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"Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world."
(1 John 4:1)
The rock band Journey was very popular when I was growing up. Their hit song, "Don't Stop Believing" is still well known and loved today. There are some songs that live way beyond their origin. I think of John Denver's "Country Road" and Queen's hit song "We Will Rock You." While Journey encourages the listeners, "Don't stop believing," there are times in the life of a follower of Jesus when we actually should stop believing. "Stop believing what?" you ask. The Apostle John tells us in our biblical text for today's devotion.
I loved preaching through this epistle with our church family. 1 John is a powerful book that gives wonderful instructions for the child of God. John, the aged apostle, commands his agapatoi (beloved) to stop believing every spirit. He had in mind the first century Gnostics who taught doctrines that were erroneous and unsupported by Apostolic teaching. One of the primary false doctrines they preached was that Jesus never had an earthly body, that He only appeared to have one, and therefore, they denied that Jesus Christ had come in the flesh.
Christians should not only stop believing such false teachings but also test those who teach such things. There is clear truth taught by Jesus and the Apostles in the New Testament, but there are in every generation (until Jesus returns) those who teach many false doctrines. They may use some of the same terminology, but their terms have very different meanings than how they are defined in the Bible. For example, Mormonism uses much of the same terminology as Christianity, but their meanings are entirely foreign to Scripture. This is so much the case that one former Mormon stated that Mormonism is as much like Christianity as is Hinduism.
There are 4,200 different religions or faith groups in the world today, and 372 of those are in the USA. There are numerous doctrines being taught and believed that do not line up with the Bible. How are we to respond to this? We are to stop believing them and test them according to the clear teachings of the Bible. Some may protest and say, "Who gives one group the right to judge another? If they are sincere in their beliefs, then they are correct." The answer is, the Bible judges them, and when anyone, no matter how sincere they are, teaches a different Gospel than what the Bible teaches, Paul said they are to be accursed. (Galatians 1:8 states, "But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other Gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed.")
In tomorrow's devotional, we will explore how we are to test the spirits of those who teach.
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