False Doctrine - 2 Corinthians 11:4-6

11:4-5 - It's not just the simplicity of the gospel that can cause problems of acceptance for people, but also because there can be those who teach false doctrine. I just finished reading a book called "Visions of Glory" that was interesting and talked about spirits, both good and evil. One of the things that I've always wondered about temptations from Satan is, would he, say, convince someone to write a book about the glory of Christ, but in it include things that are not of Christ and so those who read it would believe that the whole thing is doctrine because it teaches of Christ, but there's false information in it too. I don't know if that makes sense, but Satan is old, he's been around a long time, he's probably the second greatest psychologist of all time, after Jesus of course. He probably knows that it's difficult to take something that someone believes and try to immediately persuade them to believe the opposite thing. Wouldn't it be more effective to take pieces of someone's belief system and start making them doubt little things until they don't believe the basics anymore. For instance, I would imagine that Satan could take our testimony and go, "yes, of course Jesus is the Christ, but do you really think he hears your prayers? He probably hears the important ones, but there are so many people, he doesn't have time to listen to everything." And that makes sense to our mortal understanding because we understand the concept of finite time and resources. So when we're praying we think, "I wonder if Jesus is hearing this prayer." And then we're not so eager to pray anymore because we aren't sure if He's really going to listen to us this time. Or like me, Satan has convinced me that sure Jesus hears all my prayers, but that they don't make a difference in what is going to happen to me. I've believed my whole life that whatever God's will is will happen to me, regardless of how much I ask for intervention or certain blessings or special privileges or anything like that. If I can't affect the outcome of what will happen to me, then why bother trying? That's a really interesting thought. This is what Satan has done to me, he's convinced me that Jesus listens but it doesn't change anything, that my prayers are futile. What's the result of that? Me not really putting very much effort into praying and totally missing out on that rich aspect of my relationship with God. Let's look at the lie Satan told me, because I honestly haven't dissected it like this before. He said that my prayers will not change the outcome of my blessings or the blessings of others. We know from the scriptures that that isn't true. Jesus told the parable of the widow who pestered the judge with her requests to the point that he got sick of her and gave her what she wanted. In Alma 34:24-25 we learn, "cry unto him over the crops of your fields, that ye may prosper in them. Cry over the flocks of your fields, that they may increase." That explicitly states that our prayers can affect our livelihood, our financial situations. Modern day prophets have taught that there are many blessings Jesus wants to give us but can't because we haven't asked for them yet. That sounds like Satan is a liar. How very interesting. Paul notes that Satan, "as the serpent beguiled Even through his subtilty." He told Eve truths but he took them out of context so that she could be convinced to do what he wanted her to do, which was to violate one of God's commandments. So when Paul says to be wary of "he that cometh (and) preacheth another Jesus, whom we have not preached," or a different gospel, I guess the question is, how can we know if we are being deceived? 11:6 - Paul answers that for us when he tells the Corinthians, "we have been thoroughly made manifest among you in all things." The IM talks about the concept of "false teachers" saying, "Paul reasoned that just as Satan himself can appear as an angel of light, the 'false apostles' in Corinth had the appearance of 'ministers of righteousness... Paul invited the Corinthian members to consider if his works among them were signs of a true Apostle that authenticated his ministry." This is an "by their fruits you shall know them," example. I don't think that we are wrong for trying to find out for ourselves whether gospel doctrine is true. In fact, we are encouraged to do so. Some of the questions we can ask ourselves are, "how is this personally affecting the person who is asking us to do this?" For instance, tithing. When we are asked or encouraged to give tithing, does the bishop personally get a new car? Not from my experience. Do the general authorities buy vacation homes with their new found wealth? I don't believe so. So when someone who claims church authority asks for donations, then it's important to figure out their motivations. It's not just money, but service as well, time commitments, etc. Another important consideration is "does this conflict with the scriptures?" For the most part, the scriptures have been deemed the word of God and they don't change very much right now. So when considering if a teaching is false doctrine, then we need to look to the scriptures for answers. It's what the Savior did during his mortal ministry. Just as an example, my prayer misunderstanding was clearly contradicted by teachings found in the scriptures. Teachings that Jesus didn't rise from the dead is clearly disputed by the scriptures. I'm trying to think what other false doctrines there are. How about the teaching that black people were denied the priesthood because of... blah blah blah, fill in the reason, less valiant, not smart enough, etc. All of those reasons were debunked by the scriptures because we learn there that God loves everyone equally and if someone is denied the opportunity to receive the gospel in this life, then they will be compensated in the next life for any loss they experienced here. None of the scriptures tell me that black people were less deserving or worthy of priesthood blessings, only that we as a society and world were unable to be Christ-like enough to be kind to each other. Another false teaching might be that someone was "secretly" ordained or assigned to some calling and we have to accept their teachings and leadership as truth now. Well, we know that only the prophet speaks for God to the whole Church. We know that nothing is done in secret, to prevent this very problem from occurring. There are probably innumerable points of false doctrine that can be discussed, but ultimately what matters is how we deal with them when they come up. We must look at their motivations, we must reference their teachings with scripture, and we must place their teachings within their stewardship. This is a very interesting concept. I'm going to have to think about this.