Wednesday 07 January 2009

Background

One of the problems facing the original readers of John's firstletter and the early Church was false teaching. The most prevalentwas the religious movement Gnosticism. Put very simply, this heresytaught that the spirit was entirely good and that matter wascompletely evil. By implication it denied that Jesus could be bothfully human and fully divine - if Jesus was fully human then he wasevil and could not be God. Likewise, if Jesus was 'spirit' and soentirely good, then he could not be human and had no materialform.

In his letter, John gives support to his readers to resist thisfalsehood.

A useful tool today to help identify false teaching is what manypeople describe as the Methodist quadrilateral: Scripture,tradition, experience and reason.

• If a piece of teaching contradicts the message continued withthe Bible then there is evidence to suggest that it is false(Scripture).
• If something stands against the current of the history of theChurch, then there is room for doubt (tradition).
• If some teaching makes you comfortable or leaves you feelinguneasy, then it may be questionable (experience).
• If something doesn't make sense or contradicts itself, then bewary of trusting it (reason).

Used together, and with prayer reflection, it can bepossible to "know the spirit of truth and the spirit ofevil".

To Ponder

Different people attach varying degrees ofimportance to the four elements of the Methodist quadrilateral.Which is the most important for you? Why?

Have you ever encountered false teaching? How didyou respond? Do you feel this was satisfactory?

If you haven't come across false teaching, how doyou think you would respond if you did?