Love Drives Out False Teaching

Why it's okay to not allow false teaching in your home or church.

If you stood between your child and someone who intended to harm them—what would you do? Would you sit like a watchful bystander? Would you call out advice from the sidelines on how they can protect themselves or escape? Would you watch quietly and simply pray for them? Would you hope they use their best judgment that you’ve worked hard to instill in them? Or would you put your whole self in front of that child and use every muscle in your body to both guard your child and drive away that wicked person? 

Most parents would do the latter. We know that fierce passion in our hearts to protect and guard our children. We often feel such an ache in our hearts to watch them hurt, and we will not stand by and watch it happen. It causes us to suffer gravely when we know we are helpless to do anything when our children suffer—we want to take the sickness upon ourselves, defeat their enemies, and mend up their heart breaks. We know to love our children is to protect them, fight for them, guard them if it costs our own pride or even our lives. This is love. It’s the kind of love God shows us as our perfect, heavenly Father, and we strive to mirror it as well as we can to our children.

Growing up, I always had an affection for reptiles, including snakes. I would let them coil around my hands and keep them old fish tanks to watch. I still tell my husband to not run them over while mowing the lawn. However, last summer, I took my little ones into the fenced-in play area outside and they found a huge, brown snake caught in the chicken wire. I got them all to stand back as it twisted and slapped its tail around trying to get free. It finally broke free, but still on our side of the fence. When it turned around, it took one look at us and opened its jaws, revealing its long fangs. I don’t think I could hate a creature any more than I did at that moment, and I was ready to do whatever it took to keep that angry beast from my children. Love protects—at all costs.

But love doesn’t only protect against physical dangers; it protects against spiritual ones as well. 

In The Life Giving Home, seasoned mother Sally Clarkson writes,

There is a broader sense of the need for protection in a home behind the closed door. If someone knocked at my door and said, “I would like to molest your mind and heart—and by the way, could I molest and harm your children as well?” I would keep the door locked and never intentionally allow such a person to come inside. Home is to be a safe place, a refuge for all who enter, a protection from the harm and storms of the world. Yet often or even daily we open our doors—usually via television or the Internet—to ideas and images that can damage our faith, abuse our hearts and minds, scar our psyches, and tear apart our peace.¹

It’s our duty as parents to guard our children from false teaching. That means closing our doors to teachers, musicians, influencers, books, publications, churches, podcasts, and the like that would lead our children astray—not into teaching that’s different from ours (secondary and tertiary issues), but teaching that goes against the clear, essential, foundational truths of Scripture (primary issues). 

The accusation is often leveled at us for creating “sheltered” children who grow up to be unaware of the real world—to the point of cringing embarrassment at their ignorance. There is a way to guard our children wrongly. Protecting our children from false teaching or unbiblical views doesn’t mean we put them in a metaphorical box where they can never see or hear these wrong things. Protecting our children means showing them the wrong and explaining to them why it’s wrong and how they can recognize other iterations of it.

Consider how we protect our children against predators: We don’t seek to protect them by never telling them there are dangerous people in the world, but by explaining the characteristics of dangerous people—they ask you to keep secrets, they do things that make you feel uncomfortable, they stalk you, they say mean words, and the like. We can do the same as we guard them from false teaching or unbiblical worldviews. And at the same time, we shut our doors when dangerous people try to enter our homes. We can both warn and demonstrate the dangers of false teaching while also locking our doors against its influence whenever possible. 

The next accusation that’s often hurled at us is that we’re being divisive and uncharitable. How dare you drive away fellow believers? How dare you be so closed-minded? I’m no more closed-minded than Paul (2 Thes. 3:6–15; 1 Tim. 1:3–11; 4:1–3; 2 Tim. 2:16–18; 3:1–13; 4:14), Peter (2 Pet. 2:1–22), John (2 John 1:7–11; 3 John 1:7–10), Jude (1:3–16), John the Baptist (Matt. 3:7), or Jesus himself (Matt. 16:6; 23:1–39; Luke 11:37–12:1). Jesus and his apostles all warned against false teachers, at times even calling them out by name or group. Out of great love for God’s people, they boldly declared that false teachers should be noted and avoided. Why? Because love drives out. Love will not watch with folded hands as a false teacher strives to tear down the spiritual lives of the beloved. Singing about Jesus, Andrew Peterson put it succinctly in his song Cornerstone:

You turned the tables over
There in your father’s temple
You cracked a whip and raised a shout
My daughter asked me why
I said, “Love is never simple
It draws ‘em in and drives ‘em out.”

Love doesn’t only draw people in, but it also must cast people out. Love must protect, which at times means warning against ideas, doctrine, or even people who could cause harm. 

There are people out there who get a twisted enjoyment from tearing down God’s people and calling out false teachers (or by wrongly plastering that label on someone). We need to be wary of those people too. They aren’t driving out because of love, but for their own glory and the fun of causing a ruckus. You’ll know these people by their fruit. The one who drives out false teachers from love is heartbroken over their blindness and speaks with compassion. They have real, scriptural reasons for their warning. They have humility, recognizing they are just as susceptible to error too. 

Before you bat your hand at me to say that true love wouldn’t drive out false teachers, that what we see in Jesus or his apostles isn’t prescriptive, let’s return to the opening of this piece: If you saw someone about to harm someone you love, what would you do? As a wife and mom, I’ve thankfully never had a real threat of harm come near my family, but I can promise you that the day someone does, I will not stand by and watch. I love my family, and I will drive away anyone who seeks to harm them—whether it be a criminal, a bully, or even a false teacher playing with their soul. True love drives out.

Perhaps it will also be an act of love and mercy upon the false teacher as well—for now there will be one less soul they must account for on the day of judgment. As Jesus said, “but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea” (Matt. 18:6 ESV).

1. Sally Clarkson and Sarah Clarkson, The Lifegiving Home: Creating a Place of Belonging and Becoming (Tyndale House Publishers, 2016), 26–27.