Ep 24: What is Heresy?

Welcome back to the podcast!

The term "heresy" is thrown around a lot. Using this term incorrectly has always been an issue in the church. Social media, however, has allowed more people to have platforms and influence. 

Often, someone else is called a heretic simply because they believe something that someone else disagrees with.

But not all teachings that differ related to Christianity are heretical in nature.

Today, on the podcast, Amy and I break down the differences between:

• essential teachings in the Christian faith
• non-essential teachings of the Christian faith
• true heresy that is against God or the pure gospel as revealed in Scripture

I hope this will be helpful to you as you discern the differences and help teach others to do the same!

Resources Mentioned:

• Episode 23: False Teaching & False Teachers
• Cross-Examined Instructor’s Academy
• The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis
• Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis 

Let's Connect!

• Read, Do, & Tell Podcast
• My Website: Raising Rooted Disciples
• Instagram: @raisingrooteddisciples
• Email: becky@raisingrooteddisciples.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:08

Welcome back to this Reading Mamas Podcast. I am Becky. I'm Amy.

SPEAKER_00 0:12

Thank you all for joining us again. If you are a Bible teacher in any aspect, a mom, a grandparent, a Sunday school teacher, we hope that you will take advantage of the podcast plus membership. It is $5 a month, but it gives you access to the different Bible reading plans. We currently have six available January through June. They are not as intensive in reading requirements as the Bible reading plans you find online that take you through the Bible in a year. It just kind of hits on the key storyline of each of those books. And then you also get access to the guided notes and the different charts and visuals that we show, and even additional ones than those that you see through our podcast. So we hope that you'll partner with us. It allows us to continue to do what we do in striving to equip any type of teacher that has a desire to see the next generation know and understand the truth of God's word.

SPEAKER_01 1:13

Amen.

SPEAKER_00 1:14

If you have any questions about what we're teaching or any requests about what you'd like to hear, you can email Becky at Becky at this readingmama.com. So a quick review of what we did last episode. We touched on what false teaching is. Well, we defined what is false teaching. And so that's basically a teaching that is intentionally distorting or contradicting God or the pure gospel as revealed in scripture. We also talked about what are false teachers. Those are teachers who are intentionally teaching false doctrine that distort or contradict God or the pure gospel as revealed in the scriptures. So to sum all of that up, it is someone who is teaching a false God, false Jesus, and a false gospel.

SPEAKER_01 2:07

And one of the words you may hear is the word heresy, which would be this false teaching, as well as heretical teaching. When I did the cross-examined instructor's academy, one of my presentations that I chose to do was about heresy and heretical teaching. And so to do this episode today, I've kind of borrowed from that a little bit. So we're going to talk about, we're going to break down what is essential to the Christian faith, what is not essential, and what is actually heresy. First, I would say that essential teachings is kind of your one-way teaching. You think about John 14, 6, where Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, the life. He doesn't say, I'm just one path. He is the path. So we have essential kind of is on the road. It's on the one-way path. Some essential teachings about God specifically are the Trinity, that you have God the Father, you have God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. Another one would be the incarnation of Jesus, fully God, fully man. And we see this, for example, in John 1, chapter 14, where it says, first he talks about in the beginning of the book of John that the Word was God. So we know he's establishing Jesus is from all eternity. And then he says, then the word became flesh and dwelt among us. We observed his glory, the glory as the one and only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. So here we see Jesus was fully God, fully man. That's an essential teaching to the Christian faith. The resurrection, actually, I would say resurrection is probably number one, because Paul says if Jesus did not rise from the dead, we'd be lost in our sins and our faith would be completely useless. So these are important and essential teachings to the Christian faith.

SPEAKER_00 4:03

Essential teachings to the gospel, as we see in the scriptures, um, one would be sin. Sin is what separates us from God. God's grace is not an excuse for us to sin. So if it's a willing behavior that we have, then that is if people teach that's okay, oh, you're saved, you can do whatever you want. That would be contrary to this essential teaching of the gospel. Then we have a mediator, one mediator. This would be Jesus and the Holy Spirit, um, all of which are in the same essence, God. In scripture, we read in 1 Timothy 2.5, it says, only one mediator exists between God and mankind. That is the man Christ Jesus. It is no other man that is living on earth that can be a mediator between us and God. And then in Romans 8.26, it says the Spirit helps us in our weakness. When we don't know how to pray, the Spirit knows and intercedes on our behalf. God is our mediator in and of himself. Um, and then we have another essential teaching was is that our beliefs influence our behavior. So if someone is claiming to be a follower of Jesus, we should see in their behaviors the imitating of the person of Christ Jesus. Obviously, this is a process that we know as sanctification, but we should see this evident in the life of a Christian.

unknown 5:34

Right.

SPEAKER_01 5:36

Some non-essentials. So these are still on the road. These are still within the frame of Christian belief, but they're they can vary from denomination to denomination, even person to person within a denomination. Even in my own church, we could have people that kind of sit on different sides of the aisle with these. Yes. So infant baptism would be one of those. The age of the earth, um, my brother appreciated me saying this that you have old earthers, you have young earthers, and you have middle earthers. And middle earth, yeah, he loves Lord of the Rings. So he was like, I appreciate that comment. Um, and then you have end time prophecies. There are some people who believe there will not be a rapture. There are other people who believe that the rapture might come before the tribulation or at the middle or the end. There are other people like my mom who just say, I'm just gonna be ready for whatever happens. So we have to be careful when we're talking about these particular issues that are nonessential, that when someone believes something different than us in these areas, that we're not walking around calling them heretics or false teachers. These are areas where scripture may not be as black and white, if that makes sense. There's a little bit of grace here in these areas. Right.

SPEAKER_00 6:53

And some people do believe it's black and white, and that's okay. I have followed many Bible teachers that I love the way they teach the word, how they stand on the truth of God's word, but I am in disagreement with them on some of these issues, and that's okay, because as Becky said, it's not against who God is and it's not against the gospel, which is the method through which we are saved. Right.

SPEAKER_01 7:16

So if you don't believe there's going to be a rapture, you could still have Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. It doesn't affect your salvation. Okay, so then we move into what are called heresies, and these I moved the road so that we're off the road now. We're we're in the trees and we're headed into a tree trunk. We're driving right into a tree trunk, and it's very dangerous. One of these areas might someone might say, Well, Jesus didn't really come as a man. He didn't come in the flesh, he just seemed to have come in the flesh. He was only spirit.

SPEAKER_00 7:48

Another heresy may be that Jesus never rose again. So there's lots of different myths out there of people who claim to be Christians, but they may say, I don't believe that he rose again. I would struggle there saying that that person is a true believer, because isn't it Paul that says if he never rose from the dead, then our faith is in vain? It means nothing.

SPEAKER_01 8:09

That's right. And then we have people who say, Oh, the God of the Old Testament, the God of the New Testament, they're two different gods. The God of the Old Testament was vindictive and an angry God, and the God of the New Testament is love and grace. That's a heresy because God doesn't change. That's right.

SPEAKER_00 8:27

And that is why it is so important that you understand your Bible. When you have an appreciation for God's truth and his word, and I know sometimes it may be hard just to crack it open and read it through in depth, but when you do, God is so faithful to mentor you as you're learning through the power of the Holy Spirit to help you see that the Old Testament is revealed in the New Testament, and it is such a beautiful thing that when you hear a teaching like this, that they're two different gods, there is a switch that turns on, and you can say, Absolutely not, is this the same God in the Old Testament and the New Testament? That's right. We also have all roads lead to heaven. I think you touched on this a little bit earlier, but yes, it's it not they don't lead to heaven. All roads will essentially lead you to God because we will all in the end stand before him. But after that, there is a parting of those who are cast into the lake of fire, which is the second death, the Bible says. And then there are those who will live in eternity with Jesus in the new heaven and in the new earth.

SPEAKER_01 9:42

It's just like C.S. Lewis said, and I think he said it in mere Christianity. Do you remember what hooked it was? Where he says, There'll be two different people where when you stand before the Lord, people who say to God, Thy will be done, you've surrendered to him, and people to which God will say, Thy will be done. Like you wanted to reject me, I won't make you spend eternity with me. There you go. Your will be done. It's very sad. It is. And then we the last one is kind of Jesus and whatever. So Jesus and you have to do good works, you have to speak in tongues, you have to heal people, Jesus and good works. Jesus and fill in the blank. Anytime you add something to the true gospel, you actually cheapen it.

SPEAKER_00 10:29

Yeah. And fill in the blank is F I B, which is fib. So anything plus is a lie. That is good.

SPEAKER_01 10:39

That is good. I love it. So we have a quote from I don't remember who, but it's been it's been accredited to many different people. But it says, in essentials, unity, in non-essentials, liberty, and in all things, charity. So in the essentials, we want to, in the truth, we want to have unity. In those non-essentials, we're going to give people liberty, and we're not going to walk around calling people heretics and trying to kick them out of the church because they believe that you know something different. We're living in the millennial. Yes. And then in all things, charity. That's good because I think when you I think about when scripture talks about even going to a brother or sister who's fallen into sin, it basically says go to them in humility so that you don't fall yourself. So in all things, charity, it's good to remember that. It is good. So let's be like Ezra to read, do, and tell the word of the Lord. Amen.