But They Preach Jesus!

What this page is asking

The author of this site set down a thesis to be tested: “Naming Jesus is not the same as preaching Christ. Scripture and the historic Church have always tested a message by what it says about Christ and what it produces, not by whether it uses his name.”

He described the question he hears like this. Why bother with theology? This or that ministry is preaching the name of Jesus. Isn’t spreading that name what matters most, even if the rest of the message has little to do with the gospel? Who are we to judge? The question, he observed, assumes that the name of Jesus is enough, whatever is said around it. And so he asked whether it matters if:

“If none of this matters,” he asked, “why does the Bible warn again and again about false prophets, false teachers, and wolves in sheep’s clothing?”

He put the question in a form that can be checked: Is the mention of Jesus’ name enough to make a ministry’s message acceptable, whatever else it teaches and does? Or do Scripture and the historic Church require that a message be tested by its content, its centre, and its fruit? If testing is required, what are the tests, and how much error is too much?

He asked for the strongest case for “anything goes” to be presented first, fairly, before anything is tested. Part I does that. He also noted that this question lies under almost every earlier dossier on this site, and asked that this page pull the threads together, linking to the earlier dossiers where a topic has already been covered in detail rather than repeating them. Each Part ends with a box of those links, and Part XVI gathers all of them in one place.

Three ways of answering, labelled so they can be told apart

The page compares three answers to the question. They are given letters so that it can refer to them briefly.

Position N is a real view, held sincerely by many kind people, and it is usually put as a question rather than an argument. Position P is rejected here as firmly as N is tested, because Scripture and the historic Church reject it too (Part XIII). The page is not arguing for suspicion of everyone. It is asking which tests the Bible gives.

What all three agree on

So the disagreement is not about whether the name matters, or whether God works in surprising places. It is about whether the name is sufficient: whether a message carrying it is thereby made safe, whatever else it says and does.

What the page concludes, stated up front

The prompt behind this page

Everything below was produced by giving the following brief to a frontier language model with web search, which assembled and checked the sources. It is published so you can run it yourself, change it, sharpen it, or reverse it and see what comes back. Three experiments are worth more than reading this page. First, reverse it: ask for the strongest possible case that the name of Jesus is enough, and see which texts it rests on and how it reads them in context. Second, narrow it: replace the list of problems with a description of one ministry you know, in your own words and without names, and ask which of the page’s tests it passes. Third, turn it round: ask how your own tradition’s churches have failed these same tests in their history, and what they did about it.

Write a detailed, source-first, interactive article, in British
English, for a general reader who is willing to work. Quote Scripture
from the Authorised Version. Date and attribute every other
quotation: give the work, the edition or translation, and the
section. Verify every quotation against a reliable published source;
where a quotation cannot be verified, cut it, or say that it is
given at second hand. Do not invent quotes. Do not take verses out
of context.

  WORKING TITLE. Propose a title that will resonate with readers.

  THESIS TO TEST. Naming Jesus is not the same as preaching Christ.
  Scripture and the historic Church have always tested a message by
  what it says about Christ and what it produces, not by whether it
  uses his name.

  CORE CLAIM. A question heard often goes like this. Why bother with
  theology? This or that ministry is preaching the name of Jesus.
  Isn't spreading that name what matters most, even if the rest of
  the message has little to do with the gospel? Who are we to judge?
  The question sounds humble and generous. But it assumes that the
  name of Jesus is enough, whatever is said around it. Scripture does
  not assume this. Jesus warned that "many will come in my name" and
  lead many astray (Matthew 24:5). Paul warned of those who preach
  "another Jesus" and "a different gospel" (2 Corinthians 11:4). The
  golden calf was worshiped at "a feast to the LORD" (Exodus 32:5).
  The right name was on the wrong thing. So the real question is not
  whether Jesus is mentioned. It is what is being said about him, and
  what is being done in his name. Does it matter if:
   - the beliefs taught differ from what the Church has confessed
     for 2000 years?
   - being "born again" now means the strength of one's sincerity,
     not the finished work of Christ given through Word and
     Sacrament and received in faith?
   - new teachings come through unverified private revelation?
   - the center has moved from Christ to "me"?
   - the emphasis falls on the minister, not on Christ? Is this a
     new golden calf, the worship of a man?
   - many who lead these ministries live in wealth by collecting
     money from the poorest of the poor, promising them returns on
     their giving?
   - they promise healing that does not happen, and then blame the
     sick person for lacking faith?
   - they prophesy, and what they say does not come true?
   - leaders of major ministries speak in language that would make
     most people blush?
   - some advocate violence, or hatred, in the name of Christ?
   - a pulpit repeatedly threatens immediate death on anyone who
     disagrees with the preacher?
  If none of this matters, why does the Bible warn again and again
  about false prophets, false teachers, and wolves in sheep's
  clothing?

  QUESTION TO TEST. Is the mention of Jesus' name enough to make a
  ministry's message acceptable, whatever else it teaches and does?
  Or do Scripture and the historic Church require that a message be
  tested by its content, its center, and its fruit? If testing is
  required, what are the tests, and how much error is too much?

  POINTS TO TEST.
   1. The strongest case for "anything goes," first: Philippians
      1:15-18; Mark 9:38-40 and Luke 9:49-50; 1 Corinthians 12:3;
      Gamaliel in Acts 5:38-39; people who first heard of Jesus in
      these ministries; "Judge not" (Matthew 7:1); quarreling over
      doctrine as divisive; the historic churches' own scandals.
      Present all of this fairly, then test each point in context.
      Did Paul's rivals in Philippians 1 preach a different Christ,
      or the same Christ with bad motives? Would Paul have rejoiced
      over the preachers of Galatians 1 in the same way?
   2. Another Jesus, another gospel: Galatians 1:8-9; 2 Corinthians
      11:3-4, 13-15; 1 John 4:1-3 (the test is a confession about
      who Jesus is); Jude 3-4; 1 Timothy 4:16; 2 Timothy 4:3-4;
      Galatians 2:5; Acts 17:11. Does the New Testament ever treat
      the name of Jesus as a password that makes a message safe?
   3. Using the name without knowing the Lord: Matthew 24:5, 24;
      7:21-23; the sons of Sceva (Acts 19:13-16); Simon the
      magician (Acts 8:9-24).
   4. The golden calf: Exodus 32:4-5; Jeroboam (1 Kings 12:28). What
      made the worship false if the name was correct? The worship of
      men: Acts 10:25-26; 14:11-15; 12:21-23; Revelation 19:10;
      22:8-9; 1 Corinthians 1:12-13; 3:5-7; John 3:30. Has a
      ministry built around its minister, his anointing, his name
      and his photograph made a new golden calf while still calling
      it a feast to the Lord?
   5. Different beliefs from the Church of 2000 years: the Apostles'
      and Nicene Creeds; Vincent of Lerins, Commonitorium 2.6 (c.
      434); Irenaeus, Against Heresies I preface 2, and the mosaic
      of the king in I.8.1; Tertullian, Prescription Against
      Heretics, on who has the right to interpret the Scriptures.
      Can a message use the same names and verses as the apostles
      and still produce a different picture?
   6. Born again by sincerity, or by God's work? John 3:5; Titus
      3:5; 1 Peter 1:3, 23; "one baptism for the remission of sins."
      In each case God is the one who acts. Where does a person
      whose new birth means the sincerity of his prayer look for
      assurance on a bad day?
   7. New revelation, and a new center: Deuteronomy 13:1-5;
      Galatians 1:8; Montanism in the second century. Then the move
      from Christ to the hearer: purpose, success, breakthrough,
      "your best life now."
   8. Money from the poorest of the poor: 2 Peter 2:2-3; 1 Timothy
      6:5-10; Titus 1:11; 1 Peter 5:2; Micah 3:11; Ezekiel 34:2-4;
      Mark 12:40; Acts 20:33-35; the Didache 11.6 and 11.12. What do
      promised "returns on giving" do to the poor when the returns
      do not come?
   9. Healing that does not come, and prophecy that fails: 2
      Timothy 4:20; 1 Timothy 5:23; Philippians 2:25-27; 2
      Corinthians 12:7-9; John 9:1-3; Deuteronomy 18:20-22 ("thou
      shalt not be afraid of him"); Jeremiah 23:16-32; Ezekiel
      13:1-9.
  10. The fruit test: Matthew 7:15-20; Acts 20:29-30 ("after them");
      Didache 11.8. Speech (Ephesians 4:29; 5:4; Colossians 3:8;
      James 3:9-12). Violence (Matthew 26:52; John 18:36; Romans
      12:14-21). Hatred (Matthew 5:43-44; 1 John 4:20). Threats of
      death (Luke 9:51-56, with the manuscript note on verse 55).
      Describe these as patterns, without naming individuals.
  11. Why it matters: 2 Timothy 2:16-18; Galatians 5:9. What happens
      to a poor family that gave and received nothing, to a sick
      person told their faith was too weak, to a believer whose
      faith rested on a man who falls, to children raised on
      promises that did not come true, to people taught to fear a
      preacher's curse? Is "anything goes" really the loving
      position?
  12. How much error is too much? Romans 14:1-6; Augsburg Confession
      VII and VIII; Augustine against the Donatists. Where does
      Scripture draw the line between a secondary disagreement and a
      different gospel: who Christ is, what he has done, how God
      gives his gifts, who receives the glory?
  13. The same tests apply to every church: the historic churches'
      own failures; the Reformation as a protest against selling
      grace for money; Luther's marks of the Church in On the
      Councils and the Church (1539). Apply the tests to your own
      congregation first.
  14. A test readers can run themselves on any ministry, including
      their own church. Close with 1 Thessalonians 5:21 and let
      readers draw their own conclusions.

EARLIER ARTICLES. This question lies under almost every earlier
article on the site. Summarise each relevant earlier article in a
sentence or two and link to it rather than repeating it.

OBJECTIONS. Present the case for "anything goes" first, at full
strength, in its own Part. Answer other objections inside the
argument, where each one arises. Where the evidence corrects or
qualifies the brief, say so in a marked box.

POSITIONS. Three labelled positions: T, the Tested (held); N, the
Name (under test); P, the Purist, for whom every difference is
another gospel (rejected).

NAMING. No living individual, ministry or congregation named or
identifiable. Describe the problems as patterns. Every modern
example composed and labelled as composed. Deceased writers quoted
from dated, published works.

INTERACTIVES. A priors quiz. The case for "anything goes," weighed
by the reader before it is tested. New Testament figures sorted by
what was wrong with their use of the name. A hunt for a text that
treats the name as a password. Matthew 7:21-23 phrase by phrase.
Scenes sorted by whether the servant redirects honour or accepts
it. Irenaeus' mosaic, rearranged by the reader. Sentences sorted by
who acts in the new birth. Revelation claims sorted by whether they
can be checked. A ledger for a poor family's "seed" giving. The
unhealed believers of the New Testament and who was blamed. Pulpit
remarks matched to the texts that answer them. Differences sorted
into secondary and gospel. The tests applied to the indulgence
preaching of 1517. A checklist for any ministry. An objection drill
the reader answers first. Claims sorted by whether the argument
proves them.

OUTPUT: a single self-contained interactive HTML page, professional
and readable, light theme by default with a dark switch, stating the
question at the top, publishing this prompt in full, repeating the
key points in prominent boxes for readers who skim, explaining every
technical term in a box where it is used, and giving the reader
something to do in every major section. The article may be longer
than usual. Also produce a plain-English quick version with three
short exercises, and a Simple English version with no exercises.

The page you are reading is the output of that brief after the sources were checked. The brief quoted Scripture from a modern version; the page gives it from the Authorised Version, as it does everywhere on this site. Twelve things qualified the brief, and each is marked where it arises.

What do you currently think?

Ten questions. Each has a determinate answer, and you can check every one yourself in the texts listed in Part XIX. Answer them before reading and lock them in. They come back in Part XVIII with the sources beside them.

What follows

The case for “who are we to judge?”

The author asked for the case for “anything goes” to be put first, at full strength, and fairly. Here it is, in eight arguments, as its kindest and most thoughtful defenders would make them. Nothing in this Part is a straw man. Most people who say “but they preach Jesus” are not lazy or careless; they are trying to be generous, and they are worried about a Christianity that spends its energy condemning other Christians. That worry is right, and it comes back in Part XIII.

Try it: weigh the case before it is tested

For each argument, say how convinced you are now. There are no right answers here; the page records nothing, and your answers come back in Part XVIII beside what the rest of the page found.

0 of 8 weighed

The same Christ, or another?

The same apostle who wrote “I therein do rejoice” also wrote “let him be accursed,” and he wrote both about people who were preaching. Either Paul contradicted himself, or the two letters describe two different situations. Reading each passage in its context shows which.

Philippians 1 and Galatians 1, side by side

Notice two things. First, the Galatian teachers did not drop the name of Jesus. They were Christians who preached Christ and added something to him, and that addition was enough for Paul to call it “another gospel.” Second, the Philippian rivals were hurting Paul, and he let it go; the Galatian teachers were hurting the church, and he did not. The apostle was generous about insults to himself and immovable about the content of the message. That is close to the opposite of how the question “who are we to judge?” is usually applied.

Mark 9: “he followeth not us”

John’s complaint about the exorcist was not that he taught something false. It was that “he followeth not us” (Mark 9:38). The man was outside the circle of the Twelve. Jesus’ answer is about the name used in faith: “there is no man which shall do a miracle in my name, that can lightly speak evil of me.” He assumes that a man who really calls on Jesus’ name will not turn round and speak against him. Nothing in the scene suggests the man preached another Jesus.

The same Gospel writers record the other side as well. Matthew’s Jesus says “He that is not with me is against me” (Matthew 12:30); Mark’s Jesus warns, a few chapters later, that “false Christs and false prophets shall rise, and shall shew signs and wonders, to seduce, if it were possible, even the elect” (Mark 13:22). Mark 9 forbids the disciples from treating membership of their group as the test. It does not forbid testing what is said about Jesus. Lesson for the modern reader: “they are not in our denomination” is no reason to reject a ministry. “They preach a different Jesus” is.

1 Corinthians 12:3: what “Jesus is the Lord” meant

Paul’s sentence answers a problem in Corinth. Its members had been “carried away unto these dumb idols” (12:2), and now some of them were speaking in ecstatic states. Paul gives a test, and it is a test of content: no one speaking by the Spirit says “Jesus accursed,” and no one confesses “Jesus is the Lord” except by the Spirit. To confess Jesus as Lord in Corinth was to confess the risen Christ against Caesar and against the idols. It was a creed, not a sound. Jesus himself says the words can be spoken by people he never knew: “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 7:21). So 1 Corinthians 12:3 cannot mean that anyone who says the words is speaking by the Spirit, whatever else he says. It means what John means: “Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God” (1 John 4:2). A confession of who Jesus is.

Gamaliel

Gamaliel was “a doctor of the law” and a member of the council that had just flogged the apostles (Acts 5:34, 40). Luke reports his advice; nowhere does Luke, or any apostle, adopt it as a rule. The two examples Gamaliel gave were Theudas and Judas of Galilee, both of whose movements had collapsed (5:36–37). His point was that God would sort it out in time.

Three things tell against using his counsel as a test of teaching. First, the apostles never used it. They tested Elymas (Acts 13:8–10), the circumcision party (Acts 15), Peter himself (Galatians 2:11–14), and Hymenaeus and Philetus (2 Timothy 2:17–18), and none of them was told to wait and see. Second, survival proves little. The “new prophecy” of Montanus, which the Church rejected in the second century, survived in Phrygia into the sixth century, nearly four hundred years; the Arian Christianity of the Goths and Vandals outlasted several generations. Time sorts some movements; it leaves others standing. Third, Gamaliel spoke to a council deciding whether to kill men. Nobody on this page is proposing to overthrow anyone. The question is whether believers should test what they hear, and on that the apostles left no doubt.

“People came to faith there”

This is the strongest argument in Part I, and the page accepts what is true in it. God’s Word is God’s even when it is preached by unworthy men, and the historic churches have always said so (Part XIII). Where Christ crucified and risen is truly proclaimed, the Spirit works, and people believe. That is why Paul rejoiced in Philippians 1.

But notice what the argument shows. It shows that the true part of the message worked. It does not show that the rest of the message is true, or harmless. A medicine sold in a contaminated bottle still heals; that is a reason to be thankful for the medicine and a reason to fix the bottle, not a reason to say the contamination does not matter. And the argument counts only the people who came to faith. Part XII asks about the others: the people who gave what they could not afford, who were told their faith was too weak to be healed, or who left Christianity entirely when promises failed. A fair count includes them too.

“Judge not”

Read the rest of the chapter. Jesus’ warning against judging (7:1–2) is a warning against the hypocrite who condemns his brother while ignoring his own beam, and it ends: “then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye” (7:5). The very next verse requires discernment: “Give not that which is holy unto the dogs” (7:6). And a few verses later: “Beware of false prophets … Ye shall know them by their fruits” (7:15–16). The same sermon that says “judge not” tells its hearers to recognise false prophets. Elsewhere Jesus says, “Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment” (John 7:24).

“Doctrine divides”

Paul’s answer to divisiveness is direct: “Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them” (Romans 16:17). In Paul’s account, the people who cause division are not those who hold to the apostles’ teaching but those who depart from it. He also warns, in the same letters, against a quarrelling spirit: “the servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient, In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves” (2 Timothy 2:24–25). Both are true. Christians can test a message gently, and should. What they may not do, on Paul’s account, is decline to test it in the name of love. The labels used to dismiss the question (“divisive,” “legalistic,” “warmed-over ashes”) have had their own dossier: 34.

Try it: same Christ, or another?

Eight people or groups in the New Testament used the name of Jesus, or preached Christ in some form. For each, what was wrong?

0 of 8 sorted.

Another Jesus, another gospel

Paul’s sentence to the Corinthians is ironic: “ye might well bear with him” means “you put up with it beautifully.” What he feared was not that they would stop hearing the name of Jesus. It was that they would hear the name attached to “another Jesus,” and not notice. He explains how it happens: “such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light” (11:13–14). A counterfeit does not look like a counterfeit. It looks like the real thing.

The rest of the New Testament says the same in different ways.

Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world. Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God.

1 John 4:1–3 · Authorised Version

John’s test is not whether a spirit uses the name of Jesus. Every spirit he has in mind does. It is whether it confesses who Jesus is: the Christ, come in the flesh. That is a statement of doctrine. In his second letter John makes it a rule for hospitality: “If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house” (2 John 10).

Jude, writing to a church where false teachers had already got in, tells them to “earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. For there are certain men crept in unawares … turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ” (Jude 3–4). They had crept in: they were inside the church, using its words. Paul tells Timothy, “Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine; continue in them: for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself, and them that hear thee” (1 Timothy 4:16), and warns that “the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables” (2 Timothy 4:3–4). The risen Christ praises the church at Ephesus because it “hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars” (Revelation 2:2). And the Bereans are called “more noble” because they checked even Paul: they “searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so” (Acts 17:11).

Try it: hunt for the password

The author asked whether the New Testament ever treats the name of Jesus as a password that makes a message safe. Here are fourteen texts, including every one offered for that view in Part I. Open each and read what it says about the name. The tally counts how many treat the name alone as enough.

Open all fourteen.

Acts 4:12: the name that saves

One text needs a word of its own, because it is the strongest text for the name and it settles the question in the other direction. “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). The name is everything. But Peter has just said which name, and whose: “by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead” (4:10). In Scripture a name stands for the person, what he is and what he has done. To preach the name is to preach that person. That is exactly why “another Jesus” is possible: the sound can stay while the person it names is replaced.

“In thy name”

Jesus did not merely allow that someone might misuse his name. He predicted it, and said it would be common. “Many shall come in my name … and shall deceive many” (Matthew 24:5). “There shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect” (24:24). Notice what the deceivers bring: his name, and great signs. Those are the two things Position N relies on.

The sharpest form of the warning closes the Sermon on the Mount. It comes six verses after “Beware of false prophets.”

Try it: read Matthew 7:21–23 phrase by phrase

Tap or click each underlined phrase.

0 of 10 phrases read.

This passage has been used to frighten ordinary believers into doubting their salvation. Read in its setting, it is aimed at something else: confident public performers whose case rests on their works in the name. That reading, and why it matters, has had its own dossier: 28, Lord, Lord, Did We Not? For this page the point is narrower. Jesus himself says that the name, said correctly and repeatedly, with signs to back it, is no proof that he knows the one who says it.

The sons of Sceva

At Ephesus, “certain of the vagabond Jews, exorcists, took upon them to call over them which had evil spirits the name of the Lord Jesus, saying, We adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preacheth” (Acts 19:13). They had the name exactly right, and even specified which Jesus. The evil spirit answered: “Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are ye?” and the man “overcame them, and prevailed against them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded” (19:15–16). The name used as a formula, by people who did not belong to him, did nothing for them. Luke adds that afterwards “the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified” (19:17): the episode made the name more honoured, not less, because it showed that it was not a spell.

Simon

Simon of Samaria had been a magician whom the city called “the great power of God” (Acts 8:10). When Philip preached, “Simon himself believed also: and when he was baptized, he continued with Philip, and wondered” (8:13). Then he saw the apostles lay on hands, and offered them money: “Give me also this power, that on whomsoever I lay hands, he may receive the Holy Ghost” (8:19). Peter’s reply is the first Christian ruling on money and spiritual power: “Thy money perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money. … thy heart is not right in the sight of God” (8:20–21). Simon had the name, the faith he professed, the baptism and the company of an evangelist. What he wanted was the power for himself, and a price for it. Acts leaves him asking for prayer (8:24); his name has given the English language the word for buying spiritual office, simony.

A feast to the LORD

The golden calf is usually remembered as Israel turning to another god. Read the chapter and something more unsettling appears. When the calf was finished the people said, “These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt” (32:4). They credited it with the exodus that the LORD had done. Aaron then built an altar and proclaimed “a feast to the LORD,” using the covenant name, יהוה, that God had revealed at the burning bush. They offered burnt offerings and peace offerings, the sacrifices of the law (32:6). They did not think they had abandoned the God who brought them out of Egypt. They thought they were worshipping him.

God’s verdict: “they have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them: they have made them a molten calf, and have worshipped it” (32:8).

What made it false, if the name was right?

The chapter gives three answers, and each is worth holding up against a modern ministry.

Five centuries later Jeroboam did it again, deliberately. Afraid that his people would return to the king of Judah if they kept going up to Jerusalem to worship, he made two calves and said, “It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem: behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt” (1 Kings 12:26–28). The same words as Aaron’s. The God of the exodus, in a more convenient form, under a leader’s control. For the rest of the books of Kings, “the sin of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin” is the refrain by which every northern king is measured.

The worship of men

The New Testament is unusually consistent about one thing: when a servant of God is offered honour that belongs to God, he refuses it, at once and publicly.

The one figure in the list who accepted the honour is the one who died of it. The angel refuses it, though an angel is a far greater being than any preacher. And Paul treats a congregation’s attachment to its favourite teacher, even a teacher as orthodox as himself, as a sign that the people are “carnal” (1 Corinthians 3:3).

The author asked whether a ministry built around the person of its minister, his anointing, his name and his photograph, has made a new golden calf while still calling it a feast to the Lord. The page cannot answer that of any particular ministry, and does not try. It can say what the texts say. A ministry in which the minister’s name is bigger than Christ’s, in which blessing is said to flow through his person, and in which questioning him is treated as questioning God, has every feature of the calf except the gold: a visible substitute, a form God did not command, and a god who can be managed through his man. And it has the feature that Herod had and Peter refused.

Try it: who receives the honour?

Eight scenes, five from Scripture and three composed by the page to describe common patterns. In each, does the servant redirect the honour to God, or accept or invite it?

0 of 8 sorted.

The same stones, a different picture

The early Church met Position N’s question in its first two centuries, and it met it in a sharper form than ours. The teachers it rejected were not outsiders attacking the faith. They used the name of Jesus, quoted the apostles, read the Gospels and spoke of the Spirit. Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons and a student of Polycarp, who had known the apostle John, described how they worked:

Error, indeed, is never set forth in its naked deformity, lest, being thus exposed, it should at once be detected. But it is craftily decked out in an attractive dress, so as, by its outward form, to make it appear to the inexperienced (ridiculous as the expression may seem) more true than the truth itself.

Irenaeus, Against Heresies I, preface, 2 (c. 180) · tr. Alexander Roberts and William Rambaut, Ante-Nicene Fathers vol. 1 (1885)

He adds that “a clever imitation in glass casts contempt, as it were, on that precious jewel the emerald,” unless someone who knows jewels is there to test it. Then he gives the image that has come to stand for the whole problem.

Their manner of acting is just as if one, when a beautiful image of a king has been constructed by some skilful artist out of precious jewels, should then take this likeness of the man all to pieces, should rearrange the gems, and so fit them together as to make them into the form of a dog or of a fox, and even that but poorly executed; and should then maintain and declare that this was the beautiful image of the king which the skilful artist constructed, pointing to the jewels which had been admirably fitted together by the first artist to form the image of the king.

Irenaeus, Against Heresies I.8.1 (c. 180) · tr. Roberts and Rambaut

Irenaeus is talking about the words of Scripture. The heretics did not bring new stones. They used the real ones: real verses, real names, real promises. What they changed was the arrangement, and so the picture. And it worked, he says, on those “who had no conception what a king’s form was like.” The defence against it was to know the original picture well enough to see that the new one was a fox.

Try it: rearrange the stones

Nine stones, every one of them a real Christian word. Choose an arrangement and watch the same stones move. Then tap any stone to see what it means in that picture. The second and third arrangements are composed by the page to describe common patterns; no one is quoted.

How the Church knew the original picture

Irenaeus’ answer was the “rule of truth” received at baptism: one God the Father, Creator; one Christ Jesus, the Son of God, incarnate for our salvation; and the Holy Spirit, who proclaimed through the prophets the dispensations of God (Against Heresies I.10.1). The same outline, in fixed words, became the Apostles’ Creed in the West and, after the Arian crisis, the Nicene Creed (325, enlarged at Constantinople in 381). The Nicene Creed has been confessed by Orthodox, Catholics, Lutherans, Anglicans and the Reformed for more than sixteen hundred years. It is the picture of the king that every tradition agrees on.

About 434, Vincent, a monk of the island of Lérins off the south coast of Gaul, asked how an ordinary believer could tell the true faith from a clever rearrangement when both quoted Scripture. His answer has become proverbial:

Moreover, in the Catholic Church itself, all possible care must be taken, that we hold that faith which has been believed everywhere, always, by all. … This rule we shall observe if we follow universality, antiquity, consent.

Vincent of Lérins, Commonitorium 2.6 (c. 434) · Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, second series, vol. 11

Vincent’s rule is not “whatever is old is right”; he argues elsewhere in the same work that doctrine can grow in understanding as a body grows, but must remain the same body. It is a test for novelty: a teaching that the Church has never held, anywhere, at any time, bears a heavy burden of proof.

Tertullian, writing about 200, made the same point from a different angle. In his Prescription Against Heretics he argues that before anyone debates particular texts with a new teacher, the prior question must be settled: “with whom lies that very faith to which the Scriptures belong” (19). His challenge to the new teachers was historical: “Let them produce the original records of their churches; let them unfold the roll of their bishops” (32), and show that what they teach was taught from the beginning.

The author asked whether a message can use the same names and verses as the apostles and still produce a different picture. Irenaeus answered yes in about 180, and gave the Church its defence: know the original picture, keep it in the words the whole Church has used, and test every new arrangement against it.

Born again by whom?

A message can keep the phrase “born again” and change who does the work. The author put the question this way: what happens when being born again comes to mean how sincerely a person prayed, or how strongly they feel, rather than the finished work of Christ, given through Word and Sacrament and received in faith?

Start with the grammar of the texts. “Born” is something that happens to a person. Nobody gives birth to himself.

1. “Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.”John 3:5. The verb is passive: a man is born, of water and the Spirit.
2. “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost.”Titus 3:5. He saved us; the means is a washing; what is excluded is “works … which we have done.”
3. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”1 Peter 1:3. God is the subject; the cause is his mercy and Christ’s resurrection.
4. “Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.”1 Peter 1:23. The seed is God’s Word.
5. “Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth.”James 1:18. His will, his Word.
6. “I acknowledge one Baptism for the remission of sins.”The Nicene Creed (381), in the Book of Common Prayer’s wording. What is acknowledged is God’s gift, once given.

Faith is not optional in any of this. The historic churches all teach that the gift is received by faith, and that faith itself is God’s gift (Ephesians 2:8). Conversion, repentance and a real change of heart are Christian, and many Christians remember the day they first believed. The question is not whether a person believes and turns. It is what the new birth rests on: on what God has done and given, which can be pointed to, or on the quality of what the person did and felt, which cannot.

Try it: who is the subject of the sentence?

Nine sentences about the new birth. Six are from Scripture and the Creed; three are composed by the page in the style of a common modern appeal. In each, who is the one acting?

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Where do you look on a bad day?

The practical difference shows up when things go wrong. Suppose a believer is depressed, or has fallen into a sin he hates, or simply feels nothing in prayer for months. If his new birth rests on how sincere he was when he prayed, the only place to look is inward, at a memory of his own state of mind, and the worse he feels now, the less he trusts that memory. If it rests on what God has done, he can look outward: Christ died for him, God’s Word was spoken to him, water was poured on him in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. Those things are not less true on a bad day.

New revelation, new centre

Two of the author’s questions belong together: what happens when a ministry’s teaching rests on private revelations no one can check, and what happens when its centre moves from Christ to the hearer. The first changes where the message comes from. The second changes what it is about.

Even if the sign comes true

If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder, And the sign or the wonder come to pass, whereof he spake unto thee, saying, Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them; Thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams: for the LORD your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul.

Deuteronomy 13:1–3 · Authorised Version

This is the most surprising test in Scripture. The prophet’s sign comes true. He is still to be refused, because of where he leads. Signs do not validate a message; the message must already agree with what God has revealed. Paul applies the same rule to the highest conceivable messenger: “though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you … let him be accursed” (Galatians 1:8). If an angel cannot add to the gospel, no dream or private word can.

The new prophecy of the second century

The Church met this in about 170, in Phrygia in Asia Minor. A recent convert named Montanus, with two women prophets, Priscilla and Maximilla, began to speak in ecstatic states, claiming that the Paraclete promised by Jesus was speaking through them with new commands beyond the apostles’. On most points of doctrine they were orthodox, and the movement later won Tertullian. What the churches of Asia tested was the claim itself. Eusebius preserves an anonymous writer of the time:

he became beside himself, and being suddenly in a sort of frenzy and ecstasy, he raved … prophesying in a manner contrary to the constant custom of the Church handed down by tradition from the beginning.

An anonymous opponent of Montanus, in Eusebius, Church History V.16.7 (written c. 190s; Eusebius c. 325) · tr. A. C. McGiffert, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, second series, vol. 1

The same writer then did what Deuteronomy 18 says to do (Part X). Maximilla had “prophesied wars and anarchy.” He pointed out that more than thirteen years had passed since her death and “there has been neither a partial nor general war in the world” (V.16.18–19). The Church tested the new prophecy by its content, against what had been handed down from the beginning, and by its results, against what actually happened. It did not test it by whether its prophets spoke of Jesus. They did.

Try it: could anyone check this?

Eight claims of revelation, composed by the page to describe common patterns. For each, how could a hearer test it?

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From Christ to me

The second shift is quieter. The message still speaks about Jesus, but Jesus becomes the means and the hearer becomes the end: your purpose, your success, your breakthrough, your best life. Jesus met it on the day after he fed the five thousand: “Ye seek me, not because ye saw the miracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves, and were filled” (John 6:26). When he told them that he himself was the bread, “many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him” (6:66). A message whose centre is the hearer can keep every Christian word, as Part VI’s second arrangement shows, while the picture becomes a portrait of the person in the pew.

Money from the poorest

Micah’s sentence could stand as the epigraph of this whole page. The prophets he condemns take money for their words, “yet will they lean upon the LORD, and say, Is not the LORD among us?” They used the name. They were sure God was with them. Micah says that, because of them, “shall Zion for your sake be plowed as a field” (3:12).

The New Testament names greed as a mark of the false teacher more often than almost anything else.

The earliest Christian church manual outside the New Testament turned this into a working rule for congregations visited by travelling preachers.

And when the apostle goes away, let him take nothing but bread until he lodges; but if he ask money, he is a false prophet. … But whoever says in the Spirit, Give me money, or something else, you shall not listen to him; but if he says to you to give for others’ sake who are in need, let no one judge him.

The Didache 11.6, 11.12 (late first or early second century) · tr. M. B. Riddle, Ante-Nicene Fathers vol. 7

The rule is careful. Asking for money for the needy is not suspect; asking for it for oneself, “in the Spirit,” is the sign of a false prophet. When the Church came to assess Montanus, a second-century critic named Apollonius made the same observation: Montanus “appointed collectors of money” and “contrived the receiving of gifts under the name of offerings,” and Apollonius asked, of one of the prophetesses, “When therefore I see the prophetess receiving gold and silver and costly garments, how can I avoid reproving her?” (Eusebius, Church History V.18.2, 4).

When the return does not come

The author asked what promised “returns on giving” do to the poor when the returns do not come. The usual text is the parable of the sower, with its harvest of “some thirty, some sixty, and some an hundred” (Mark 4:20). Jesus explains the seed himself: “The sower soweth the word” (4:14). The harvest is the Word bearing fruit in hearers. Nothing in the parable concerns money given to a preacher.

The ledger below makes the arithmetic visible for one household. The figures are composed, and in no currency; set them to whatever is realistic where you live.

Three things happen when the return does not come, and the ledger can show only the first. The family is poorer. Then it is told why: the seed was given grudgingly, or the faith was weak, or there is sin in the house. And then it is asked to give again. Each step uses the name of Jesus. None is found in his teaching. Jesus praised the widow who gave her last coins, but he praised her in the same breath as he condemned those who “devour widows’ houses,” and the gift he praised was given to God’s temple, with no promise of a return.

Healing that does not come, prophecy that fails

God heals. He healed in the Gospels and in Acts, and Christians of every tradition pray for the sick and have seen them recover. This page does not argue about whether God can heal today; he can, whenever he wills. The question is narrower: whether Scripture promises healing to everyone with enough faith, so that a sick person who is not healed must be lacking it.

The New Testament answers by its examples. The apostle through whom “special miracles” were done at Ephesus (Acts 19:11) left one of his own companions ill. He told his closest disciple to take wine for his stomach and “thine often infirmities” (1 Timothy 5:23). He nearly lost another, Epaphroditus, who “was sick nigh unto death: but God had mercy on him” (Philippians 2:27). He preached to the Galatians “through infirmity of the flesh” (Galatians 4:13). He asked three times for his own thorn to be taken away and was told, “My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:7–9).

Try it: who was blamed?

Seven people in Scripture who were ill or suffering, and were not, or not at once, healed. For each, what does Scripture say about it?

James 5:14–15 is often cited the other way: “the prayer of faith shall save the sick.” But notice whose prayer it is. The sick person calls “for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him.” If anyone’s faith is in view, it is the praying elders’. The text gives no permission to tell a sick person that his own faith has failed.

When the prophecy fails

And if thou say in thine heart, How shall we know the word which the LORD hath not spoken? When a prophet speaketh in the name of the LORD, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him.

Deuteronomy 18:21–22 · Authorised Version

Look at the phrase: the false prophet “speaketh in the name of the LORD.” The name is exactly what he has. Moses gives Israel a test that does not depend on it: does what he said happen? And then a permission that many hearers have never been given: “thou shalt not be afraid of him.” A preacher whose predictions fail has, on Moses’ test, spoken presumptuously, and his hearers are released from fearing him.

Jeremiah describes the same men in his own day: “they speak a vision of their own heart, and not out of the mouth of the LORD” (23:16). “I have heard what the prophets said, that prophesy lies in my name, saying, I have dreamed, I have dreamed” (23:25). And Ezekiel: “They have seen vanity and lying divination, saying, The LORD saith: and the LORD hath not sent them: and they have made others to hope that they would confirm the word” (13:6). In each case the false prophet speaks in God’s name, and in each case the test is whether God has actually said it.

By their fruits

Jesus did not tell his hearers to test prophets by their crowds, their buildings or their miracles. Matthew 7:22 has already shown that miracles can be done in his name by people he never knew. He told them to test by fruit: “Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit” (7:16–17). And the wolves come “in sheep’s clothing”: they look like the flock.

Paul told the elders at Ephesus where the wolves would come from. “After my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them” (Acts 20:29–30). Not after Christ: after them. The Didache gives the same test in its own words: “not every one that speaks in the Spirit is a prophet; but only if he hold the ways of the Lord. Therefore from their ways shall the false prophet and the prophet be known” (11.8). And: “every prophet who teaches the truth, if he do not what he teaches, is a false prophet” (11.10).

The author named four kinds of fruit. Each is described here as a pattern; no one is named or described.

The fourth pattern deserves one more sentence. The disciples in Luke 9 wanted fire on people who had rejected Jesus. A pulpit that threatens death on people who disagree with the preacher asks for more than James and John did, on behalf of a lesser person, and Jesus refused even them.

Try it: which text answers this?

Six remarks of a kind heard from some pulpits, composed by the page to describe patterns. For each, which text answers it most directly?

What happens to real people

Doctrine is not a hobby for theologians. Paul’s word for the effect of false teaching is gangraina, gangrene (“canker” in the Authorised Version): a rot that spreads from one place into the living body. And his example is specific. Two named men taught one wrong thing, that the resurrection had already happened, and in Paul’s words it did “overthrow the faith of some.” Elsewhere: “A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump” (Galatians 5:9).

The question “who are we to judge?” is usually asked about a ministry. It looks different if it is asked about the people in the room. Choose one.

Is “anything goes” the loving position?

This is the heart of the objection in Part I, so it deserves a direct answer. Love, Paul says, “rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth” (1 Corinthians 13:6), and the Church grows up into Christ by “speaking the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15). Both halves matter. Testing a message harshly, with contempt for those who hold it, is unloving. But declining to test it at all is not neutral. It leaves the poorest, the sickest and the youngest to find out for themselves, usually at their own cost, what the rest of us could have told them. Ezekiel’s charge against the shepherds was not that they taught too much doctrine. It was: “The diseased have ye not strengthened, neither have ye healed that which was sick, neither have ye bound up that which was broken” (34:4).

How much error is too much?

Fairness requires this Part, and it is where Position P is rejected. Not every disagreement is “another gospel.” Christians have always disagreed, charitably, about many things, and the same Paul who wrote Galatians 1 wrote Romans 14. In Rome, some believers ate meat and some only vegetables; some kept certain days holy and some treated every day alike. Paul’s instruction: “Let not him that eateth despise him that eateth not; and let not him which eateth not judge him that eateth: for God hath received him. … Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind” (14:3, 5). These differences were real, and Paul refused to let either side condemn the other.

The Lutheran reformers wrote the same distinction into their confession:

And unto the true unity of the Church, it is sufficient to agree concerning the doctrine of the Gospel and the administration of the Sacraments. Nor is it necessary that human traditions, rites, or ceremonies instituted by men should be alike every where.

The Augsburg Confession, Article VII (1530) · tr. C. P. Krauth, in Philip Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom vol. 3

And they rejected the opposite error too, that a minister’s bad character cancels the Word he speaks:

Though the Church be properly the congregation of saints and true believers, yet seeing that in this life many hypocrites and evil persons are mingled with it, it is lawful to use the Sacraments administered by evil men … And the Sacraments and the Word are effectual, by reason of the institution and commandment of Christ, though they be delivered by evil men.

The Augsburg Confession, Article VIII (1530) · tr. Krauth, in Schaff vol. 3. The article goes on to condemn “the Donatists and such like.”

The Donatists of fourth-century North Africa held that sacraments given by clergy who had lapsed in persecution were void. Augustine’s answer became the Church’s: the minister is not the one who gives the gift. “Peter may baptize, but this is He that baptizes; Paul may baptize, yet this is He that baptizes; Judas may baptize, still this is He that baptizes” (Tractates on the Gospel of John 6.7, c. 407). So bad character alone does not make a message false. That is why Paul could rejoice in Philippians 1, and why people really do come to faith through flawed preachers.

Where Scripture draws the line

The author asked where Scripture draws the line between a secondary disagreement and a different gospel. Reading Galatians, Colossians, 1 John, 2 Corinthians 11 and Jude together, the texts that use the strongest language all concern one of four questions.

Try it: secondary, serious, or the gospel itself?

Fifteen differences. Sort each one. The page’s reading is given after each, with its reason; on several, thoughtful Christians draw the line elsewhere, and the reason says why the page draws it where it does.

0 of 15 sorted.

Now look back at the author’s list at the top of the page. Most of its items fall in the third column: they change who receives the glory (the minister at the centre), how God gives his gifts (the new birth by sincerity, healing by the strength of faith, returns for giving), or where the faith comes from (private revelation). Others, such as crude speech and failed predictions, fall in the second: they do not necessarily change the gospel, but Scripture says they disqualify the man and release the hearer from fearing him. Almost none of them belong to Romans 14.

The same tests for every church

Argument 8 in Part I was that the historic churches have their own false teachers and scandals, and so have no standing to test anyone. The first half is true, and this page grants it without qualification. Churches that confess the creeds have harboured greed, abuse, cruelty and lies, sometimes for generations. Confessing the right faith has never protected anyone from failing the fruit test.

But the second half does not follow. Jesus’ saying about the beam ends: “first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye” (Matthew 7:5). It sets an order, not a ban. And the tests on this page are not the property of one tradition. The Reformation itself began when a monk applied them to his own Church.

The indulgence preaching of 1517

In 1517 indulgences were being preached in Germany to raise money for the rebuilding of St Peter’s in Rome. The preachers used the name of Christ and the full authority of the Church. Martin Luther, a priest and professor who would have recited the Nicene Creed every week, wrote ninety-five theses against the practice. Among them:

27. They preach only human doctrines who say that as soon as the money clinks into the money chest, the soul flies out of purgatory.

32. Those who believe that they can be certain of their salvation because they have indulgence letters will be eternally damned, together with their teachers.

50. Christians are to be taught that if the pope knew the exactions of the indulgence preachers, he would rather that the basilica of St. Peter were burned to ashes than built up with the skin, flesh, and bones of his sheep.

62. The true treasure of the church is the most holy gospel of the glory and grace of God.

Martin Luther, Ninety-Five Theses (1517) · Luther’s Works vol. 31

Read those four theses against the tests of this page: a return promised for money, assurance placed in something other than Christ, the poor fleeced to fund a building, and the gospel displaced from the centre. A Church with the creeds, the sacraments and an unbroken history failed all of them. The Catholic Church itself later agreed about the abuse: the Council of Trent, in 1562, abolished the office of the alms-collectors who had preached indulgences for money (Session XXI, chapter 9).

Try it: run the tests on 1517

Six questions about the indulgence preaching of 1517. Does it pass each test?

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How Luther said the Church is recognised

Twenty-two years later, in On the Councils and the Church (1539), Luther asked how an ordinary Christian could recognise the true Church at all, if bishops and councils could err. He gave seven marks by which “the holy Christian people” are known, and none of them is a name or a label:

1. The Word of God, preached and believed.
2. Baptism, rightly given.
3. The Sacrament of the Altar, rightly given and received.
4. The office of the keys, sins forgiven and retained, publicly and privately.
5. Ministers called and ordained to serve these gifts.
6. Prayer, public praise and thanksgiving, and the catechism.
7. The holy possession of the sacred cross: suffering, borne for Christ’s sake.

Summarised from On the Councils and the Church (1539), Part III, Luther’s Works vol. 41.

Every mark is something done, given or suffered, and something that can be observed. The seventh is the most striking for this page: Luther counts the cross, not success, among the signs of the true Church. A message that promises its hearers an escape from suffering has removed one of his marks.

A test you can run yourself

The author asked for a checklist readers can apply to any ministry, including their own church. Here it is, drawn from the tests in Parts III to XIII. Each question points back to the Part where its text is set out.

1. Who is at the centre of the sermon: Christ, the hearer, or the preacher?Parts V, VI and VIII · 1 Corinthians 2:2; John 3:30
2. What is the human problem, and what is the promise? Sin and forgiveness, or lack and breakthrough?Parts VI and VIII · 1 Corinthians 15:3–4
3. Is what is taught consistent with the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds?Part VI · Jude 3
4. Where does the new birth, and your assurance, rest: on what God has done and given, or on your sincerity?Part VII · Titus 3:5
5. Does any teaching rest on revelation that no one else can check?Part VIII · Deuteronomy 13; Galatians 1:8
6. Where does the money go, and who checks?Part IX · 2 Corinthians 8:20–21; Didache 11
7. Have the prophecies come true?Part X · Deuteronomy 18:22
8. When healing does not come, who is blamed?Part X · 2 Timothy 4:20; John 9:3
9. Does the minister accept honour that belongs to Christ?Part V · Acts 10:26; 12:23
10. Is there anyone the minister answers to?Parts V and XIII · 1 Timothy 5:19–20
11. What does the pulpit say about enemies, and about those who disagree?Part XI · Matthew 5:44; Luke 9:55
12. Is the speech from the pulpit fit to be repeated in front of children?Part XI · Ephesians 4:29

Try it: run it on a ministry you know

Think of one ministry: your own church is the best place to start. Answer each question. Nothing is recorded or sent anywhere, and the result is a pointer to the Parts worth rereading, not a verdict on anyone.

Then do what Scripture says: “Prove all things; hold fast that which is good” (1 Thessalonians 5:21). Both halves are commands. The verse does not say “reject everything,” and it does not say “accept everything that names Jesus.” It says test, and keep what is good. The conclusions are yours to draw.

What the argument proves

The argument of this page is narrow, and it is easy to claim too much for it. It does not show that any particular ministry is false, that any preacher is a wolf, or that anyone who came to faith in a flawed ministry has a false faith. It names no one and reads no one’s heart.

What it tests is one claim: that the name of Jesus is enough to make a message acceptable, whatever else it teaches and does. On that claim the evidence runs one way.

Try it: does the argument prove this?

Eight claims. Does the argument of this page establish each one, or not?

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Your verdict

Two questions. Nothing is recorded.

Your answers, revisited

Here are the ten questions you answered before reading, with what the sources say, followed by how convinced you were by each argument in Part I and what the page found when it tested it. If you skipped the quiz, go back to the questions, lock in your answers, and return.

Check it yourself

Sixteen items. Nearly everything here is free and online. If you read only three, read the first three. If you do only one thing, do the last.

1. 1. Philippians 1:12–18 and Galatians 1:1–2:5. Read these first. Twenty minutes. Note what is wrong in each case, and what Paul does about it.
2. 2. Exodus 32 and 1 Kings 12:25–33. Read these first. Fifteen minutes. Note every time God’s name or his exodus is mentioned in connection with the calves.
3. 3. Matthew 7:1–29. Read this first. Ten minutes. Read “judge not” and “beware of false prophets” as one sermon.
4. 4. On testing: 1 John 4:1–6; 2 John 7–11; 2 Corinthians 11:1–15; Jude 3–4; Acts 17:10–12; Revelation 2:2; 1 Thessalonians 5:19–22; Romans 16:17–18.
5. 5. On the name: Matthew 24:4–5, 23–27; Mark 9:38–41; Acts 4:7–12; 8:9–24; 19:11–20; 1 Corinthians 12:1–3.
6. 6. On honour: Acts 10:25–26; 12:20–24; 14:8–18; 1 Corinthians 1:10–17; 3:1–9; John 3:25–30; Revelation 19:10; 22:8–9.
7. 7. On prophets, money and the sick: Deuteronomy 13:1–5; 18:15–22; Jeremiah 23:9–32; Ezekiel 13; 34:1–10; Micah 3; 1 Timothy 6:3–10; Titus 1:10–11; 2 Peter 2:1–3; 2 Corinthians 12:7–10; Philippians 2:25–30; 2 Timothy 4:20; John 9:1–7; James 5:13–16.
8. 8. On fruit: Matthew 7:15–20; Acts 20:28–35; Galatians 5:19–23; Ephesians 4:25–5:4; James 3:1–12; Luke 9:51–56 (with a modern translation’s note on verse 55); Matthew 26:51–52; John 18:36; Romans 12:14–21.
9. 9. The Didache, chapters 11–13. Short and free at New Advent and Early Christian Writings. Read it as a congregation’s handbook for visiting preachers.
10. 10. Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Book I preface, I.8.1 and I.10.1–2. Free at New Advent. Read the mosaic passage and then the rule of truth that answers it.
11. 11. Tertullian, Prescription Against Heretics 15–21 and 32–37, and Vincent of Lérins, Commonitorium 2–3 and 23. Free at New Advent.
12. 12. Eusebius, Church History V.16–18, on Montanus, Maximilla and the collectors of money. Free at New Advent.
13. 13. The Augsburg Confession (1530), Articles VII and VIII, and Augustine, Tractates on the Gospel of John 5–6, on who baptises.
14. 14. Luther, Ninety-Five Theses (1517), and On the Councils and the Church (1539), Part III; and the Council of Trent, Session XXI (1562), Decree on Reformation, chapter 9.
15. 15. Earlier dossiers: Part XVI gathers every one this page draws on. If you read only three, read 24 (the Creed), 38 (money and merit) and 44 (healing).
16. 16. One sermon. Do this one. Take the last sermon you heard, in your own church first. Write down, in one sentence each, who was at its centre, what the problem was, and what was promised. Then read 1 Corinthians 15:1–4 and compare. Nobody else needs to see it.

No living individual, ministry or congregation is named, described or identifiable on this page. Every modern remark, scene, claim and person is composed for illustration and quoted from no one. This page tests teaching and patterns of conduct; it does not judge any person’s faith, sincerity, salvation or standing before God, and it does not tell anyone whether to stay in or leave a church.