When I was about 10, my sister and I got a small rock collecting kit. We thought it was pretty cool. It had a bunch of information about various rocks and minerals, tools to test the hardness, and, of course, several sample rocks and minerals. One of the items in the kit was pyrite, better known as fool’s gold.

Always an avid reader, I had heard of fool’s gold before, but I’d never actually seen it. I’d always wondered how people could possibly be fooled by a cheap substitute, until I saw its glittering reality.

Just as some hopeful prospectors are fooled by the glitter of pyrite, people looking for truth sometimes get fooled by pretty words that lack the substance of truth. The Bible has a number of warnings about false prophets and the danger of being led away from truth by false teaching.

We see one such incident in chapter 22 of 1 Kings. King Ahab of Israel proposes to King Jehoshaphat of Judah that they go to war against Syria in order to seize territory that had previously belonged to Israel. Jehoshaphat agrees, but he insists they first check with the prophets to see what God has to say about the battle. So Ahab does that:

Then the king of Israel gathered the prophets together, about four hundred men, and said to them, “Shall I go to battle against Ramoth-gilead, or shall I refrain?” And they said, “Go up, for the Lord will give it into the hand of the king.” (1 Kings 22:6 ESV)

Sounds pretty good. For some reason, Jehoshaphat asks if there are any other prophets to consult.  Ahab brings in Micaiah, who initially promises success as well, but eventually explains that God wants Ahab to attack Syria and to die in the attack. It’s good to remember here that Ahab has spent a lifetime opposing and displeasing God.

Now here’s the really interesting part to me: Ahab has brought in Micaiah and insisted that he tell the truth. But after Micaiah does exactly that, prophesying Ahab’s death, Ahab throws him in prison and goes out to fight—and dies as his army flees.

We can learn a couple of things from Ahab’s bad example.First, the majority isn’t necessarily right. We have some 400 prophets promising success and just one warning of destruction. Ahab goes with the majority, which feels right from our democratic point of view, but the majority in this case is very wrong.

That’s a truth that should be familiar to us. Jesus warns us, “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few” (Matthew 7:13-14 ESV)

Perhaps it’s worth noting that the following verse is a warning about false prophets, wolves in sheep’s clothing. The point is that important matters of faith can’t be decided by looking at the majority. They can only be decided by those in a close relationship with God who are examining the Scriptures and praying.

The second thing to learn from Ahab is that the truth may be unpalatable. As I read the passage, I think Ahab knows Micaiah is the one who is right, the one who has actually heard the truth. So why does he reject it? I think it can only be because that truth is unappealing.

False teachers who tell us what we don’t want to hear aren’t much of a danger. It’s the ones who tell us exactly what we want to hear that we must watch out for. Lessons from teachers who tell us that the Christian life is easy and that we will be richly blessed with material things are attractive, but they don’t line up with the many warnings about suffering and persecution. Those who say we have no obligation to God once we accept salvation sound really good, but that message doesn’t match what Paul and James have to say. Paul tells us to work out our salvation, walking in the good works God created us to do. James points out the uselessness of a faith that does not have an active response in good deeds. 

I could go on, but I could never catalog all of the false teaching out there. Instead, we must compare each teaching with the Biblical message.

There is one other way to recognize false teachers, one given to us by Jesus himself in that passage in Matthew 7 about false prophets in sheep’s clothing. He tells us to look at their fruits. The false ones will bear bad fruit. The prophets and teachers who should be trusted live lives that demonstrate their close relationship with Christ. 

We should all work to avoid being fooled by those who offer us pyrite in place of true gold.

Image by Florian Pircher from Pixabay