By Todd Paetznick, April 25, 2024

In business, as consumers, and as Christians, we often need to sort through deceptive and conflicting information.  The phrase we often hear is “my truth” or “your truth.” What may be happening is that some people do not want to discuss a topic with a person who might disagree with them, maybe to avoid conflict or an argument.  Conceding that multiple “truths” exist between people may seem like a reasonable thing to do.  However, the language used may also incorrectly substitute the word “truth” in the place where “opinion” or “perspective” might be more appropriate

Then, there are intentional attempts to deceive, passing off something false as truth. We have all been the recipients of phishing scams at one time or another, where a person with bad intentions attempts to trick us into revealing something secret, such as a password, an account number, a social security number, birth date, or our mother’s maiden name.  The person with bad intentions needs this information to steal money from our bank accounts or rack up charges on our credit cards.

As Christians, we reject the idea that there can be multiple “truths.”  We may acknowledge there are multiple opinions, interpretations, or perspectives, but there can only be one truth.  Our challenge is often determining what is true and false.  When there can only be one truth, what is it, and how can we know?

In the Old Testament, during the time of the prophet Jeremiah, determining the authenticity of messages received from God was a problem.  Some people claimed they were speaking words they had received from God, but God had not given them the words.  Their message was pleasing; it was what the people wanted to hear.  The problem was that it was not authentic, it was not a message from God.  Jeremiah called out false prophets for having “a vision of their own imagination” (Jeremiah 23:16).  Jeremiah was thrown into a mud-filled well to die because he delivered an unpopular message to the people who did not want to hear what he had to say (Jeremiah 38).  Jeremiah’s message was truly from God, but because the people could not discern whether they should listen to Jeremiah or the other so-called prophets.  They could not (or did not want to) determine which message was authentic, so they chose the one they liked best.  (It is always a mistake to dismiss what God has to say, by the way.  As the people who rejected Jeremiah would discover.)

In the New Testament, early Christians faced a similar problem.  Some people claimed to have the gift of prophecy; they received a message from God they wanted to share with other Christians.  Like the situation in the Old Testament, not every message was from God.  Sometimes the falsely prophetic messages contradicted the teaching of the apostles and the Bible.  How could the people confirm God as the authentic source of a new message?  Clearly, when messages conflict, one of them has to be false.  But which one?  It is also possible that both are false and did not originate with God. What were the people to do in this situation?

In his first letter to the Christians of Thessalonica, Paul addressed the dilemma of how to discern between true and false prophecies.  His wise advice applies to what we hear in our churches, our places of work, and our families.

1. Do not quench the Spirit (1 Thessalonians 5:19).  The easy path for many people is to dismiss the possibility that God delivers new prophetic messages through people.  But, because some charlatans promote and enrich themselves using spiritual claims does not mean that the Holy Spirit never uses these means anymore.  Because bad people exist, it does not mean good people do not.  By not suppressing (quenching) the work of the Spirit, Paul teaches that there is a very real spiritual realm beyond what we can see and quantify.
2. Do not reject prophecy outright or any other claimed outpouring of the Holy Spirit (1 Thessalonians 5:20).  Paul infers that some prophecy could be from God; not all prophecy should be rejected because some prophets are false.  As Christians, we should not reject every message that is claimed to be from God.  At the same time, we should not blindly accept everything we are told; discernment is necessary.  This takes us to Paul’s next point.  
3. Test everything and hold onto what is good (1 Thessalonians 5:21).  The key to Paul’s message is authentication and testing.  The concept applies to spiritual activities and many other areas of our lives.  How can we test something and know what is good and what is true?  Over the next few weeks, we will explore these ideas more deeply.  
4. Stay away from evil (1 Thessalonians 5:22).  People often get into trouble because desire clouds judgment.  Coveting, for example, means wanting something that does not belong to us; it is forbidden in the Ten Commandments.  The number of people who have fallen for the Nigerian Prince email scam tells us much about the desires of the human heart.  Swindlers promise large sums of money in exchange for a relatively small amount of help.  Desire makes us vulnerable to things we would not typically do.   

Authentication and the recognition of selfish desires can prevent nearly every phishing attack.  The spiritual problems of fear, desire, and greed frequently cross over into our everyday lives.  We cannot reject every piece of email we receive just because it sounds too good (or bad) to be true.  We cannot choose to cut ourselves off from electronic messaging in our modern world, but we can learn to control our desires.