Watchout For WOLVES: Keys To Discerning Authentic Ministries & Evaluating Doctrinal Trends

contrary to what you have been taught. Stay away from them. Such people are not serving Christ our Lord; they are serving their own personal interests. By smooth talk and glowing words they deceive innocent people. But everyone knows that you are obedient to the Lord. This makes me very happy. I want you to see clearly what is right and to stay innocent of any wrong. – NLT We do not want to become critical and judgmental, but we do not want to be gullible either. The truth is that many false ministers or ministries that can lead us into deception look almost exactly like the true. The five-fold ministry was given to the church to equip the saints for works of service and to build up the Body of Christ (Eph. 4:11-12. Everything that these ministries do is for the sake of Christ and others. However, as we will see in the next chapter, there are ministries who take advantage of the ministry anointing that they have for their own purposes and actually misrepresent Christ and abuse the people of God. Just as there are true apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers, there are false apostles, prophets, evangelist, pastors and teachers. It is the responsibility of mature believers to be watchful and prepared at times to render judgment.

The second area that requires discernment is in relation to doctrine or teachings that we embrace (Eph. 4:11-16).

And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, 12 for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, 13 till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; 14 that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine,

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