Whenever I talk to young disciples about false teaching today, I usually begin by helping them make a distinction between flakey teaching and false teaching. Knowing this prevents us from falling out of fellowship with those we disagree with when we have doctrinal differences. Flakey teachers are those whose doctrine or theology is not fully developed. This would include all of us at one time or another. Sometimes our doctrine changes at different phases of our lives, maturing and becoming purer, more practical, and more balanced. There is a big difference between those whose doctrine is imperfect, yet they are teachable, and the teachers whose doctrine is dangerous or deviant and who refuse to be taught or corrected.
 
Most of us are like Apollos, whose theology only went as far as his experience. He had a passion for the word and a zeal for the Lord, but his theology was incomplete. When Priscilla and Aquila approached him, he proved to be open and teachable. As a result, he grew both in his experience and his theology and found a place of ministry in a couple of churches Paul had planted, including the one at Corinth. He was especially effective in refuting legalism (Acts 18:24-28), which was much needed. Luke described Apollos as an on-fire teacher who handled the Scriptures powerfully.
 
What makes false teachers difficult to discern is that they do not carry pitchforks, or have horns on their heads, and long red tails. They look like people we all know and go to church with. Often, they are part of our families. This makes it difficult to remove them from our lives.
 
The most common way the apostles dealt with the disease of false teaching was by taking a scalpel to it, cutting it off. They did this by isolating those who were teaching it, removing them from fellowship, so their ideas would stop spreading from heart to heart or home to home.
 
We need to know how to handle everything from the flakey to false teaching. This study booklet will help you do just that.