A398 : by Tony Garland 
The heart of your question is this: How can I learn to choose some truths from some teachers and support them and on the other hand avoid embracing doctrines or ideas that seem strange or unbiblical?
This is an excellent question—and one that I myself struggled with the first few years that I was a believer: how to find a reliable teacher who always teaches the Bible accurately? (Especially since there is only One!  )
It was frustrating at times: just about the time I felt I had found a reliable teacher then he would teach something that seemed it might not be quite right. This was compounded by the fact, as a new believer, I wasn't well-equipped to discern bad teaching from good teaching.
It made me want to give up on all human teachers and only learn from the isolationist’s trinity: “me, the Bible, and the Holy Spirit.” After all, if no human teacher was 100% reliable, maybe I should just avoid all of them?
But I also had experienced how much more quickly I could learn under a good teacher—and especially realized how much longer it would take me on my own to understand puzzling passages of Scripture. I also received help in identifying and avoiding bad doctrine by teachers. Then too, I saw passages in Scripture which indicated it was God's design that fallen, imperfect teachers are given to the Church as a primary means by which we are to grow in our understanding and maturity.
For example:
11 And He Himself [Christ] 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 (Ephesians 4:11-13)
As much as I disliked the idea of learning from imperfect teachers, it became clear it was an important part of God's design for believers—in order to be equipped and to become mature Christians.
But... how was I to know, especially as a new believer, which were good teachers I could learn from and which were bad ones I should avoid?
With the exception of Jesus, all human teachers—being imperfect—fall into two classes: (1) heretical teachers — teach things which are unorthodox and spiritually dangerous; (2) orthodox teachers — make mistakes at times, but stay within the confines of Christian orthodoxy—their teaching preserves the core elements of the Christian faith.
We want to completely avoid teachers in category #1 and sit at the feet of teachers in category #2.
As a brand-new believer this is a special challenge because we aren't well-enough established in our understanding of Christian doctrine to know what teachings are orthodox (trustworthy, based on clear teachings found in Scripture and embraced by Christians through the ages) vs. heretical — outside the pale of Christian instruction as found within the Bible.
For the new believer, the best safety net is to plug into an established Christian fellowship in your area. Ideally, such a fellowship will be led by not just one, but multiple eldersa. This may not be a foolproof way to begin, but it is much safer than trying to assess correct teaching on your own. Besides that, it is God's will that we be in regular face-to-face fellowship with other believers (Heb. 10:24-25). This will help us to avoid heretical teaching and allow time for us to grow in our understanding of Scripture so we are less likely to imbibe bad teaching.
Assuming we are participating in an orthodox Christian fellowship, we then encounter the second issue: that different Godly teachers of Scripture have different viewpoints on secondary aspects of what the Bible teaches. (They agree on teachings of primary importance or else one or more would not be orthodox.) How do we handle this?
We need to rely on our own growing understanding and discernment of Scripture — aided by the Holy Spirit — to help us in this. Since these areas will be of secondary importance, they need not be a large concern — not aspects that we need to divide or separate over. If we feel our understanding on a topic is more Scripturally-based than that of another believer, then we should be able to “agree to disagree” until God gives us more light on the topic. We need to realize, until we are perfected by glorification, we are all growing in our understandingb and none of us has “arrived.”
From a practical point of view, this means that we need to follow the inspired advice of Paul — “test all things; hold fast what is good” (1Th. 5:21). We need to be like the believers in Berea who were, “more fair-minded than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so” (Acts 17:11).
This also underscores how important it is for us to immerse ourselves in God's word because the only way we can reliably detect erroneous teaching—and discern whether it is of primary or secondary importance—is by measuring it against the Scriptures. If we don't know the Scriptures then we can't discern truth and error.
The specific case you mentioned in your question involves variations in the teaching of men who are orthodox in their views and have lifelong fruitful ministries serving God. Because they are part of God's gift to the Church (Ephesians 4), we do not want to throw out all their teaching the first time we come across something we disagree with based on our own examination of Scripture. So we need to evaluate their teaching—gleaning from the good and picking around areas of disagreement. This advice assumes that we are not including heretical teachings in the mix—but different strands and viewpoints within orthodoxy.
This is the point of view I express concerning some teachers with whom I disagree. Examples which come to mind would be John MacArthur's views on aspects of Lordship salvation or limited atonement, or the late R.C. Sproule's views on eschatology (prophecy) and Israel in the plan of God. I disagree with these (and other teachers) regarding aspects of what they teach or emphasize, but I also appreciate and benefit from men like these—being gifted teachers of orthodoxy—as part of God's gift to the Church in our generation and have learned many valuable things from them in spite of our differences on these secondary issues.
As another example: although all the teachers on our website hold to our doctrinal statementc, our views may vary on other aspects of Scripture (e.g., whether faith is a gift from Godd).
In summary,
- We should avoid unorthodox teachers entirely—even if other parts of their teaching is insightful or accurate
- We can't afford to reject instruction from Godly men who are orthodox in their teaching and whom God has raised up to equip our generation—even though imperfect
- It is vital that we continue to grow in our own understanding of Scripture so we can more accurately discern when a teacher in category #2 may be teaching or emphasizing something which we do not believe represents the balance of Biblical teaching on the topic
May you, and others—who find value in the teachings offered at our website—apply these principles when evaluating our teachers too.
Blessings - Tony
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