Pursuing Good Theology

“Jesus answered them by saying, “My teaching is not My own, but His who sent Me. If anyone is willing to do His will, he will know whether the teaching is of God or whether I speak on My own accord and by My own authority. He who speaks on his own accord seeks glory and honor for himself. But He who seeks the glory and the honor of the One who sent Him, He is true, and there is no unrighteousness or deception in Him.”’ (John 7:16-18, AMP)

Back in the early 2000s, our scope of who could be accessed for Biblical teaching was limited. You had your pastor at your local church, maybe a few tele-evangelists, and whatever books you could get your hands on if you had a Christian bookstore around. It was probably more simple to sift through sources and try other teachers if the Gospel wasn’t being preached.

Compare that to now, and the information, teachers, and material at our fingertips is so endless, you could never possibly get through it all. With the internet, you can access this past Sunday’s sermon from any given church that has a video camera, a microphone, and a YouTube channel– and that includes megachurches right on down to the tiny, country church in America’s smallest town.

Amazon makes it so that we can access any book, on any subject, by any author. And you can usually have it in your hand within two days. Add your pastor to the mix, and the amount of information, teaching, and interpretations of the Word out there is incredible.

That’s a good thing for sure– we can glean from solid Bible preaching straight from theologians themselves. We can study the Word at a deeper level with far more resources than we could have 20 years ago. 

But with that comes the need for real discernment, because although good theology has gotten that much easier to access, bad theology has also. Now, you can have anyone posting what they believe online for people to find, whether they’re in ministry or not, and that can have some damaging repercussions concerning the souls of those who cannot discern what is Truth and what is deception. 

Too often, people read personal feelings or ideology into scripture, and because there are so many interpretations at our fingertips, they rely on what looks righteous or appears Godly as a spiritual barometer.

Jesus Himself, however, gives us insight on how to discern between flimsy or false teaching and the real deal. In John 7, Jesus was teaching at a temple in Galilee when the Jews there started to question how Jesus could be so learned and well-versed in theology, having had no formal training in it. 

Jesus’ answer is that this spiritual knowledge and the gift to teach it is not His own: it’s from God the Father, who sent Jesus to teach it. He then gives us some good benchmarks in figuring out how we can trust certain pastors, preachers, and teachers. First is that a God-ordained teacher is willing to follow God’s will and submit to His authority. A good pastor or teacher is going to search out God’s Word and meditate on it. He is going to study it and search for the interpretation that reflects the intent of the Father. He is going to teach it in such a way that it is consistent with the Gospel that God has given us. 

A trustworthy teacher that is called by God to shepherd His people is not going to cherry-pick scripture or bend it to retrofit a cultural or societal idea in order to attract and flatter. We read last week in John 6 that people were offended by the teachings of Jesus. They were confronted with hard truths and many turned away from them because they weren’t comfortable having to grapple with a change to their status quo. We shouldn’t be surprised if we’re offended by good theology. That’s what it’s supposed to do: wound your flesh so that you can become more like the Jesus we claim to follow.

That wound ends up healing us; ripping out our sin and growing a new, God-honoring part that conforms us to God’s will all the more. We should seek teachers, pastors, and community in people that are in pursuit of that, not not in pursuit of themselves. Because the teachers that does not seek the will of God seeks to honor himself. That brings us to the other point that will help us discern good teaching: the fruit. 

If that teacher is within the will of God and preaching the Gospel through their study of scripture and in submission to the Lord, there will be spiritual fruit. God is glorified in the Word being preached and taught in genuine Truth, and God will honor the sounding of that Truth with spiritual fruit in the ministry of that teacher.

Let’s not confuse fruit with congregation numbers, record deals, book deals, leadership roles, or notoriety. The fruit we should be looking for is the spiritual maturity of those that are affected by the ministry. Are they living righteously? Are they changed by the teaching they sit under? Are they killing their sin and pursuing godliness?

If the answer is no to either of those points, it’s time to move on and find something else, even if that means finding a new church. Because none of us can afford to sit under teaching that is less than the pure Truth. 

And that also means that we have a responsibility to study the Word ourselves and know Truth when we hear it. Without that, we will be led astray easier and easier. 

We can’t be disillusioned by appearances. We can’t be so impressed by a message that makes us feel good, that we stop pursuing Truths that confront our sin. That means we have to always be on guard when we’re encountering new media or teachers. We need to make sure we’re paying attention to what they’re saying and that we’re deep in study of our Bibles ourselves so we can designate when falsities happen. 

Submit to teachers and messages that align with the will of the Father and create spiritual maturity in those that sit under that ministry. Jesus Himself encouraged us to do so, not just in word, but in His own ministry as well.