Matthew 7: False prophets

Let’s read Matthew 7:15-20: Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles? In the same way, every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will know them by their fruits.

Last week we read of Jesus warning his hearers about the two possible destinations to which a human life can be directed: the destruction gate – easy and popular – and the life gate – difficult and scorned.

The lesson was that you and I need to think very carefully about the decisions we make in life as well the reasons and motivations for why we do them. Sometimes it’s obvious what we need to do. Sometimes it’s not.

As I’ve already suggested, one of the overarching themes of this entire chapter of Matthew is ‘discernment’.

In this week’s verses Jesus continued that same theme, and this time he warned his hearers about the dangers of false religious teachers.

What’s the issue?

While Jesus was at all times a morally perfect individual who always sacrificed himself for the needs of others, and never the other way around, he knew full well that many religious teachers – even some Christian ones – would be the exact opposite of that.

He knew that after his ascension to heaven, after he’d commanded his followers to preach his message all around the known world, some would do so faithfully if imperfectly in his name, while others would take advantage of this role to acquire power and riches for themselves.

Not only that, but it would require discernment for ordinary Christians to tell whether their teachers were truly trying to serve Jesus or whether they were really trying to serve themselves.

In other words, within church it’s not always going to be immediately obvious who’s a false teacher and who’s not. To the undiscerning eye, it can be impossible to tell them apart.

Wolves

Jesus’ use of the image of a wolf wearing sheep’s clothing tells us not only that false teachers can be very convincing, but also very dangerous. A wolf that has found its way into a flock of sheep, unnoticed by the shepherds, can very quickly wreak havoc and leave devastation in its wake.

The image of a wolf also suggests that in this instance Jesus wasn’t talking about people who teach the gospel inaccurately but with good intentions. If someone misunderstands the Bible but their heart is in the right place, the best thing to do is offer them instruction (see Acts 18:24-26).

His concern here appeared to be those who may even be teaching the gospel correctly but whose motivations are sinister and selfish. They seek a position of leadership or influence within the church in order to prey on the flock.

What is it they hope to achieve? It’s almost always some combination of money, sex and power. Those tend to be the three things that drive unscrupulous individuals who try to take advantage of others.

Such people, sadly, exist in every church denomination and very often in high-profile positions. Sometimes they can go for years with their true motivations remaining hidden and nobody willing to speak out against them. Two recent examples would be Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill church and Ravi Zacharias of RZIM.

Fruits

Do such people exist in your church? How could you tell?

Jesus said we can identify such people by their fruit. What did he mean by that?

He meant that we need to look beyond just the words that people speak. It’s very easy to be persuaded by someone who’s a clever and charismatic orator. Instead, we should look at how they live. How does their professed expertise in the Scriptures influence the way they behave?

Some useful questions to ask yourself might be:

• have I ever seen them admit they were wrong?
• have I ever seen them apologise?
• have I ever seen them make changes to their life after giving an apology?
• how do they typically react to being corrected or disagreed with?
• how do they typically react when someone says no to them?
• how do they treat those who in worldly terms might seem less important: children, elderly people, poor people or disabled people?
• how do they react towards their own family, including spouse and children?
• are they a different person in private from how they present themselves in public?
• are they open and transparent about the areas of responsibility they hold within the church?
• does their everyday life (not just at church on Sunday) demonstrate the fruits of the spirit listed in Galatians 5?

More fruits

It’s also essential to consider a person’s fruit in terms of their impact or influence on the other members of the church, particularly if this is someone in a position of leadership or teaching responsibility.

Here are some more useful questions you could ask:

• have I seen them make sacrifices of their time or money or energy or whatever else for the sake of others?
• do they help other Christians grow closer to God and develop fruits of the spirit in their own lives?
• do they bring people together in unity or do they tend to get involved in disputes that divide the church?
• do they spend time patiently caring for those who are struggling with their faith or circumstances in life?
• do they tend to speak more about Jesus or about themselves?
• do they help train others to take up positions of leadership, or do they tend to take on everything themselves?
• can the church function adequately when they are not present?

Hope for the best, plan for the worst

Obviously no leader or teacher within a church is ever going to be perfect. Even the apostles had their faults and made mistakes. These questions I’ve listed aren’t intended to identify someone who is a perpetually squeaky-clean paragon of virtue.

They are, however, intended to help tell the difference between a shepherd who does their best to feed the church and wolf who is only interested in feeding on it.

You might think there is nobody in your church who is a wolf in sheep’s clothing and I very much hope you are correct. Nevertheless Jesus warned us that such people can exist and gave us instructions on how to identify them.

This is primarily the responsibility of the church elders. The sheep should not be left to try and fight off wolves on their own. That’s for the shepherds to do, and when the sheep cry out for help, the shepherds should take them seriously.

Often when a church leader falls from grace, such as the two examples I gave earlier, it isn’t until after they’ve already engaged in a prolonged period of abuse and exploitation of people within the church for whom they were responsible. And often there will have been fellow leaders who knew what was going on but chose to stay quiet.

When Jesus gave us this warning, it’s unlikely he intended us only to identify such people after the fact. Ideally his instructions can enable us to identify such people before they have a chance to cause that kind of harm.