Teaching
Who's to Say They're Wrong?
Hey y’all, every now and then somebody asks me why I don’t call out this pastor or that teacher more often. They’ve heard a sermon or seen a clip, they think the man got it wrong, and they want to know why I won’t say so out loud. So let me tell you where I stand on it, because I’ve thought about it a lot.
First off, I don’t like calling folks out. Not for sport, and not over opinions and preferences. There’s a kind of Christian content that runs on nothing but pointing at other Christians, and I want no part of it. It gets clicks, but it doesn’t build anybody up, and half the time the fight is over something the Bible doesn’t even settle.
But there’s a ditch on the other side of the road too, and I won’t climb in it either. It’s the one that says, “Well, everybody interprets the Bible different. Who’s to say somebody else is wrong?” Y’all, if that’s true, then a verse can mean anything, and a verse that can mean anything doesn’t mean nothing at all. When God had those words written down, He meant something by them. The man who wrote them meant something too. Different readings don’t erase the meaning. They just mean some of us are reading it better than others, and some of us, if we’re honest, are getting it wrong.
Peter admitted both halves of that in one breath. He said in 2 Peter 3:16 that some things in Paul’s letters are hard to understand, and that folks who don’t know better twist them and wrestle them into saying what they never said. Catch that. Hard parts are real. Peter said so. And twisting is real too. Peter said that in the same verse. “It’s hard” and “you can get it wrong” sit right next to each other in the Bible itself.
So how do we handle a teaching we think missed it? We do what the Bereans did. When Paul came to Berea preaching, those folks didn’t just take his word for it, and Paul was an apostle. It says in Acts 17:11 that they received the word gladly and then searched the Scriptures daily to see if what Paul said was so. And here’s the part I love: the Bible calls them noble for it. Not rude. Not divisive. Noble. Checking a man’s teaching against Scripture, in context, is not picking a fight. It’s the pattern God Himself praised. If Paul could be checked, any of us can be checked, and ought to be.
Now, where the Bible leaves room, I stay quiet, and I think we all should. Paul spent a whole chapter on this in Romans 14. One man eats anything, another man won’t eat this or that. One man holds a day special, another man treats every day the same. And Paul’s word on it wasn’t “fight it out.” It was, let the man be settled in his own mind, and don’t judge your brother over it. He even asked the question my title asks, in Romans 14:4: “Who are you to judge another man’s servant? To his own master he stands or falls.” Food, days, preferences, opinions: that’s God’s territory with His servant, not mine. A man’s got room to follow his own conscience there, and I’ve got no business standing in a place God didn’t put me.
And where I’m just not sure yet myself, I stay quiet there too. There’s no shame in saying, “I don’t know yet. I’m still studying that one.” James warned us in James 3:1 that teachers get judged stricter than everybody else, and that’s reason enough to be slow. James also said in James 1:19 to be slow to speak. A man who talks before he’s sure isn’t brave. He’s just loud. I’d rather be quiet and right later than quick and wrong today.
But when Scripture is clear, and the matter actually matters, quiet stops being humble and starts being cowardly. Paul did not shrug at Galatia. He said in Galatians 1:8 that even if an angel from heaven showed up preaching a different gospel, let him be accursed. That’s strong talk, and Paul aimed it at the biggest matter there is: the gospel itself, who Jesus is and how a man gets saved. On ground like that, where the words are plain and souls ride on it, a man ought to speak. Just not like a bar fighter. Paul told Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:24-25 that the Lord’s servant must not quarrel, but be gentle to all, correcting the ones who oppose him with meekness and patience. And the rule for all of it is right there in Ephesians 4:15: speaking the truth in love. Truth, all of it, no trimming. And love, all of it, no swinging. The goal is to win the brother, not the argument.
One more thing, and it matters to me, so hear it plain. Saying a man’s interpretation is wrong is not saying that man is lost. Those are two different things and we ought to keep them separate. Jesus alone saves a person. Not his reading of Romans, not his view on some hard verse, Jesus. A brother can get a verse wrong and still be a brother, same as you and I have both got verses wrong somewhere along the way and the Lord kept us anyway. I can argue with a man’s reading all day and still shake his hand as a saved man at the end of it. We correct the reading. God handles the man.
So no, I won’t call folks out for sport, and I won’t fight over opinions the Bible leaves open. But I won’t pretend a passage has no true meaning either, just because men read it different. Check it like a Berean. In context. Where there’s room, leave room. Where you’re not sure, say so. And where it’s clear and it counts, speak up, gentle as you can, and let Scripture do the heavy lifting.
God bless y’all, see you later, John