Beyond Face Value

"I am warning you ahead of time, dear friends, so that you can watch out and not be carried away by the errors of these wicked people. I don't want you to lose your own secure footing." – II Peter 3:17 (NLT)

There's nothing more dangerous than going forth in the name of the LORD, but in error. That's why teaching and learning are so important. For the student, it involves discerning truth from error. For the teacher, it involves sound communication. What a student learns becomes ingrained in the heart and soul. Therefore, if information presented is incorrect, the student comes to accept untruth as something valid. Simply put, lies distort truth. And when that happens, it is hard to convince the student otherwise.

In the preceding text, Peter cautions believers to beware of falling victim to the seductive practice of straying from orthodoxy. He also illuminates a very subtle truth: most people that are being deceived are not even aware of it because they never go beyond face value. The "wicked" spoken of here are those unprincipled, double-minded people whose devotion to God is less than total. As a consequence, their attention is divided between God and other things. Those pulled into this web of fraudulence are subject to failing steadfastness & no spiritual balance.

So what's the remedy against such deceit? How do you know if one's teaching is on point and someone else's has missed the mark? Check out Acts 17:11 - "And the people of Berea were more open–minded than those in Thessalonica, and they listened eagerly to Paul's message. They searched the Scriptures day after day to check up on Paul and Silas, to see if they were really teaching the truth." (NLT)

The Bereans were open to Paul's teaching, but not content with simply hearing the message and taking it at face value. They continually ("day after day") examined the Word and personally sought to investigate and measure the accuracy of Paul's message against Scripture. Their motive was not to find fault; they were eager to believe truth. In its proper context, the idea conveyed is that these men and women were unbiased and characterized by a willingness to learn and evaluate fairly. They listened to the words of Paul, not with an already made up mind, but with a readiness to let the passage change their thinking if that's what needed to occur.

There are 2 key aspects we can learn from the Bereans:

1. We must not place absolute trust in the stability of that which can be seen or felt. A savvy communicator can use the Scriptures taken out of context to teach almost anything. Just because it sounds true and it feels right doesn't mean it lines up with the Bible. The opinions of the Bereans were in no way influenced by Paul's persuasiveness or their own emotions.

2. We must labor daily to increase in our knowledge of Christ. Until you know Christ authentically, you will always run the risk of being duped into accepting a counterfeit faith. The Bereans model the appropriate response we should have when the Word of God goes forth. They were familiar with God because they regularly spent time interacting with Him through His Word.

When was the last time you went beyond face value to make sure you weren't being misled?

"The purpose of education is to reduce the seduction of eloquence." – Dr. Michael Eric Dyson
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