Here’s a tip on how to make counterfeit money, right here on a Christian site: Don’t put much effort into your bad bills — only enough to get a few past someone who’s not really looking.

Real crooks and counterfeiters never do, anyway. Instead of painstakingly making fake versions of a real bill, they put little manpower into their designs. But it makes sense. After all, they only need their bills to pass a casual inspection. If someone familiar with a real bill’s facets stares hard, the jig is up.

That’s according to blogger Tim Challies. A while ago for some research, he naturally went to the best place to learn about doctrinal discernment: a local bank. Christians should be glad he did. It gives more truth to that usual “study truth so you’ll know the error instantly” argument.

But I wonder how many Christians, even those who have gotten all those email forwards¹ about real/counterfeit money and discernment, wind up making some errors even when it comes to the business of finding errors. While starting a site about debunking Christian myths, it’s worth remembering that!

Three potential side effects of busting Christian myths come to mind:

1. We don’t even bother to look for errors.

Call me crazy, but somehow I get the notion that many Christians out there still have this take on things, even in our modern 21st-century society.

Let’s say a Secret Service agent trainee sits in that room full of cash all day long, staring at the bills and figuring out what’s right about them, and feeling really good about it. Yet when the time comes to get out there and discern fake cash, the trainee would rather stay in the room, fondle the bills, figure out what’s right about them, and keep feeling really good about it.

Yes, we as trainees need to keep up the training. We never finish studying and familiarizing ourselves with truth. But even then, we need to get out there and engage with others, trade in the commerce of ideas both inside and outside the Church, and keep sharp eyes for the lies.

Exception: Not all Christian “agents” are meant to deal specifically with counterfeit money. Some may have other spiritual gifts, such as encouragement or showing mercy (1 Corinthians 12). But Scripture doesn’t have little footnotes after verses saying you-must-discern, adding “some manuscripts include ‘… unless you have a really big heart.’” All believers should at least have a working knowledge of how to spot un-Biblical ideas, both minor and major. And all should have the willingness to do something about it — even if it means calling for backup from those who have more teaching-and-preaching-style spiritual gifts.²

2. We spend all our time looking for lies, not truth.

Some Christians, most likely annoyed ones, could list a few “discernment ministries” or “watchdogs” out there³ that spend so much time trying to debunk the bad stuff that they a) become really cynical about all these lies Christians believe, b) sound really cynical, c) lose sight of the glorious truth and the Bible’s big picture, d) overreach and start picking on stuff that really doesn’t matter, i.e. keyboards vs. organs, e) all of the above.⁴

Perhaps the worst of those possibilities is the very real chance of studying lies so much that you start believing them yourself — because that’s all you’ve studied! An oft-cited example is Saruman, the wicked wizard from The Lord of the Rings epic, who studied the evil power of the Dark Lord Sauron for so long that he himself became evil and even allied with the dark lord. For true Christians, there’s no danger of becoming apostate.⁵ But studying lies so much that you enjoy that more than God’s truth may be a sure sign your “faith” was not real, nor saving.

God forbid that any Christians who lean toward the spiritual-discernment side of things gets so wrapped up in trying to spot mistakes. We would either miss what is right, or fail to learn such things so that we can help others, and have the truth become so much more glorious to us!

3. Looking mostly for big lies, we miss the little lies.

Tim Challies in his columns went on to write about how many Canadians had become panicked during a counterfeit-money scare. Media reports had exaggerated the amount of fake $100 bills being spread around, implying a local problem was nationwide.

While many people were worried about fraudulent $100 bills, many $5’s, $10’s and $20’s were no doubt slipping through unnoticed. We see a similar situation in the church. It is quite rare that we are presented with fraudulent teaching that contradicts the most important teachings of Scripture. More often we are faced with issues of lesser importance than the major tenets of the faith. If we look only for false doctrine that contradicts the first-order doctrines, we may allow countless lesser errors [to] slip through.⁶

Few false teachers would walk into a church and say, Ladies and gentlemen, put down your Bibles and follow what your hearts are saying, but mostly me: this morning I shall blend Godless evolution with Genesis, demean God’s sovereignty, deny the value of Christ’s grace and talk only about God’s love but be legalistic anyway. Instead, he would be much more subtle.

However, even that still assume the only errors to look out for are the big ones. But if you focus only on the lies that keep people from being true Christians (Did Jesus come in the flesh? 1 John 4:2), you might miss the little lies (Oh yes, He came in the flesh, but He only really became God at His baptism ⁷).

Or we might miss the error that says You must not judge a fellow Christian, or in other ways, a nonbeliever (see Judging the ‘judge not’ notion from earlier this week). Or the error that says The love of the money is the root of all evil ⁸. Or the error that says We can’t possibly know anything about Heaven and it’s wrong or unspiritual to try. Or the error that says Don’t make a decision until you’ve “heard” directly from God that it’s His will.

Many Christians who believe the little lies don’t have a clue that they do. Maybe they assume these beliefs are part of Biblical truth. They’ve grown up with them, so far seen no bad fruit from them, maybe have a pleasant spiritual anecdote about them, and are convinced. They’ll likely even be bothered when you question them because they think you’re the un-Biblical one.

Also, none of these errors will keep you from being a Christian. They may be a sign you are not a Christian. But only the biggest errors can keep someone from the faith.⁹

Instead, the little errors for real Christians will be, at best, dashed inconvenient and annoying. At worst, believing the errors will keep us from glorifying God as we should and make Him “bigger,” and more incredible, to ourselves and to others.

More likely if you as a Christian let a lie go unchecked, it will prolong the process of your being “transformed by the renewal of your mind” by Christ (Romans 12:2). Make no mistake, Scripture is clear that process will happen for Christians. But leaving lies alone will make it take longer. And though one could say we must leave it to God to take care of the lies, why not delve deeper ourselves and see if He will correct them now?

We have no alternative, anyway. Scripture clearly says to do so. It’s hard to dismiss that.

Coming next week

Surely many Christians agree it’s right and Biblical to sort truth from error. They just disagree on what is truth and error, or which topics are most vital, or whether you should do it out loud or quietly, lovingly or firmly. But of course there are still those who don’t think this way. They may believe, or act according to the belief, that all Christians should do as they do: only learn the truth, and sort-of sit there and enjoy it.

That may be partly based on reading Philippians 4:8 way out of context. Or it may include silent assumptions that if they have mercy/compassion spiritual gifts, and are doing great things for God with them, everybody should practice the same gifts.

Either way, next week will be Christian myths, part 2: Believe the lies, or bust.

Here’s a quick preview: we bust lies because the Bible does, and because this helps us help other Christians. But the biggest reason of all, I would argue, is that it helps us. We learn to glorify God even better by contrast as we see Him more amazing when compared with idols, and when contrasted with darkness and lies, His light and truth are even more wondrous.