Discerning Unsound Doctrine: The Battle For Sound Minds

Discerning Unsound Doctrine: The Battle For Sound Minds

Introduction
When we speak of sound doctrine it is useful in discernment, to review scripture as to what is unsound doctrine or teachings. The apostle Paul treats doctrine not as an abstract system, but as a force that either stabilizes or destabilizes the mind. Sound doctrine produces maturity, coherence, and freedom in Christ; unsound doctrine produces captivity, confusion, and perpetual immaturity. For this reason, Scripture does not merely commend right teaching—it commands discernment, exposure, and rebuke of what is false. The battle for faithfulness is therefore a battle for how believers think, reason, interpret truth, and reality in Christ.

I. Sound Doctrine and the Warfare of the Mind

Paul does speak of spiritual warfare and even names the presence of “doctrines of demons,” yet he is careful to distinguish between the spiritual sources of deception and the human means through which they operate. The New Testament consistently locates the conflict within teaching and persuasion rather than physical force. In Ephesians 4, the danger is false teaching arising from human cunning and craftiness in deceitful schemes; in 2 Timothy 2:24–26, people are taken captive by the devil through error and must be corrected with gentleness; and in Colossians 2:8, believers are warned against being taken captive through philosophy and human tradition.

The mark of such warfare is not maturity but instability—believers are blown about like a ship in strong winds—where those winds are deceitful doctrines, even though the ultimate conflict remains against spiritual forces rather than flesh and blood (Ephesians 4:14; Ephesians 6:12). In 2 Corinthians 10:4–5, the struggle is directed against arguments and raised structures that oppose the knowledge of God. John in 1 John 4:1-6, speaks of a "spirit of error" which refers to deceptive teachings and false prophets leading people away, and a "spirit of truth" which is from God and guides one into truth.

Thoughts are either brought into obedience to Christ or they become instruments of captivity. Without knowledge of the truth, believers cannot discern what must be taken captive; instead, they themselves are taken captive by unsound teaching (2 Timothy 2:23–26). Without knowledge and understanding they have no basis to discern. 

This explains why Paul repeatedly warns against foolish controversies and deceptive teaching. Unsound doctrine does not simply misinform—it reshapes perception. The mind loses a stable center, becoming vulnerable to manipulation and fear. The Reformation itself stands as historical testimony to this danger. When Scripture was withheld and doctrine distorted, entire populations were led astray under religious authority.

Prior to the Reformation, access to Scripture was largely restricted to the clerical class. The Bible was preserved and read in languages inaccessible to the common people, leaving interpretation and teaching concentrated in the hands of those who held institutional power. This imbalance made it easy to introduce doctrines and practices that had no grounding in Scripture, while presenting them as divinely mandated truth.

Teachings such as the sale of indulgences, the veneration of relics as channels of grace, prescribed pilgrimages—including journeys to the so‑called “holy land”—and transactional penance systems were imposed upon consciences without biblical warrant. These practices did not merely misteach; they functioned as mechanisms of control, binding people through fear, obligation, and dependence on clerical mediation.

Financial exploitation followed naturally, as forgiveness, blessing, and assurance were effectively monetized. In such an environment, authority replaced truth, and doctrine ceased to form mature faith, instead producing submission without understanding.

II. Elders, Maturity, and the Obligation to Rebuke

In Titus 1:9, Paul defines spiritual maturity and fitness for leadership not by charisma or status, but by doctrinal fidelity. Elders are to hold firmly to the trustworthy word so that they may both encourage with sound doctrine and refute those who contradict it. Sound doctrine is described as healthy—beneficial to those who receive it—while false teaching is something that must be exposed and put to the test.

Rebuke, in this framework, is not divisive by nature; it is protective. Historically, however, systems of sacralized authority inverted this logic, treating truth-tellers as threats to unity. Early reformers who spoke from Scripture were accused of disturbing the peace, sowing division, and opposing God Himself. Such systems did not merely suppress dissent; they criminalized truth, branding it heresy and enforcing silence through fear, even to the point of execution.

In this light, the Reformation was not an act of needless rebellion but the only coherent theological response to a regime that had equated its authority with God Himself. When Scripture is inaccessible, conscience is bound to institution rather than to Christ, and the gospel cannot be recovered without confronting and overturning the system that suppresses it.

A tragic counterexample can be seen in Germany during the rise of National Socialism. There, much of the church had been catechized into an uncritical theology of submission to authority, leaving it morally paralyzed in the face of state-sponsored evil. Rather than resisting, many baptized obedience itself as faithfulness, demonstrating how easily distorted doctrine can render the church complicit.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer recognized this danger and rejected a Christianity that confined itself to maintaining order or offering private comfort. He argued that the church must not merely bind the wounds of those crushed beneath injustice, but must actively resist the mechanisms that produce the injustice itself. His theology of costly discipleship stood in direct opposition to what he called cheap grace—grace without repentance, obedience, or truth. This conviction led him to join the German Resistance, a path that ultimately cost him his life. Bonhoeffer’s witness exposes the lie that faithfulness is proven by silence and submission; instead, it shows that true obedience to Christ may require decisive resistance when authority sets itself against the knowledge of God.

This distinction is already present in Scripture itself. Romans 13 affirms that governing authorities are ordained by God for the purpose of restraining evil and promoting order (Romans 13:1–4). Paul explicitly defines that purpose: "for rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad… for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer" (Romans 13:3–4).

Authority, therefore, is measured by function of God's will, not merely by position. It is legitimate insofar as it reflects His will by restraining evil and commending what is good. Romans 13 does not sanctify complacent submission to evil authority operating outside the will of God; such discernment is itself spiritual, governed by truth and bounded by obedience to God rather than men (Acts 5:29). When authority fulfills its God-given role, submission is appropriate; when it contradicts God’s revealed will, the apostles provide the governing principle: “We must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29). Paul’s teaching on submission therefore cannot be abstracted into unconditional obedience without collapsing into the very distortion that enables oppression.

Bonhoeffer’s stance also aligns directly with Paul’s vision of maturity in Ephesians 4. Unsound doctrine produces children—easily swayed, fearful, and dependent on authority figures to think on their behalf. Maturity, by contrast, is marked by stability, discernment, and growth into Christ, the true head of the church (Ephesians 4:13–15). The refusal to challenge false authority is not humility but infantilization. Bonhoeffer’s costly discipleship embodies doctrinal adulthood: a faith formed by truth, capable of resisting deception, and anchored in allegiance to Christ rather than to any human system.

The refusal to confront unsound doctrine leaves the church vulnerable to internal decay, where error spreads unchallenged under the appearance of peace—because truth-telling is reframed as disruption, disunity, and rebellion against God-ordained authority.

Under such conditions, reform from within is rendered impossible—not because truth is unclear, but because the system has already reclassified correction itself as sin. In such cases, Scripture and history shows that reformation necessarily involves opposition to the system itself and, at times, the dismantling of an entire regime.

This pattern appears repeatedly in redemptive history. In Exodus, Israel was not merely delivered from Pharaoh’s rule but from a deeply ingrained mindset shaped by slavery. Though redeemed from Egypt, the people continually longed to return to it, clinging to familiar structures rather than trusting the word of the Lord. God therefore led them through the wilderness until that generation passed away—a sobering testimony (and a message to any generation that fails to teach children sound doctrine) that a people can be physically liberated yet remain captive in unsound thinking (Exodus 16; Numbers 14). A new generation, formed by promise rather than fear, was required.

The same dynamic confronts Jesus in the Gospels. The religious leaders, committed to the traditions of men, resisted correction even when confronted by truth incarnate. Their refusal to yield exposed a system no longer capable of reform but in need of total reorientation. Jesus does not merely adjust the existing framework; He fulfills the Law and prophets and establishes a new covenant, reforming the people of God at the level of heart, mind, and allegiance (Matthew 15:6–9; Jeremiah 31:31–34).

At the same time, Scripture is equally clear that correction governed by sound doctrine is never meant to tear down the body, but to restore and build it up. Paul instructs that the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome, but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting opponents with gentleness, in hope that God may grant repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth (2 Timothy 2:24–25). Such correction is not hypocritical or self-exalting, but Spirit-formed, marked by the fruit of the Spirit—especially gentleness and self-control (Galatians 5:22–23).

This manner of correction is not optional sentimentality; it is the law of Christ. Believers are called to bear one another’s burdens and restore those caught in error with a spirit of gentleness, watching themselves lest they too be tempted (Galatians 6:1–2). Sound doctrine therefore governs both what is corrected and how it is corrected. When rebuke departs from love and humility, it becomes destructive; when it departs from truth, it becomes permissive. Biblical faithfulness holds both together for the building up of the church. Under such conditions, reform from within is rendered impossible—not because truth is unclear, but because the system has already reclassified correction itself as sin.

III. The Circumcision Party and Flesh-Based Captivity

Paul identifies a particular threat within the early church: those of the circumcision party. In Titus 1:10 and Galatians 2:4, these are described as lawless, deceptive, and falsely positioned as brothers. Their teaching aimed to draw believers back under the Mosaic Law, beginning with circumcision but extending into full flesh-based obligation.

What made this teaching dangerous was not its appeal to Scripture, but its distortion of purpose. It redirected believers from life in the Spirit back toward confidence in the flesh—away from the new and living way inaugurated by Christ’s blood and toward the old written code that could diagnose sin but never impart life. Paul frames this contrast sharply: the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life (2 Corinthians 3:6). To require what Christ has fulfilled is to exchange freedom for bondage (Galatians 5:1–4), not only as a means of justification but as a pattern of life. It substitutes external markers of righteousness for the inward work of the Spirit, training believers to live according to the flesh rather than to walk by the Spirit. Such a shift does not produce life and peace, but corruption, for the mind set on the flesh is death, whereas the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace (Romans 8:5–6).

In this sense, the error was not merely exegetical but anthropological and soteriological. It trained consciences to seek assurance through fleshly observance rather than through participation in Christ by faith (Philippians 3:3). The result was regression, not maturity—returning to guardianship after sonship had been granted (Galatians 4:1–7). Against this, the New Testament insists that the law’s righteous requirement is fulfilled in those who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit (Romans 8:3–4), for Christ has opened a new and living way through His flesh (Hebrews 10:19–22). Circumcision became a gateway into captivity, shifting confidence from Christ to the flesh (Galatians 5:1–4). Paul contrasts this with true circumcision, which is of the Spirit, not the letter (Philippians 3:2–3; Romans 10:2–4). When law replaces promise, growth stalls and freedom is lost.

IV. Doctrines That Prevent Growth

Unsound doctrine consistently results in immaturity. In Ephesians 4:13–14, Paul describes believers who remain children, tossed to and fro by every wind of teaching, through human cunning and deceitful schemes. The problem is not learning itself, but learning detached from truth—always accumulating information, yet never arriving at the knowledge of God (2 Timothy 3:6–7).

"But speak what if fitting for healthy teaching... so that the word of God is not be blasphemed... in all showing yourselves a type of good works, pure, majestic in your teaching, beyond reproach in healthy words..." (Titus 2:1-8)

"A type of good works" is the idea of being His workmanship, not doing good works themselves, which Jesus warns of the dangers of such unsound teaching, see Good Workers versus Workers of Lawlessness. Growth in numbers is not a sign of a healthy teaching, the fruit of healthy teaching is maturity, children grow up in Christ no longer needing to be fed milk like infants, they have healthy minds, having the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:16 - 1 Corinthians 3:1-2). 

Unhealthy teaching may appear active and engaging, but it cannot bring believers to maturity. Instead, it creates dependence, confusion, and instability, leaving the church vulnerable to exploitation. The scriptures tell us in the end time people will refrain from healthy teaching and raise up teachers who "tickle their ears" like a little baby.

V. Historical Departure: Power, Money, and Religious Control

Church history reveals a recurring pattern: when sound doctrine is abandoned, religion does not disappear—it becomes a tool of power. The selling of indulgences, relics, and pilgrimages transformed grace into transaction and authority into leverage. What was presented as sacred devotion often served economic and institutional control.

"... beyond reproach in healthy words so from such source revered, nothing evil can be said against us" (Titus 2:8)

Reverence comes not by title but by sound teaching. Today, it amazes me how these issues still exist in the church. You see the exact things Jesus and the apostles and the protestant reformers faced. People hold to authority opposite of Jesus' teaching in Matthew 20:25 and traditions over the word of God.

"you annul the word of God by you traditions you hand down and do many similar things" (Mark 7:13) 

Is the power of the word of God independent of the person teaching? Here Jesus said the word of God is annulled or undone by traditions. Traditions related to money particularly do today. Passing around offering plates when Jesus said to give in private. Going back to the old and bringing in tithing and distorting teachings to require people to give money.

There is no sound teaching in the New Testament about a requirement to give ten percent. It is related to the letter Paul writes to the Galatians, where he called them the "circumcision party" because this is where they begin to enslave people. Today, they would be called the "tithing party" but the same thing applies. 

It is a lack of sound knowledge of scripture. People today will quote traditional teaching even it contradicts the word of God. If the truth is presented to them they will hold to what so and so said. Sound teaching comes from first hand knowledge, what Paul calls having a spirit of wisdom and revelation in knowing Jesus. 

People will do good works, be involved in the church, and not even be saved. It is as though we have become a dull people. What the reformation so prized, access to the word of God, is not the issue (except maybe some translations that deviate from the original words) we have easy access to the word of God. So it must be unrelated to access, and related to the fact people do not read it, so are so easily led astray. 

The formation of ministry as a vocation where minsters live off people is not seen in the New Testament either, on the contrary Paul refuses to do this. It creates a biased interpretation, a conflict of interest, and allows for much abuse if you make this vocation to be more than just a public service one. An example a conflict of interest can arise if am on the board of an oil company and an environmental nonprofit, I will most likely choose my livelihood over protecting the environment. 

Unsound doctrine exists for personal gain. Vocation conflict of interests of ministers or just deceitfulness will be displayed when scripture is used out of context. You will see this in what is called straw man arguments, which are partial truth (scripture taken out of context or partially) used to weaken the whole truth. You will hear it is all about evangelism while Jesus commissions to teach and make disciples. The scriptures give us fruit to judge by, especially the obedience to Jesus's command to love and treat his brethren well above any other commission.

No one can disobey a command of Jesus "to love one another" in the name of a commission, outreach, evangelism... Jesus said we would be known as his disciples to the world as by our love for one another and by what we do to the least of these His brethren. If the church has worldly goods and sees a brother in need but looks outwardly something is seriously wrong. We can overcome unsound doctrine by reading the scriptures.

Unsound doctrines distort and twist the truth. The pyramid scheme only works if you have a voluntary force to put forth a vision so the wealth trickles up and not down. So teachings of authority, giving, and serving are distorted for this cause. Jesus gives us teaching to avoid these things (Mathew 20:25, John 13:35, 1 John 4:20 and many more...). Teaching you will not hear many teach because it puts in question teachings of authority and entitlement to live off people lasciviously. 

"not pilfering rather showing all good faith so that adorning the teaching of God our Savior in all" (Titus 2:10)

It is just a little thing, misuse of or scripture taken out of context... but it is not, it causes confusion. Pilfering implies the act of stealing little or that the theft is minor, repeated, and may involve someone in a position of trust. Adorning teaching in contrast to pilfering, speaks of sound teaching, its beautiful and in order as it builds up faith, benefiting the need of the hearer.

Certainly, economic and institutional control play a role in the reason unsound doctrine gets into the church. Such mirrors precisely what Paul warned against: treating godliness as a means of gain (1 Timothy 6:5). The damage was not merely theological, but pastoral—distorting the character of God and undermining the credibility of the church’s witness.

VI. Contemporary Parallels and Modern Captivity

The same dynamics persist today. The rise and fall of megachurches often reveal systems structured like pyramids, where wealth, authority, and immunity concentrate at the top. When exposure comes, it is not persecution but illumination. Scripture teaches that bringing such things into the light is evidence of walking in truth, not attacking the church (Ephesians 5:11–13).

Alongside this, there is a renewed fascination with returning to law-based religion: pilgrimages to the so-called Holy Land, dietary restrictions, circumcision, and revived Jewish traditions. These movements echo the error of the "circumcision party"—seeking tangible markers of holiness while drifting from the sufficiency of Christ.

VII. Excuses That Protect Unsound Doctrine

Unsound doctrine often survives because it is shielded by familiar excuses. Some argue that God still uses flawed systems, confusing divine mercy with divine approval. Jesus, however, warns that a house built on sand will inevitably fall, and each collapse harms the church’s witness (Matthew 7:26–27).

Think about this as a church, if built on unsound doctrine. Jesus intensifies the warning by stating that "great was the fall of it"—not merely because the structure appeared impressive, but because it lacked a proper foundation. When the storm comes, nothing built on sand remains standing: the walls, the apparent successes, the visible good, and even the elements that observers might claim God was still “using” are swept away together.

The greatness of the fall corresponds to the depth of the foundational failure. What collapses is not only leadership or reputation, but trust, consciences, and lives. In the aftermath, patterns of hidden sin, moral failure, and spiritual abuse often surface, revealing that what appeared stable was never anchored in obedience to Christ’s words. Such ruin does not merely affect those inside the structure; it becomes a public scandal and a devastating witness to the world.

James echoes this same concern, warning that those who hear the word without doing it deceive themselves (James 1:22). Unsound doctrine does not fortify the house; it undermines it, creating the illusion of wisdom while quietly eroding the foundation upon which lasting faith must rest.

Others appeal to Paul’s statement that Christ is preached even from false motives (Philippians 1:15–18), arguing that doctrinal integrity is secondary so long as the name of Christ is spoken. Yet Paul’s rejoicing in this passage is tightly bound to context and circumstance. Writing from prison, having himself been beaten, jailed, and repeatedly silenced for preaching Christ, Paul expresses joy that the gospel is being proclaimed freely, even by rivals whose motives are impure. His gratitude lies in the message reaching people without chains—not in the validation of false teachers or distorted gospels.

Crucially, Paul is not suspending discernment or excusing unsound doctrine. Elsewhere he sharply condemns those who preach a different gospel, even pronouncing an anathema upon them (Galatians 1:6–9). He warns that false teachers disguise themselves as servants of righteousness (2 Corinthians 11:13–15) and charges elders to silence those who contradict sound doctrine (Titus 1:9–11). Philippians 1, therefore, cannot be used to neutralize Paul’s own theology of truth. It addresses motive under persecution, not message under corruption.

To invoke this passage as a defense of doctrinal compromise is to wrench it from its setting and place it in conflict with the broader witness of Scripture. Paul rejoices that Christ is proclaimed despite human rivalry; he never suggests that error is harmless, nor that the church may ignore teaching that corrodes faith and enslaves consciences. ignoring that Paul elsewhere fiercely rebukes distorted gospels (Galatians 1:6–9). Ordination and claimed authority are also used as shields, yet Jesus explicitly overturns worldly models of power, declaring that greatness in His kingdom is found in servanthood, not domination (Matthew 20:25–28).

Finally, rebuke is often labeled as disunity. This misuses Scripture to silence discernment and manipulate the naïve. False peace preserves error; truth, even when uncomfortable, is what actually unifies the body.

VIII. Doctrines of Demons and Perpetual Childhood

Paul does not hesitate to name the source of such teaching. In 1 Timothy 4:1, he calls them doctrines of demons—not because they are always overtly evil, but because they deform believers over time. Through human cunning and deceit, they keep the church in a state of perpetual childhood, dependent on leaders who tickle ears rather than nourish souls (Ephesians 4:14).

Sound doctrine, by contrast, enables believers to grow up into Christ, who is the head. It produces stable minds, free consciences, and a church capable of resisting both error and abuse.

Conclusion

Unsound doctrine promises safety, control, and certainty, but delivers captivity and immaturity. Sound doctrine forms believers who can reason clearly, stand firm in freedom, and reflect the character of Christ to the world. To rebuke what is false is not to harm the church—it is to protect its life, its witness, and its future growth into Him who is the truth.

Jesus Himself repeatedly warns that false teaching is not merely an abstract danger but something discerned through lived outcome. He cautions that false prophets will come in sheep’s clothing while inwardly being ravenous wolves, and He gives a clear criterion for discernment: “You will recognize them by their fruits” (Matthew 7:15–16). The measure is not giftedness, claims of maturity, spiritual language, or apparent success, but what a teaching actually produces over time.

Jesus presses this further by exposing the insufficiency of external religiosity. Not everyone who says “Lord, Lord” will enter the kingdom, but only those who do the will of the Father (Matthew 7:21–23). Here, doctrinal confession divorced from obedience is revealed as self-deception. Claims of spiritual authority, miraculous works, or visible power do not authenticate maturity if they are detached from submission to Christ’s teaching.

Fruit, in Jesus’ usage, is not charisma or growth in numbers, but the moral and spiritual formation of people. Good trees bear good fruit; bad trees bear bad fruit, and no amount of pruning language can change the nature of the tree itself (Matthew 7:17–18). Teaching that consistently produces fear-driven obedience, fleshly striving, division, exploitation, or arrested maturity stands condemned by its outcomes, regardless of how biblical it sounds.

In this way, Jesus establishes a standard that aligns with the apostolic witness: maturity is tested over time, fruit reveals roots, and doctrine is judged not only by what it claims but by what it forms. Sound teaching produces repentance, freedom, love, and endurance; false teaching ultimately exposes itself by the kind of people it creates.