An Analysis of a Woman’s Naive & Potentially Destructive Words…

HERE IS A STATEMENT I saw on social media (and I have seen many like it): “Our place as Christians is not to go round exposing bad things, as that’s not what the Bible teaches. We just have to be light everywhere we go and must simply make this world a better place”. I realise that there are many folks who just want everything to be ‘lovey-dovey’ (usually women, which is kind of understandable, especially if they have kids), but it is not only that which is involved in our life and faith-work, especially for the men. Many, of course, are not called to expose much and that’s fine. That’s their thing. Their role is to get on with something else. But to try and prevent anyone else from exposing darkness or revealing false teaching is wholly out of place.

If a man is going to be the leader in his household (which is what he is called to be), he is going to have to call out darkness and falsehood in order to fulfil that role fully. He is a guide for good and a warner of bad in his little family. Similarly, when a man is a pastor-teacher, he is going to have to call out darkness as well as opening up the Scriptures in order to fulfil that role and protect the congregation from the many wolves which prowl around. So to say, “Our place as Christians is not to go round exposing bad things”, is at best very naïve indeed; at worst, it is a green light for the demonic realm to strut their stuff. For it certainly IS the place of Christ’s disciples to expose evil and what is plainly the work of demons, to a greater or lesser degree, if they are called to that. This is especially so for men who lead, such as husbands and pastor-teachers. Paul regularly called out false apostles and false teachers as a necessity in the churches over which he had authority. Here are some examples of those warnings in his letters to the churches:

“I am afraid, however, that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds may be led astray from your simple and pure devotion to Christ. For if someone comes and proclaims a Jesus other than the One we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit than the One you received, or a different gospel than the one you accepted, you put up with it way too easily” (2 Corinthians 11:3-4). That’s right. We are not to put up with it at all!

“I will keep on doing what I am doing, in order to undercut those who want an opportunity to be regarded as our equals in the things of which they boast. For such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, masquerading as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. It is not surprising, then, if his servants masquerade as servants of righteousness” (2 Corinthians 11:12-15). They need undercutting alright!

In reference to the ubiquitous Judaizers, Paul didn’t mince his words: “Watch out for those dogs, those workers of evil, those mutilators of the flesh!” (Philippians 3:2). Some might think, “Whoa, Paul, that’s a bit harsh!” No, not harsh at all. Leaders and teachers in the Ekklesia have to call a spade a spade. There is far too much wishy-washy, lovey-dovey nonsense in the Christian scene today.

To the young pastor-teacher Timothy, Paul said, “If anyone teaches another doctrine and disagrees with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and with godly teaching, he is conceited and understands nothing” (1 Timothy 6:3). Plainly, Timothy was called to deal with all this, not “just be light everywhere”, which is really a meaningless statement.

Paul warned Timothy about two guys “who have deviated from the truth. They say that the resurrection has already occurred, and they undermine the faith of some” (2 Timothy 2:18). He was warning him about them so that he could deal with them and warn others under his care. This is a pastor-teacher’s role, to deal with false teaching and the works of darkness which must be exposed or one is being irresponsible. Similarly, Paul warned Timothy about Alexander the coppersmith. He said, “you too should beware of him, for he has vigorously opposed our message” (2 Timothy 4:14-15). So it is very silly and even dangerous to run around publicly declaring, “Our place as Christians is not to go round exposing bad things, as that’s not what the Bible teaches”.

Paul told Timothy that he “should stay on at Ephesus to instruct certain men not to teach false doctrines” (1 Timothy 1:3). So to say, “Our place as Christians is not to go round exposing bad things, as that’s not what the Bible teaches”, is a ridiculous and entirely false statement. Paul also instructed Timothy to appoint elders in the congregation (1 Timothy 3:1-7). One usually finds that those who teach that we should not be warning anyone also believe that there should be no structure at all in a local gathering of believers. They say that in the early church people just met in homes together on a casual basis, so that is all we need to do now. This was true right to begin with, but as false teaching and all the usual nonsense started to develop in such gatherings, a structure based on Divinely-appointed authority was put in place to deal with that, for the necessary purpose that “we will no longer be infants, tossed about by the waves and carried around by every wind of teaching and by the clever cunning of men in their deceitful scheming” (Ephesians 4:14). But all these diluters of truth and who say we should not go round exposing darkness ignore all that. They just meet as a “Fish ‘n Chips” Bible study, in which everyone fishes around and they all chip in — a recipe for instructional disaster, but a common one today because so many are entirely unteachable. One also usually finds that such people are very deficient in understanding the deep things of God and even openly oppose them (e.g. the Bible’s teaching on election, the atonement, the secure foundation of the salvation of true saints, and what happens to a soul after death) and just skim the surface with a very truncated understanding of everything. Yet, such folks have come to be very influential on social media on the internet, which is stuffed full of them giving forth with their pseudo-wisdom. They just love banging out their soppy mish-mash of half-truths and spineless interjections. They are unteachable and out of control.

When Paul warns that “some will abandon the faith to follow deceitful spirits and the teachings of demons, influenced by the hypocrisy of liars, whose consciences are seared with a hot iron” (1 Timothy 4:1-2), he then goes on to say that “by pointing out these things to the brothers, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, nourished by the words of faith and sound instruction that you have followed” (1 Timothy 4:6). In other words, Timothy’s role as a pastor is to warn and make people aware of false teachers, false teachings, and demonic activity. Pastor-teachers expose darkness as well as illuminate through healthy teaching from the Scriptures. As Paul said to Titus (whose role it was “to appoint elders in every town”, Titus 1:5), an elder in any church gathering “must hold firmly to the faithful word as it was taught, so that he can encourage others by sound teaching and refute those who contradict it” (Titus 1:9). The word translated here as “refute” is ἐλέγχω, elegcho, which also means to expose or convict. The same word is used in Ephesians 5:11, when Paul tells the church in Ephesus, “Do not have fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather even expose them”. Not only pastor-teachers but even the whole congregation of the faithful are to refute and expose the works of darkness for the purposes of conviction, whether by words or by actions. Obviously, some are not so bold as to do that publicly. Fair enough. That’s understandable. Some will be more called to this than others. No one should criticize the other for their doing or not doing. But not to warn, and especially to tell others not to warn, can bring harm into the body. I think that many need to pray for more courage and to be convicted themselves.

This is not to say that anyone should spend his whole time engaged in this sort of activity as that would be a huge imbalance. But as so many pastor-teachers fail to carry through this sort of ministry, or themselves are teaching falsehoods and even obscenities, others have to step into the fray. Hopefully, they will be exuding the fragrance of Christ as well as being an antidote to the demonic realm. Pastor-teachers have to make Christ the central focus of the teaching, with the warnings coming as a necessary complement to that.

A big problem today is that a very large number of out-of-control women who are plainly not being guided by their husbands or any other male figure have set themselves up as teachers and powerful ‘internet influencers’ of others. I don’t mean doing evangelism, or pointing people to healthy teachings, but systematic teaching of their own, even when they are not very well taught themselves, or in some cases they are only young in the faith and therefore very inexperienced. This is in direct contravention of apostolic edict in Paul’s words about women teaching (1 Timothy 2:11-12; 1 Corinthians 14:34). [For fuller information about this, please see my article “Confronting the Spirit of Jezebel in the Church Today”: https://diakrisis-project.com/2024/04/12/confronting-the-spirit-of-jezebel-in-the-church-today/ ].The internet has provided the perfect platform where they can peddle their stuff. And so many lap it up. One often finds a bevy of stances in these women to which they adhere. They may not all adhere to all of these stances but one of more of these are usually upheld:

  • They are big advocates of the “Fish ‘n Chips” style of Bible study (because they are unteachable themselves and do not take kindly to being taught, especially by a man).
  • They disparagingly call local gatherings with elders and pastor-teachers “mere religion” and “churchianity”, “authoritarianism”.
  • They are terrified of the ‘doctrines of grace’ and make a little ‘god’ out of free will.
  • They censor anyone who teaches unadulterated truth which they have not investigated for themselves and never will.
  • They cancel anyone who calls a spade a spade, finding him to be “too harsh” (as for them all unadulterated truth is ‘harsh’).
  • They set themselves up with a big deal ministry which is ultimately self-serving and which feeds their pathological need for validation from others.
  • They are very selective in what they expose, if they ever expose anything.

This is the way things are going among the great morass that the visible church has become today. But here’s a final word about that woman’s statement, “We just have to be light everywhere we go and must simply make this world a better place”. I do not think I have seen a more naïve statement than this before! Certainly, we have to ensure that people get a good whiff of the fragrance of Christ in our lives and words. But we would have to be very silly indeed to imagine that this fragrance puts a smile on everyone’s face. As Paul plainly states, through that fragrance to those who are perishing “we are an odor of death and demise”, whereas to those who are being saved we are “a fragrance that brings life” (2 Corinthians 2:14-16). So, to the few (and it IS a few, as Jesus said in Matthew 7:14) who may respond positively to our “fragrance” we will be met with joy and love; but to the majority who respond negatively to what we represent we will be met with rejection, bitter words and even violence. Thus, “being light everywhere we go” is not necessarily going to be a pleasant experience. In fact, if we are just wandering about “being light” and all that is happening is smiles and acceptance, then we are more than likely not being uncompromising, truthful disciples of Christ and are actually effusing false light.

Furthermore, our primary role is not to “make the world a better place”, as this woman wrote. To think that is what we have to do would also be very naïve indeed. (Such folks very often also claim that everyone is born good and it is their experiences which mess them up). We may be able to do some good through what we do, through what material things we share, and by what we say. But in the long run, we cannot ultimately “make the world a better place” because this fallen world is hopelessly corrupted and is degenerating into a morass of evil. At no time in history has the world been collectively more poised to disintegrate into the mayhem which undergirds it than it is at the present, with all the technological advance and the degree of surveillance and communications at the disposal of the satanic cabal which runs this world (which is not the politicians for whom you vote!), not to mention the current avid attempts to create a despotic global government.

Scripture does not show a world which gradually evolves into a state of oneness and unification (the “Omega Point”, as the ‘father’ of the New Age Movement, Teilhard de Chardin, put it). Rather it depicts a world in which evil comes to a climax through what Scripture calls “the mystery of iniquity” (2 Thessalonians 2:7) which has been under some restraint by God to allow His appointed developments to take place (2 Thessalonians 2:6-8), after which, when those restraints have been Divinely removed, then all hell will be unleashed on earth in a global autocracy under the “man of lawlessness” (2 Thessalonians 2:8-10), Satan’s appointed incarnate representation of naked human evil without any more pretence of ‘civilisation’. Some not too long time after that has occurred (during which the saints on earth will be horribly persecuted and exterminated, e.g. Daniel 7:21; Revelation 11:7; 13:7), the Christ will return and deal the blow of judgement on it all. This, not the imaginary made-up “Rapture”, is what we have to be prepared for as the next item on the prophetic agenda. For the Day of the Lord (the return of Christ in judgement on this wayward world) “will not come until the apostasy occurs and the man of lawlessness—the son of destruction—is revealed. He will oppose and exalt himself above every so-called god or object of worship. So he will seat himself in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God” (2 Thessalonians 2:3-4). Well, the apostasy is plainly already well under way in both visible church and the world, which is all the more reason why we need brave pastors and teachers who are willing to expose the nuts and bolts of how that is panning out. All that remains on the heels of the apostasy is for the “man of lawlessness” to be revealed.

So, maybe now you can see the ridiculousness of that woman saying: “Our place as Christians is not to go round exposing bad things, as that’s not what the Bible teaches. We just have to be light everywhere we go and must simply make this world a better place”. Frankly, Satan could have written those words disguised as an angel of light! Yet this is what many believe, and this woman is a teacher of many.

The Bible teaches truth, and truth is not just about some kind of hippie “love and light”. Neither is the Bible some kind of manual of ‘positive thinking’. Our lives are not about wandering around with a seraphic smile on our faces and sounding like Mother Teresa! The Bible shows that we have to get real and not pussyfoot around by avoiding any mention of works of darkness. If the “whole world lies under the power of the evil one” (1 John 5:19), then it is a part of our duty to show how that power operates. It is not all of our duty (as we would then come across as obsessed nutjobs). But it is definitely part of it. That is really how we are to be “light everywhere”, for part of being a light in this world is the exposing of darkness. If we do not ever expose darkness then we are simply not being “light everywhere”.

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© Copyright, Alan Morrison, 2023
[The copyright on my works is merely to protect them from any wanton plagiarism which could result in undesirable changes (as has actually happened!). Readers are free to reproduce my work, so long as it is in the same format and with the exact same content and its origin is acknowledged]