How to Teach Heresy to Your Neighbor

Everyone knows the world if full of bad theology. Most people believe some horribly incorrect things about God.

Sadly, much of this is the fault of Christians. We often teach heresy to our neighbors by how we live.

We are sometimes like Jonah. When God tries to get Jonah to obey Him, Jonah tells the sailors to pick him up and throw him into the sea. In other words, Jonah tells the sailors this:

My God is vengeful and angry. I disobeyed Him, so He is out to destroy all of us, and you just happen to have the bad luck of being nearby when He kills me. But my God, who lives in the sea, can be appeased. How? He loves human sacrifice. Throw me into the sea so He can take my life and judge me as He sees fit. If you do this, He will leave you alone.

Jonah is a prophet of God, and he knows better.

Jonah’s Horrible Theology Lesson

He knows that everything he is telling the sailors is wrong, but in this situation, he doesn’t care.He has his own agenda, and no matter what, he does not want to do what God asked.

So he teaches some horrible theology and drags the sailors into committing a horrible sin.

Thankfully, God is gracious to them and spares their lives, no thanks to Jonah.

Do we Christians sometimes do the same thing today? What are we teaching those around us about God through our actions and our behavior?

How we Teach Horrible Theology

Those around us do not know what we say in our prayers, what we learn in our Wednesday night Bible studies, or how many notes we take in church on Sunday morning. But they see how we interact with our troublesome neighbor. They watch how we behave at work. They overhear what we say about those who lead “sinful lifestyles.” And all these actions and words teach them something about the God we serve.

Are we teaching them that God is loving, compassionate, gracious, long-suffering, forgiving, and kind? Or are we teaching them, like Jonah, that God is vengeful and angry, loves to punish and destroy, and sends suffering and pain upon the wicked?

I am all in favor of having correct theology and being able to defend what we believe, but we must never forget the age-old truth that for most people, our life is the only theology book they will ever read. Jonah forgot that, and he taught the sailors some very bad theology.

Similarly, when Christians today behave in ways that do not accurately reflect the nature and character of God, we may end up teaching other people around us some bad ideas about what God is like.

But it is worse than that. Sometimes, by the way we live, we actually begin to threaten the lives of other people around us, which is the worst teaching of all.

This post is based on the Grace Commentary on Jonah. Make sure you sign up for the email newsletter to get a free digital copy of this commentary when it is released.