed seven churches….Only two of the churches, Smyrna and Philadelphia, were commended for their faithfulness without any qualification or hint of rebuke. Both of them had remained true to Christ despite the influence of “those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan”(Rev. 2:9). All five other churches received various measures of rebuke, based on how corrupt, unfaithful, or spiritually lethargic they were.
A prominent theme in practically all Jesus’ messages to those seven churches is the issue of how they responded to false teachers and rank heretics in their midst.
It is clear from those letters to the churches in Revelation that battling heresy is a duty Christ expects every Christian to be devoted to. Whether we like it or not, our very existence in this world involves spiritual warfare—it is not a party or a picnic. If Christ Himself devoted so much of His time and energy during His earthly ministry to the task of confronting and refuting false teachers, surely that must be high on our agenda as well. His style of ministry ought to be the model for ours, and His zeal against false religion ought to fill our hearts and minds as well.
End quote.
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