Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them. For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly; and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple. For your obedience is come abroad unto all men. I am glad therefore on your behalf: but yet I would have you wise unto that which is good, and simple concerning evil. Romans 16:17-19
In Paul’s dealings with the wayward churches under his watch care, one cannot fail to behold the yearning tenderness of a loving parent. Paul delighted in those whom he had begotten in the gospel, and exhibited great pity to the erring. Yet his love was not partial. The affection Paul so often displayed towards his spiritual sons and daughters was balanced by a sterner posture when necessary. It is false love and false sympathy that leads parents to indulge and not restrain their children for fear of offending them. Likewise, the faithful minister will not fail to warn his congregation of the perils of popular sins and heresies for the sake of peace.
As a wise father, Paul warned the church in Rome to mark those whose influence was calculated to do them harm. Far from encouraging an ecumenical unity, Paul beseeched the Romans to take careful notice of those who were causing ‘divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine’ he had taught them. Paul does not here refer to the honest seeker who may hold peculiar understandings, but to teachers – those who seek to instruct others in their contrary doctrines.
Paul may have had in mind the likes of those ‘pharisees which believed’ who attended the Jerusalem counsel, which busied themselves instructing the brethren to keep the abolished feast days, saying that it was ‘needful to circumcise [the gentile converts] and to command them to keep the law of Moses’ (Acts 15:15). Or perhaps it was the likes of Hymenaeus and Philetus, which were working to ‘overthrow the faith of some’ by ‘saying that the resurrection is past already’ (2 Timothy 2:18). False teachers such as these were a great danger to the unity of the believers, which had been established by their acceptance of the true Gospel. Regarding these false teachers, Paul flatly counselled the church to ‘avoid them’.
Attending the meetings of those you know to be teaching error is perilous, as ‘good words and fair speeches’ are there delivered, often by talented speakers. Since false teachers ‘serve not our Lord Jesus Christ but [their] own belly’, the seductive charisma of the evil one animates them as they ‘deceive the hearts of the simple’.
Paul desired his congregation to be ‘wise unto that which is good, and simple concerning evil’. Truly, there is no profit in imbibing the toxic leaven of error; it is better for us to be simple concerning the depths of Satan. The wisdom obtained from the true gospel is what we desire.
Christopher Sparks