How Do You Become Difficult to Deceive by False Teachers? | Bible, Bros & Brew

You become difficult to deceive by false teachers not by hunting down every false prophet, but by growing so rooted in Scripture that error stands out on its own. David McIntyre and Phillip Rich lay out practical steps: study the Bible daily like the Bereans in Acts 17:10-12, build the virtues of 2 Peter 1:3-8 (faith, virtue, knowledge, self-control, steadfastness, godliness, brotherly affection, love), watch for the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22-23, pray for discernment as Solomon did in 1 Kings 3:9, limit social media, research a church before attending, and lean on mature believers for accountability. You become difficult to deceive by false teachers not by hunting down every false prophet, but by growing so rooted in Scripture that error stands out on its own. David McIntyre and Phillip Rich lay out practical steps: study the Bible daily like the Bereans in Acts 17:10-12, build the virtues of 2 Peter 1:3-8 (faith, virtue, knowledge, self-control, steadfastness, godliness, brotherly affection, love), watch for the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22-23, pray for discernment as Solomon did in 1 Kings 3:9, limit social media, research a church before attending, and lean on mature believers for accountability. 

In this episode of Bible, Bros & Brew, hosts David McIntyre and Phillip Rich, with host/producer Jon Dzyuba, close out their multi-week study on false teachers, false prophets, and false teaching. Instead of teaching listeners to play "fruit inspector," they reframe the goal: become a believer who is difficult to deceive. The conversation moves through Deuteronomy 13:1-6, the example of the Bereans in Acts 17:10-12, Jesus resisting temptation with Scripture in Luke 4:1-13, and the character-building list in Second Peter 1:3-8, before landing on practical habits — prayer, discernment, limiting social media, vetting a church online first, and staying in community with mature believers. 

Scripture Referenced 

• Deuteronomy 13:1-6 
• Acts 17:10-12 
• Luke 4:1-13 
• Second Peter 1:3-8 
• Matthew 7:15-20 
• Galatians 5:22-23 
• Philippians 4:6-7 
• First Kings 3:9 
• Hebrews 5:14 
• Psalm 138:2 

Mini FAQ 

  | Q: What does the Bible say about false teachers? 
A: Scripture consistently warns that false teachers pursue selfish gain and lead people away from God, even when they perform real signs — Deuteronomy 13:1-6 and Second Peter both address this directly. 
  | Q: How can I test what a pastor or teacher is saying? 
A: Follow the Berean model in Acts 17:11 — examine the Scriptures daily to see if what's being taught actually holds up in context. 
  | Q: What should I do if I discover a false teacher? 
A: Separate from willful, malicious deception, but distinguish it from innocent misunderstanding, and lean on prayer and mature believers to help discern the difference. 

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Transcript

Why Discernment Matters Tonight

David McIntyre 0:00

On this episode of Bible Bros and Brew, we're going to wrap up our conversation around false teaching, false teachers, and false prophets. And we're going to give you some practical ways to ensure that you're difficult to deceive. Up next.

Meet The Hosts And The Coffee

David McIntyre 0:42

I'm David. Of course, as usual, I'm not here by myself. I come with two strange men. Um, and as you know, you should not ever walk or be anywhere alone with strange men. But tonight here I am with, of course, my favoriteist co-host, Phil. And then uh in the center of the picture is uh Spinderella Urban, no, just kidding. That's John. DJ on the ones and twos, uh, even though we're never playing any music. He just makes sure that uh pictures and things go well, and that if we get too far off assignment, he pulls us back in. So yeah, welcome, gents. Glad you're here. Um, as I said in our opening, we're gonna be mapping up our conversation around false prophets, false teachers, false teaching. And it's part of our greater conversation about how we are the church. And if you recall, we began this conversation with the concept that the Bible tells us that we as individuals are the church, we are the body of Christ, we are the living stones, and that not only are we the church as individuals, but we also collectively are the church, and we're connected to one another and supplying what one another needs until we all come into the fullness of God. And then on top of that, not only are we the church, but we are the temple of the Holy Spirit, again, individually and collectively. So God put his spirit in us, and you're gonna see how that plays an important role and our ability to discern between right and wrong and good and evil as we look at this concept of false teaching, and particularly we're talking about false prophets and teachers in the church. There's so many churches, and I and it it hurts my heart to have to say this, but there are so many false teachers and prophets that are present among us now. And sometimes I think that part of the reasons they've been being able, they've been able to proliferate is because nobody had enough information to know that if you see this, this is problematic and there's action that needs to be taken. So tonight we're gonna give you a couple of final notes in that conversation to help you to know what you're looking at, to know more importantly, what you're hearing and discern whether that is of God or whether it's of something else. And then recognizing what do I do if it is of something else? We'll talk about that and hope to get to all of that tonight. But before we do, we have something critically important to talk about. What's in the cup? All right, let's get into what's in the cup tonight. Let's start with John. He had a little cup tonight, and I it made me nervous. So I think I just want to find out what's in there. Let's in let's give it up, John. What's in the cup?

Jon Dzyuba 3:49

Listen, don't be fooled. It looks little this way, but it is not little this way, I promise. This is like my whole hand, I'm a big hand. It's over a little half of over half of the circumference of the whole mug, but it doesn't matter. It was a lot of coffee. Um, listen, I had to pull it up because I had to remember what it was called. It was from out of town because Serena, my wife, went to Vermont. Um it's from it's Mocha Joe's. And it it's a it's the Cameroon flavor, I believe. Um it's a dark roast, it's very rich. I yeah, yeah. I um this was a lot more full when we first started, and now it's like almost empty, but I still have some, just enough for the rest of the night. I don't know, it's it's yeah. Um I believe the store is like what like it sells maple and like syrups and um and jellies and jams and whatnot.

David McIntyre 5:10

I don't know.

Jon Dzyuba 5:11

It feels it feels very like cozy. I don't I don't know how to describe the flavors, I know how to describe how it makes me feel. It feels very like not too sharp of a dark roast, but it's making me feel very comfortable, if that makes sense. I don't know if that makes sense. It's a good cup of coffee. Maybe conversational, even you know.

David McIntyre 5:33

Oh, he doesn't have he doesn't have enough in his cup to keep him conversational the whole time.

Phillip Rich 5:40

Is that a very faded? Well, I don't know if it's called faded, but uh does see Spider-Man in that cup? Yes, I do. Okay, yes, sir.

Jon Dzyuba 5:48

I probably should be drinking from this side because there is an actual spider. Oh, that's dope. Yeah, that's good stuff, and and oh wait no, I thought it was gonna be in the bottom. Never mind, it's on the inside of the cup, too. It's the cup is bigger than what it looks like, I promise.

Phillip Rich 6:03

It looks pretty big when you tilt it up, it's like boom, you know.

David McIntyre 6:07

Yeah, so I'm not I'm not I'm not giving him anything.

Phillip Rich 6:10

It covers my whole face. What do you mean? Anyway, all right.

David McIntyre 6:15

What's in your cup tonight?

Phillip Rich 6:18

Well, I had to go back to my friends in Burundi. Uh, they're now my friends, they don't know me, but I know them. Um this is the peregrine Burundi Kampazi, and it is a wonderful coffee. I wish I could explain the wonderfulness of this coffee, dude. Notes of cherry cola, blood orange, and red wine. And um it's just got that that extra little, I don't know what to call it, dude, but it's like when you taste it, you know, you know how certain things have a dimensionality to them, you know, like you taste it and then it hits you one way, then another note pops off, another note pops off. It's like boom, bam, bow. So yeah, that's uh that's that's what's in my cup, man. It's it's super good. Shout out to Peregrine once again.

David McIntyre 7:11

Nice, nice. Well, I want to talk to you about what's in my cup, but apparently uh John and I slipped up and had the same coffee today.

Jon Dzyuba 7:21

Slid. I don't know. Maybe someone got jealous and one of the colours. I'm discouraged.

David McIntyre 7:27

No, nope, I'm discouraged now. Uh, because I was excited about this coffee until John ruined it for me. Oh no. But ladies and gentlemen, I'm gonna take it back because I'm the one with the bag, and so the evidence says that it was mine perfect. This is uh Mocha Joe's, it's a coffee shop in Vermont, and they have their own coffees. This is their Cameroon, um which is a dark roast, right? Now, here's the thing: I don't typically do dark roast. Gotcha. Because dark roast tend to be more acidic, they tend to punch you in the mouth. Yes, they do, and then you get the flavor on the back end. It's like, you know, a dark roast to me sometimes comes in and says, pow, let me take all the taste out of your mouth. Now that all that's out of your mouth, feel the smooth blend of so-and-so, so and so and so and so. And so that is exactly what happened when I tried this. I typically try it black before I add coffee or uh creamer or sugar to it. So when I tried this black for the first time, it snatched the life out of my mouth. But then what hit in the back, the first flavor that hit was a beautiful molasses. Oh, snap! And uh I could and I could actually taste the molasses, so I was like, what a pleasant surprise! Right, and so this has molasses, walnut, and vanilla, and I can tell you that I can taste each one of them, and that feels like a first for a coffee of multi-flavored origin. Come on. I can taste all of the flavors in it, which tells me this actually is a good cup of coffee. So I want to recommend Mocha Joe's. Once I add the cream and sugar to it, this turns into a very smooth, very joyful cup of coffee that has made me exceptionally conversational tonight. That's beautiful, man. Good on you, Mocha Joe's. Congratulations on a great cup of Joe.

Phillip Rich 9:39

Shout out to Mocha Joe's.

David McIntyre 9:42

Nice, nice. It's still strong, it'll still but afterwards it's like, but it's okay. It's okay, girl. It's okay. All right, that's what's in our cups.

False Teachers Seek Gain And Control

David McIntyre 9:56

Now let's jump into the word tonight. Uh we're gonna uh because for the sake of time, we're gonna jump right into kind of what we want to talk about tonight. We've talked over the last couple of weeks from 2 Peter, Matthew chapter 7. We've looked at uh Acts chapter, it's either 2017 or 1720. Uh uh I think it's 20. Uh we've talked from Acts chapter 20. Uh, we've looked at different things around the word, and we've talked about this concept of false teachers and false teaching. And we walked away with a couple of sure things we know that they're present among you. They were present back when these words were being written, and the indication is that they would be present today, and we can just look around and tell that that is true. Uh, in some cases, we've seen it with our own eyes. Sometimes you see it in some of the foolishness that you see on social media and in other places. Um, some of it you learn about from friends who talk about some of the things that they were taught in church, and you're like, whoa, wait a minute. And so false teachers and false teaching is out there, and we learned that their objectives were simple. It was for selfish gain, whether that gain was power, whether it was money, whether it was sex, whatever it was, control. They wanted to have power, authority, and have the gain in this. And we learned as we looked at uh Timothy, uh verse first Timothy, verse uh first Timothy and Second Timothy, uh, it became very clear even in 2 Peter that their objective is to exploit you, to make mincemeat of you, to take advantage of you, and actually just rob you dry until you've got nothing left. And even then, one of the things we saw about these types of people is even then they would show no remorse, they would just move on to the next person, place, and thing. So we began to realize and see that these false prophets and false teachers were nothing to play with, and it wasn't anything that we shouldn't be taking seriously. To the very opposite, we should be taking things very seriously when it comes to teaching the word incorrectly and these false teachers and false prophets.

Deuteronomy Warns Against Drifting Gods

David McIntyre 12:31

And I think one of the places I want to run us through really quickly, um, in Deuteronomy chapter 13, verse 1 through 6. I didn't give this one to you, John, but there was an there was an admonition, and this is the Old Testament, right? And there was an admonition in there that I I I want to just read to you really quickly, if you'll give me just a moment to get there, Deuteronomy chapter 13, and um I'm just gonna really briefly read verses one through six. In that here we go, it says, if a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or wonder that he tells you comes to pass, and if he says, Let us go after other gods which you have not known, and let us serve them, you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams. For the Lord your God is testing you to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. You shall walk after the Lord your God and fear him, and keep his command his commandments and obey his voice, and you shall serve him and hold fast to him. But that prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death, because he has taught rebellion against the Lord your God, who bought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you out of the house of slavery, to make you leave the way in which the Lord your God commanded you to walk, so you shall purge the evil from your midst. And then this last one if your brother, the son of your mother, or your son, or your daughter, or the wife you embrace, or your friend, who is as your own soul, entices you secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which neither you nor your fathers have known. And it goes on to basically say, Depart from them. And you have to you I just want you to see something here. Even if somebody prophesies a right prophecy, but then tries to lead you off to go after other gods, God says forget it all, go another way. And I I point this out to you just to show you how serious this, because false teaching always talks about it, it tends to find its way to leading you away from God and off into other things. And this was one of the primary issues with the uh uh I I the Jewish people, I call it the early church. They were always in a place where someone or something was trying to drag them away from God into something else. And on all fronts, God's saying, I'm not having it. And here's how you ought to handle that. In in the New Testament, it doesn't, you know, in this old testament, it says you need to stone them. Well, you cannot walk around stoning people nowadays, that would be considered bad. But you can separate yourself and find yourself apart from these people, and I just share this with you to show you a how serious God was about it, and B, that his solution to it was not even that you tolerate it for a moment, but that you quickly deal with it and you quickly make a separation between you and those peoples, even if it's your family members. Yeah. Now, I'll I'll give you what I believe to be a little balance in here. The family member who's not really born again, or who may be newly born again and dealing with frustrations, to say, you know, let's go to this church or let's try this, that's not necessarily the same thing. So you want to be mindful. Um, there is a there is a level of um, I forget the word right now, malice. There's a level of malice that's meant with this. So you want to be careful, but we want to talk about this concept.

Becoming A Believer Hard To Deceive

David McIntyre 17:08

Um, I was telling Philip and John, you know, we could spend a little bit of time talking about how to be, how to identify, how to note this, how to note that. But then I read something this week and it said, um, it invited us to become a believer who is difficult to deceive rather than trying to go around and find out who's doing all the deceiving.

Phillip Rich 17:36

That's good.

David McIntyre 17:37

And and I love that because it means that our intent and effort should be on fortifying and strengthening ourselves rather than out trying to identify who all is a false prophet who isn't. I I don't even think biblically the Lord would have us spend our time doing that because, well, we'll look at it in just a moment, but we've got some virtues that we're supposed to be developing, we've got our own fruit that we're supposed to be developing, and so we got to talk about that tonight, and we're gonna give you some practical things that you can do to help you identify that when it comes into your life around your life, and then we'll talk at the end of what to do. Philip, what's your thought before we dig in?

Phillip Rich 18:28

Yeah, I I want to just add to what you're talking about with you know becoming someone who's hard to deceive or difficult to deceive. Uh, something I remember hearing about, or um, maybe even read it somewhere about people who work at the Treasury, the US Treasury. Um, when they're training people to be able to spot counterfeits, like counterfeit money, um, they actually don't spend any time on all the thousands of counterfeits that are out there. They don't they don't spend time doing any of that. They only spend time training them on the true money that's you know, the real legitimate money that's produced by the US Treasury. Um they they train them with every watermark, every you know, microprint thing, all the security features and so forth. Uh, they're trained so well in the genuine article that they can instantly recognize when something's off. So to me, that's I think that's kind of what you're saying, David, or it just reminds me of that. It's like if you're trained in the word, and and Hebrews 5 talks about that when it says, you know, that strong meat belongs to those who are uh fully mature, who by reason of exercising or reason of use have their senses uh trained to discern between good and evil. Um, I think that's what you know it's so important for us as believers to be so well trained in the word, in the truth, in the scriptures, that we can instantly recognize when something's not that something can't be found in the Bible or something seems a little bit off about what someone's teaching from the Bible, supposedly. Uh get trained in the genuine article. That way, recognizing what's false becomes that much easier.

Make The Bible Your Daily Baseline

David McIntyre 20:10

Yeah, that I love that, Phil. Get get trained in the genuine article, and you know, that um, you know, it it comes to kind of the first step in this mix, and that is to make the word of God your priority, right? I I would just say just simply speaking, that it would be difficult to discern between right and wrong teaching, uh, false prophets and false teachers, if you don't even know what the word says. I mean, you're you're at a loss at that point. That's right. Uh not at a complete loss because if you're born again, you have the Holy Spirit to help you. And he helps us even when we're not m fully mature in Christ. In fact, none of us come. There are many people I I you know, I think about my dad for a minute. My dad has spent some since he was in his 20s, walked away, got back reconnected with God a couple of some years later. And you know, my dad is now 80 some odd years old. So at least 50 years, my dad has walked with God. Wow. And every time we every time we see interactions or we have interactions with him, we've had a few on this show. You know, Philip and I are like, I wonder what blah blah blah means. And my dad's like, well, that just simply means blah blah blah. And he drops he drops a nugget in the room, and we're like, in the explosion of the brilliance, and he's just standing there like it's hot. Obvious, right?

Phillip Rich 22:01

It's so simple. Right.

David McIntyre 22:03

And and but that's the beauty of spending time with God. Things become so much clearer. But Philip and I have only been in this 20-30 years now. You know, 20 some odd years. And so we're not where he is. And but all of us are, but even at 50 years in, my dad is still maturing in the things of God. He's still growing. He's still learning. Um, I you know, oh gosh, where was it where it talks about, and this may be this may have been something that I heard outside of the word, but it talks about how the angels circle God, and every time they circle him, they see something new and different about him. And and you know, God is God's just not gonna be discovered, you're gonna come to the end of the rope, and that's it. We're going to constantly be growing and maturing in him. I mean, even now, I read some scripture again that I haven't been to in a man. It's like, did I ever read this? Have I ever seen this? Yeah, yeah. Then you read stuff in it, and it's like, where did this come from? I thought I understood this, but now something completely different than what I thought I knew is opening up in this scripture. And that that tends to mean you're going from glory to glory to glory. You're moving from one place to the next place to the next place, and it's not that you lose what you had before, but you're adding to it and you're building a more firm, not only found our foundation is secure, we're building a solid building around us, and that's what spending time in the word is, which takes us to one of the things that becomes so problematic for people, and we've got to do something about it, is that you we we've got to start by just simply spending time in the word, period. And there are too few of us who do it.

Phillip Rich 23:58

Amen.

David McIntyre 24:00

And we make all you know, Phil, we make all these excuses about why we can't get into the word. How come we can't give 10 minutes to it? But then we'll get on and then we'll get on our phones and literally doom, you'll go to bed at nine o'clock and at midnight, you're still doom scrolling Instagram. But you say you have no time for the word. The word tells us that we are to meditate on the word day and night, studying, showing ourselves approved, workmen who need not reproof, rightly dividing the word of truth. That's not God doing it for you. It's you because you're growing in your skill, are able to rightly divide the word of truth. That's right. So we we've got some work to do on that, Philip. What's your what's your take? What's your thought?

Phillip Rich 24:47

Yeah, you know, it's it's um laboring in the word. Um it's it's underrated, I'll put it that way. You know, and it's not flashy, it's not and and dare I say sometimes it's not even exciting.

David McIntyre 25:02

But it's not always easy either.

Phillip Rich 25:05

No, it's not. And you know what it makes me think of though, uh the process of gardening, no different. You know, just like uh Jesus, you know, told the parable of the of the sower when he said the sower is the one sowing the word, and if you tend to that garden and cultivate that that seed and that garden, it will eventually produce fruit. But in Luke 8 is the key where he said it only brings forth fruit with patience, right? So sometimes this, you know, the time spent in the word, maybe you read a scripture, maybe you read a whole chapter, and you at the end of it, you're like, okay, you know, that that was kind of uneventful. But you have to understand you're in the process of sewing, you're in the process of just investing that word into your heart. And though it may not seem like anything's happening, or it may not seem like you got too much out of it at the time, there's a compounding effect that happens. You know, it's like a law of accumulation. You know, after a while, these things build on each other. And just like Jesus told in the parable of the sower in Mark 4, he said, uh, the kingdom of God is like a person who plants seed and then he sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed starts springing and growing up, but he doesn't even know how. And I love that the fact that he he put it for eternal record that the guy doesn't know how. He doesn't know how that seed's growing. He said, because the earth will bring forth fruit of itself, right? And he's saying that if we take the time to sow the word in our hearts, whether or not it feels exciting at the time, whether or not it seems like it's producing any effect at the time, just commit to the process of the input. That's the important thing. Commit to doing the input. Then eventually the seeds start springing and growing up. And even if we don't know how, all of a sudden fruit starts appearing in your life. And it's like, oh, okay, that's what I was doing all that sowing for. Yeah. Um uh yeah, it's it's uh sometimes it it it's not sometimes it takes an act of your will. Maybe you're not excited about it, but you do it anyway, but based on a decision, right? So um just wanted to share that.

David McIntyre 27:21

That's good,

The Bereans Validate What They Hear

David McIntyre 27:22

Philip. If we could look at a scripture we've already looked at, let's look at Acts chapter 17, verses 10 through 12. Um, again, I want to bring the Bereans back up because you know, we they're they're such a quick nugget in the Bible, but yet there's so much to obtain from what they said, and it's why we're telling you that you know getting knowledge of the word becomes an important the the number one piece of the puzzle. And you see why, you know, even even when you're going to a church, right? And you're attending a church, maybe you're attending a conference or an event, you know, one of the things that we often do, or at least I've been guilty of, you guys can speak for yourself. You go to a conference or an event or a church service, you never open your Bible, you just listen, and you know, they'll say something that'll sound like and you close your eyes and you get face, and you do all that stuff in there, and then you're like, Man, at the end of that session, you're like, Man, that was good. He said this and he said that, and um, a lot of times what we remember is we remember nuggets of things they said, not necessarily nuggets of things the word says, right, right, and so then we take our Bible, throw it in the trunk, and we never pick it up again. But the Bereans in 17, Acts 17, 10 through 12, that said the brothers immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea. Um, one of the things, can I just tell you something really quick about studying the word? Um, you need to read the book of Acts. Yeah, because there's so many stories in the book of Acts, particularly about Paul's journeys, that then become things that are mentioned in the letters later on, and you can literally co-relate, you know, the the reason why, you know, there's it's important here that what was happening at Berea and and why they were sent there at night, and because of Thessalonica and this person and Alexander the copper smith was doing this over here and all of this other story. Then you see why the let elements of the letters come to even more light and life because you have the context of the story about what it took, you know, to get Paul out of I think Ephesus when they had to drop him down by the basket, you know, and get him out of there, and they run him over to another place so these people don't kill him, and then they start searching for him, and they find out that he's teaching over in Berea, and then they send people over to Berea to stir stuff up, but by that time Paul's already gone from Berea, he's on a ship over here on his way to and you just you want all of that stuff.

Phillip Rich 30:17

Yeah, it's cool, it's super cool.

David McIntyre 30:20

Yeah, you want all of that stuff because it gives you context, so you put the it helps you to put the pieces together. So, anyway, they sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea, and when they arrived, uh they went into the Jewish synagogue. It says, Now these Jews were noble, were more noble than those in Thessalonica. They received the word with all eagerness, examining the scriptures daily to see if these things were so. Many of them, therefore, believed, with not a few Greek women of high standing as well as men, even just that little statement a few Greek women as well as men. There was a reason why those Greek women were mentioned first, and it's connected to what Paul has to say about the women teaching in church uh later on in one of the books. There's so there's uh there's stuff happening there, right? But anyway, they enjoyed the conference, they enjoyed the session they were getting, but their Bible never hit the trunk. Their Bible stayed on their lap so they could parse through it and figure out is what this guy's saying what matches up with what this word is saying, right? And the impression that we get is the reason that they believed was because they were able to connect the dots and say what he's saying matches what this word is saying, and because this word says it, I believe it. Come on, man.

Phillip Rich 31:58

Yeah, they were validating what they heard, yeah. And and you got to be careful too, and David, I'm not trying to interrupt, but it's just no, no, I'm done. You oh, you go. Okay, but you gotta be careful. Just because somebody's standing up in a pulpit doesn't mean that what they're saying is correct. You know, just because they're in a position of authority doesn't mean that what they preach is accurate biblically. You know, you can you can fall into that trap of just, well, my pastor said your pastor may not know the word. And I'm not trying to be mean, but I'm just saying, you know, you just gotta be careful, you got to check this stuff up against the Bible, no matter who it is, no matter how eloquent they sound, no matter how influential they are, and no matter how big their ministry is, even if they have a multinational, you know, ministry with and they're on every Christian TV station and all the good stuff like that, does not matter. Make sure that what they're saying can be found in the Bible, number one, that's that's like step one. But then number two, can it be validated in context with the scripture? Because it's one thing for a person to cherry-pick scriptures and say, well, this means this, but then when you go back and read it in context, you find out, oh gosh, it didn't mean that at all. You know, you you don't want to to get caught in that trap because uh a lot of times people depend on whether or not it excited them emotionally, you know, and if it did, and if it was uh enough of a rasmataz, then they feel like it must be from God. And it's like, no, there's plenty of people who can say thrilling things, exciting things, eloquent things, and it'd be completely biblically inaccurate. So just be be a be a Berean about it, you know, validate, trust but verify, as they say.

David McIntyre 33:44

Correct, correct. And let me tell you, Philip mentioned that cherry picking. Um, that is such an issue, um, you know, because there is a style of preaching that hangs on that principle that I can pull scripture from here, I can pull a piece from here, I can pull a piece from there, and it will validate my point. Right. Versus I'm looking at this scripture here, seeing not only what it says as an individual verse, but now seeing the context of that, and then I'm looking at this connected tissue over here and seeing what it says, not just as a verse, but as a whole, do those dots connect? Because if those dots connect, then I can preach that. But if the dots don't connect, then I shouldn't be, you know, for example, um I forgot, I forget where it is, but I could go to Matthew chapter seven and I could teach on ask, seek, and knock. And then I can turn right around to Luke 11 and read the same thing, and I can teach both of those things in context using both verses because their the connective tissue is the same. It's what Jesus said, it's the interpretation of Luke verse.

SPEAKER_03 35:18

Oh no, I think we seem to have lost it.

Jon Dzyuba 35:23

Oh no, just when it was getting good. There we go. Okay, sorry.

David McIntyre 35:29

I was hoping that Jesus said that was gonna work. Um, I was not saying, no, not now. Um there's connective tissue between those verses, they're telling me the same story in a little bit of a different way. I can look at, you know, Philip and I have talked about it over and over again on this podcast, the parable of the sower, right? And we could look at the three variations of that, and the reason we can teach them all together is because the connective tissue is the same, the message doesn't change just because there are three interpretations of it, and the interpretations don't vary wildly from one another, they're all pointing in the same direction.

Phillip Rich 36:11

Yes.

David McIntyre 36:12

But then for me to go and teach, you know, Luke chapter 11, and then the parable of the sower, and try to bring in something about God being good to his kids, you know, like you know, asking for an egg and getting a scorpion, and connect that to, you know, the foul ground, you know, of or the thorny ground in in Matthew around the parable of the sower, that doesn't even make sense coming together when you know the context, but people will pull stuff together and create context that never existed. Yes, yes, and so you have to be mindful of that. Let me let's let's can we look at one other place?

Satan Uses Scripture Out Of Context

David McIntyre 36:58

And I know we're laboring here, but it's important. Can we just look at Luke chapter four for just a moment? And I wanna I'm gonna go through it quickly, or maybe I'll skip around just for the sake of uh getting us through because there's still several other things we want to run by you. Um, but in Luke chapter four, we see Jesus um is sent off into the wilderness, right? And it says Jesus full for looking at verse one says, and Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan, was led by the Spirit into the wilderness for 40 days, being tempted by the devil, and he ate nothing during those days. And when they were ended, he was hungry. And so we have this first encounter. The devil says to him, If you are the son of God, command this stone to become bread. So the devil comes to Jesus, and he wants to give him some advice and feedback that is out of context, and Jesus comes back at him with what the word actually says. It is written, man shall not live by bread alone. Now that's a heck of a thing for Jesus to say, because it'd already been determined that he was hungry. Right, right, and so the bread would have been right up his alley. And because he was the Son of God didn't mean that he couldn't turn that stone into bread. But yet, the way that Satan wanted him to do it and the demand for him to use the power of God, I think part of the reason, ooh, Jesus, I think part of the reason Jesus did not do that was because if he had used his power and ability at that point, that it would have aborted the plan of God.

Phillip Rich 38:46

That's right, bro. I agree.

David McIntyre 38:49

And so Jesus had to stay within the confines of what he was there to do. It said he became man. So um, but he's response to the enemy was with the word, and it says then in verse 5 the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, and said to him, To you, I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will. If you then will worship me, it will all be yours. My goodness, that was that had to be an enticement to Jesus because he's looking at the very thing he came to get, yeah, and Satan's offering it to him. All you have to do is worship me. But Jesus was no fool because he understood and knew the word of God. Not only did he understand and know the word, he was the word, he was the living word. Yes, and Jesus answered in verse eight and said, It is written, it is written, is the answer. You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve. And then he took him to Jerusalem and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written, He will command his angels concerning you to guard you, and on their hands they will bear you up lest you strike your foot against a stone. Now the Satan comes back to Jesus and he's quoting Psalm 91 to Jesus.

Phillip Rich 40:34

Right. Oh my goodness.

David McIntyre 40:38

And Jesus said, It is said, You shall not put the Lord your God to the test. And when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time. There's a couple of things to glean from this. One of them is that temptations of all kinds will come false teachers, false doctrine, false word, people trying to get you to go ways and do things that God never told you to do. The answer is always the word.

Phillip Rich 41:14

That's right.

David McIntyre 41:15

The other thing you can glean from this, and Phil, I'll see what you have to say here too, is even Satan can come at you with the word.

Phillip Rich 41:24

That's true, man. That's true.

David McIntyre 41:27

And if you don't rightly divide who it is that's coming at you with the word, you're going to be in trouble. Because it didn't take Jesus a moment to say, Oh, no, we're not gonna put God to the test. His word says, Don't do that.

Phillip Rich 41:45

That's right, man.

David McIntyre 41:46

So we have to know that word and have it baked in us in order to so you and I think you see a conjunction of things work uh working here. You see the Holy Spirit in Christ working here, you see the word of God working in him, and you see I I think I want to use a word, I you you see, and it's Jesus, but you see the courage and power of God working here because you never see Jesus shrink back from the devil. In fact, in Hebrews chapter 10, it says, If you if you shrink back, we're gonna have a problem.

Phillip Rich 42:31

Right, right.

David McIntyre 42:33

So he doesn't shrink back, he doesn't shy, he faces him head on, and he faces him head on with the word. He doesn't just face them head on with you know that's that's not enough. That that's that's not that's not the thicket. Now, when you when you're using genuine tongues, yes, that is the power of God at work in you. You can't say, get thee behind me, Satan, even though that is a good scripture uh that you could use, but see, we try to use a lot of Christian E stuff, and because we will we know we remember get thee behind me, Satan, so we throw that, but what if Satan doesn't go just because you said get thee behind me? It's because you need a real word come on to help you to defeat, if you will, the devil. What what are you thinking, Phil?

Phillip Rich 43:25

Uh, you know what, David? You need not just you, I'm talking us in the body of Christ. We need the it is written. We always we always need the it is written. I and this is something that I've seen lately, and and sadly, even with some of the people I used to listen to, uh, one in particular I'm thinking about, where there seems to be a movement away from the written word of God where they're trying to devalue the written word and say, Oh, yeah, well, that's just that's what they wrote, you know, 2,000 years ago. But it's but you know, this we're in a new phase of. Of Christianity now, or whatever the case is. I heard it from one person. They're like, Well, the word, I don't really believe in the authority of this is a person who used to preach, by the way, like preach uh from pulpits all the time. And he said, I no longer believe in the authority of scripture, like I did before. He said that scripture is more of like a snapshot in time, but the spirit of Christ is what matters now, you know, whether you have compassion and love and all that kind of stuff. Um, so there seems to be this subtle deception of devaluing the written word of God. But the thing that I always think about, and I can't, you can't escape it because it's right there, Jesus constantly referred to the written word. The specific written word that was given through Moses, the law, the prophets, the stuff that we read in the Old Testament, he was referring to that written word, not just any old thing that he dreamed up from God or whatever. Sorry, that may sound a little irreverent, but um, but it was always, he always brought people back to the scriptures. And I think that you know, that is a huge uh point to to inform us as believers, like what we should be putting at the center of our lives. Because think about it, man, without the word, you don't have a foundation. You you could just say anything that you dream up or that you feel, or whatever the case is, or you could also believe what somebody else says they dreamed up. You know, there's a lot of people getting led astray by folks out there who say they saw an angel and an angel spoke to them, and now uh this is God's message to mankind right now. You know, there's all kinds of stuff like that, even though in Colossians he tells us plainly, I think it's in Colossians 2 near the end, he's like, uh, don't listen to this dude who who claims to see something uh that he has not actually seen, you know, uh things like that. You know, it there's so many things in the in the word that talk about that. I was just reading uh earlier in Jeremiah, I think it's uh Jeremiah 23, he was God was saying, Man, you know, these prophets out here, they're not they're not speaking from me, they're speaking from their own mind. You know, and and we got to be careful, stick with what's written because Jesus himself stuck with what was written. And every time the Pharisees came to him and tried to get him to get you know tangled up in his words and ask him some kind of trick question, Jesus always said, Oh, you know what? Well, what was written in the scripture? You know, uh tell me what your law says. And it's like, dude, everything he did was based in the word. Even when uh uh they came to arrest him, I think it was, in the Garden of Gethsemane, and Peter tried to cut the dude's ear off. I think he actually did, cut the guy's ear off, and Jesus said, Hey, hey, hold up, you know, we're it's not time to go ham right now. You know, he said, or else how can the scriptures be fulfilled? You know, in other words, if I don't get arrested and have this thing go through like it's supposed to, the scripture won't be fulfilled. He was again referring to the written word. So we have to take uh take that that that with the appropriate amount of weight, I think, and the appropriate amount of reverence, like uh the word is well, I'll just say what Psalm 138 says God has magnified his word above all his name, he has magnified the word above his name. So I think that we should take the word as serious, that that's serious, um, because there's so much that could lead you astray as soon as you begin to depart from the written scripture. And I'm talking old and new testament, you know. So um, yeah, I guess the if you want to synopsize what I'm saying, it would be stick with the written word of

Add Virtues And Watch For Fruit

Phillip Rich 47:41

God.

David McIntyre 47:41

Yeah, that's good, Philip. And um, so we've talked about as we look at our list of how to become the kind of person that is difficult to deceive. We've majored on the importance of the word of God. Um, we've talked about digging into that word. Um we've talked about uh letting it lead the way, letting it letting the word be your response in things. Um, the next thing I want to bring to the table is I want to remind us about the virtues that we are supposed to be working on building in First Peter 3. And if we look quickly at 1st uh Peter three, um I want to encourage you that um, you know we went through uh uh a little while ago and we were doing a series called How to Keep from Falling. And because one of the verses in this section says that if you do these things you will never fall. And so we use that as the foundation, but I want to encourage you to go back and listen to that series about the details of each of these virtues. But in First Peter one, I'm sorry, John. So in First Peter one, it says, uh, I'm gonna pick up a verse three. It says, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in hope for you. Um by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you've been grieved by various trials. Am I in the right place? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Phillip Rich 49:56

You know what, David? I think it's Second Peter, David. Second Peter 1. I'm pretty sure that's where you're going. Try that uh Chop Tawan.

David McIntyre 50:09

Yeah, sorry about that, everybody. Now you're good, man. So sorry about that. See, this is why it's like it says on our Instagram this week, uh, saying, bro, trust me. Sorry about that, everybody. I'm so sorry. It even feels different already. His divine power is granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desires. Here it is, for this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. You want to talk about that for a minute, Philip?

Phillip Rich 51:37

I love this passage, man. It's interesting, David. I was just reading this passage this morning, dude. That's that's wild. Um, but yeah, I I think it's it's fascinating, first of all, that uh he said, add to your faith these things. And what it gets me about that is that faith is like the baseline. You know, it's like it's it's the Romans 12, 3 thing where God said he's given to every man the measure of faith. So you've you've got that faith. It's right, you know, it's it's it's your belief in Jesus and Him as your savior and Lord, the fact that you're a born again, new creation in Christ, that's that's your faith that you're you're you know, it's kind of the foundation level. And so he's like, okay, now that you have that, add to your faith these things. And he talks about virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness. Matter of fact, there's seven of them, which I find interesting because we know that's God's number. Um, and then but it says uh without digging too deep into the the qualities of each one, because we did do a whole series on each of those qualities, uh, I encourage everybody to go back and listen to that when it's called How to Keep From Falling, like David mentioned earlier. But at the end of it though, uh, when he says, if these things are in you and if they abound, if they abound. So this is one of those things where you have to, through patience and commitment, develop these things over time. You know, things are not going to abound if you just take one shot at it, right? You know, you have to it has it has to be an ongoing effort for something for a quality to abound in you, you know. And so it says if these things are in you and if they abound, then they'll make you to where you won't be ineffective or unfruitful in knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Um, I I I I find that fascinating, man. It's like he's saying if you commit to adding these qualities to your faith, eventually you'll come to a place where it's basically impossible for you to not see results from it. For you to not see fruit from it. You're going to see fruit from it if you continue with commitment and patience to add these things to your faith. Because uh actually, John, if you don't mind putting that uh passage back up on the screen, I wanted to show that something real quick. Uh, at the very beginning uh in verse five, when he starts off the list, he says, make every effort. And then the King James it says, giving all diligence, giving all diligence. I think sometimes we can read these things too fast and not really get the impact of what's being said. And it's like Peter wasn't playing around when he said, give all diligence. Like if you can imagine what that might look like for any other thing, like if I gave all diligence to uh becoming a good tennis player, or if I gave all diligence to learning how to how to speak a foreign language, you know, that means I have a very, very strong commitment to that thing, right? And so here he's saying that same thing: giving all diligence, add to your faith, so forth, so on, so forth, so on. So um, again, man, you know, it's nothing that's gonna happen overnight for anybody. It will take commitment, but we we have the Holy Spirit helping us every single day to empower us to do these things and to to grow in our our uh knowledge of who he is.

David McIntyre 55:10

So that's good, Philip. The next thing we want to throw at you really quickly is don't be don't forget what we've learned in Matthew 7 about fruit, right? And uh so Matthew 7 tells us that there will be false prophets, false teachers among us, and it goes on to tell us judge them by the fruit that they bear. Good fruit doesn't come from bad trees, and um bad fruit doesn't come from good trees, so identify the fruit. But I also want to remind you that if you look over at we won't go there right now, but if you look over at Galatians chapter 5, verses 22 and 23, it tells us what the fruit of the spirit is, not just so you can identify it in other people, but to make sure that that fruit is working in your own life. And just like Philip said with the virtues, the virtues and the fruit go together, they're not separate, they are a collective bit of teaching and information that help you. They're a design stepway, if you will, a design pathway that'll move you from glory to glory to glory. So I want you to take an opportunity to look at Galatians 5, 22 and 23, and make sure that you see that fruit. But remember, the goal is to become a person that cannot be deceived. And when the fruit of God is growing and manifesting in your life, you become much more difficult to deceive.

Pray For Peace And Discernment

David McIntyre 56:54

The next thing I want to encourage you to do is something very simple, and that is when you're dealing with these situations and circumstances, pray. Pray and ask God for help. Uh you know, you can ask God for that at the beginning, the middle, the end, um, whenever you're in it and you realize something may be off, but you don't need to have to wait till something's off. You can ask God to give you wisdom and insight from whatever point you jump on that train to find out whether or not you're in the right place, whether you're hearing the right words, Lord God, if something's on off. If you look really quickly at Galatians chapter four, verse six and seven, and I think I even may have written that one down wrong now, because I think that's absolutely supposed to be Philippians. Hold on just a second. Yeah, very familiar scripture. Let's look at it's actually Philippians, John, um, instead of Galatians. I don't even know why I wrote Galatians down. But remember Philippians uh chapter four, verses six and seven says, Don't be anxious about anything, but listen, in everything, by prayer and making requests to God with thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your mind in Christ Jesus. So God's peace, which surpasses your understanding, will be a guard for your heart and your mind. So you can ask him. You don't have to be anxious about it, like, oh Lord, oh Lord, oh Lord, there's a false teacher. Oh Jesus, what I do. Nope, don't be anxious. Just simply say, Lord, I there's something not right here. Help me discern what's going on and help me to know how you would have me to handle it. And then just trust him, just trust him, because even if it takes two more weeks for everything to reveal and lay itself out, you can be assured by the promise of the word that his peace guards your heart and your mind in Christ Jesus.

SPEAKER_03 59:13

That's good stuff.

David McIntyre 59:14

Pray, pray and ask God about it. Anything you want to add to that one, Philip?

Phillip Rich 59:19

No, I just was saying this it's good stuff, man. I I I couldn't agree more. Pray, you know, get God's wisdom on it, and he'll lead you. The Holy Spirit will lead you, man. Um he'll show you not only uh what to gravitate towards, but also what to avoid. You know, he's there for that guidance. So absolutely.

David McIntyre 59:42

And and while you're praying, another thing to be praying about is ask God to give you discernment. And and not just discernment to be able to tell false prophet and false teachings, but discernment in your life in general, to know where to be, what where to who to connect with, who to leave alone, what not to get, don't buy that right now. You know, ask God to give you discernment, to teach your discernment. You can literally read through Proverbs and over and over and over and over and over again, it's talking about the concept of discernment, uh, that the Lord will help me discern, that He'll give me discernment and understanding. Uh, it should be a part of your prayer life. If you look at first Kings 3:29, uh verse nine, uh Solomon's prayer here give your servant a discerning heart to govern your people and to discern or to distinguish between uh why I got my glasses on there, between um right and wrong. So even Solomon, you'll have to forgive me with my glass game here. Uh uh, but even Solomon is here asking God before he's made king. Well, be as God reveals to him that he's gonna be made king. I'm sorry, uh in in there's a whole situation that happens at a cave. Solomon gives an offering of a thousand sheep, um, and and so he goes to sleep and he wakes up and has an encounter with God, and God tells him what he's gonna do, and he has God says to him, Ask me whatever you will. And typically you people would ask for riches and and long life and all of this, but he asked for a discerning heart so that he can rightly discern and judge between the people. And God was like, Because you asked for that, right? I'm gonna give you everything else that every normal man would have asked for, the riches, the honor, and all of that, and I'll give you a discerning heart. And we don't see anybody in the Bible like Solomon who could discern between right and wrong. Uh, and you see the first story pop up with the two women and the baby, the one who died and the one who lived. It's a fascinating story, yeah. The way that he was able to discern how. But we not only see that there, but we even see it when we look at Ecclesiastes, Solomon is breaking some things down, and when he comes to the final conclusion, he's like, I've seen it all, I've experienced it all. And here's what it all boils down to fear God, keep his commandments. And so while you're praying, pray for discernment.

Guardrails Social Media Churches Community

David McIntyre 1:02:46

And if there's one other uh, I want to give you two other quick practical things, stop spending so much time on social media, amen. Yeah, because social media by itself, um I think I told you guys and I said Philip or I said it, man. We just scroll past all of these social media preachers, yeah, yeah. Because a lot of them ain't talking about nothing anyway, it's true, and you know, and the ones that are um sometimes are just the victims of of the ones who aren't.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:27

Good point.

David McIntyre 1:03:29

Sorry, but and and then just in general, the quality of your life will increase the more that you decrease the amount of social media in your life. Philip, I find it so interesting. People look back to the 80s and 90s and be like, Man, remember those days? People were so happy. We didn't have a social media trying to ruin every area of our lives.

Phillip Rich 1:03:55

It's so true, man. It's so true.

David McIntyre 1:03:57

We didn't, we didn't. Everybody wasn't trying to get on my space when it when it popped up in the 90s um or early 2000s, you know, all of that. We didn't have to, we weren't locked in because somebody was calling us, and so we had to answer right then, or you know, if you called somebody and they didn't answer, you just assumed that you would have to call back later on, yeah.

Phillip Rich 1:04:23

Or you didn't take offense to it or anything like that, right?

David McIntyre 1:04:27

Or if you felt like it was that important, you might go to their house and check and see if they were there to tell them whatever you had. But you know, we didn't lose our minds because every phone call, every and and now just think about how bad it is. It's every notification, every time that phone beeps, we gotta look at it, see what it is, who it is, and it's nothing but your your email popping up saying, Oh, you got a message from that thing you subscribe to that you don't even read anymore.

Phillip Rich 1:04:59

It's true, man. It's so true. Goodness.

David McIntyre 1:05:02

So let that let that thing go and and kind of uh a similar thing using the internet. Before you go to these churches out there in your communities, go on those websites and check these churches out. Most of them are posting their sermons either to their website or to YouTube, and they put the YouTube link on their website. Go check them out, see what they're all about, hear a couple of messages and determine what you think before you even go there. And then if you feel okay with what you see on their website or on YouTube about that church and what they're talking about and the sermons, then if you decide to go, you still go. I say go with a I say go guarded. In other words, I mean go not with your heart out there on your sleeve, but go saying, I'm prepared to listen and hear, and let me see how things move around.

unknown 1:06:00

Here.

David McIntyre 1:06:00

Yeah. And uh, you know, Philip has a great story that he he found a church that he was completely comfortable with once. And then the pastor started preaching some stuff out of the blue unexpectedly. You want to share that really quickly, Philip?

Phillip Rich 1:06:17

Yeah, yeah. But then and I'll try to make a long story short. But we did find a church that we thought was pretty much, you know, it checked all the boxes, but then the COVID situation hit. Then the George Floyd riots hit, then all the kind of stuff happened. It's around 2020, as you know. Um, and all of a sudden he starts preaching a lot of political stuff that simply couldn't be found in the word anywhere. And we were like, wow, where did this come from? You know, because before then he was pretty much he would stick to the scripture, but all of a sudden now it was just this thing where he had to try to make all these political points and had brought people up on stage to talk about their grievances politically or whatever else. And it's like, I don't want to sit here and listen to this, man. I like literally could do anything else on my time but this. So that was pretty much the end of that. It's like if I can't if if if I can't trust this dude to have discernment enough to keep that stuff away from the pulpit, I don't know that you know I can go the rest of the way with you, bro. I don't know that I can do it. So right, yeah, right.

David McIntyre 1:07:23

And we have that a lot in our country today. There's a lot of there's a lot of politics coming from the pulpit. Yeah. And um I think you have to discern where you stand on that, whether you want to hear that or don't want to hear it, and govern yourself accordingly. What I don't want, even if a preacher is preaching something about politics from the pulpit, is don't give me what you think, connect whatever that political thing is to the word. Yeah. Because if you talk to me about abortion from the pulpit and you bring me to Psalms 139 and you bring me to some other scriptures, I have context, I have the correlation there in it. But if you're if you're you know, if you're battling things with homosexuality, you could potentially bring me to Romans chapter one. You could take me to some other places and we can see context and make decisions for ourselves. But then when you get into, well, the Save Act, and we gotta safeguard, and and that's that's that's not necessarily a biblical issue. It can be a it could be an issue for you as an individual that you follow that has a party line with it, or you may just simply believe that things need to be a certain way and we need to vote a certain way. If you're gonna say that from the pulpit, you need to tell the people. I want to share my opinion about something that's important that's happening right now, and I just simply ask you to pray about it or pray about what's going on. And and even that for a lot of people is too much. Sometimes we just need church to be a place where we get filled up with because all this other stuff that we're dealing with and hearing and working through is absolutely tearing lives apart outside of the church, right? And so we just we just need to sometimes I hate to say it in this way because it sounds ugly, but we need to just give it all a break.

Phillip Rich 1:09:25

Yeah, I agree, David.

David McIntyre 1:09:27

A big freaking break. Um, the last one I'll tell you really quickly is also use other believers as a part of your discernment and helping you grow as well as see what's going on around

When Teaching Turns Toxic Then Separate

David McIntyre 1:09:43

you. A good mature friend can help you see things that you may not see and may discern some things that you haven't got to yet and can help you find your way out. All right, we've gone longer than we planned. Um, if you find yourself in a position where you're in one of those churches, I want to encourage you that your first answer should be to separate. I think that's what the biblical answer is in a nutshell. But I think it's also important to discern uh willful error with the intent to deceive or with malice versus innocent error that is out of a misunderstanding or misinterpretation of the Bible. Um, and if you're unable to discern between the two, then you probably should just safely remove yourself uh from that situation. But again, pray, ask God for help, know your word, be like the Bereans and dig in and check and see that what you hear and what's in the word match, help from other believers, mature believers, and then check people out on the internet, check people out on their websites, and lay off of that social media a little bit and see some of the happiness returned back to your life. That's it for this episode of Bible Bros and Brew. Um, we have so much more that we could talk about on this, but guys, I think next week, because I think this opens the door, I think we need to talk about the celebrity pastor situation next week. Um, because there's a there's connective tissue. Yeah. Uh and I think we just needed the celebrity, the celebrity in the pulpit and the celebrities in the pew are two problems that we got to deal with in our church. Because remember, we are the church. Check us out on social media, Instagram, TikTok, whatever thing else you got going on. Um, but don't spend too much time there. But do see the funny stuff we put up. And uh, as always, if you need prayer, you need help, you'd like to see us talk about something, you have a question, please visit us at dot brew at Bible Brosbrew dot com. Until next time, Ich bin David. Yes, and John. Oh. And we're out.