Eisegesis- The interpretation of a text (as of the Bible) by reading into it one's own ideas.
Imagine if you will that you are searching for a sermon by your favorite preacher/speaker/teacher and you come across a video saying that person is a false teacher. Do you click on it?
I did. Surely this person is not a false teacher surely the person who made this video or wrote this article is wrong. After studying, praying, and learning more about false teachers you come to realize that this person is indeed a false teacher and you have been taught falsehoods. You feel your heart break within your chest and tears swell up in your eyes as you now feel like you've just learned that your mentor has been lying to you the entire time. Now you are lost. How could I not see this? You ask yourself. In some ways beating yourself up for not knowing before becoming emotionally invested in this persons preaching. Where did I go wrong?
Although I tend to struggle with everything I write that is personal in nature I struggled a little more this time around. I had to humble myself and be honest with myself as to why it hurt so much that this person is a false teacher. Simply put, I fell in love with the person not fully paying attention to the words that the person was speaking. I was so caught up in the fame of the person and her performance in a movie that I did not take the time to really listen and digest what it was that she was saying. While I was trying to discern the voice of God I lacked in the department of discerning the voice of man. In my early writings, I started to recognize that I was inserting myself into the text and telling personal stories rather than sticking to letting the word of God speak for itself. That doesn't mean a person cannot tell a personal story at all. You just have to be mindful of telling a story that is the truth and telling a story that is solely based on your own interpretation of what God is saying in the text associated with the story.
A person who is inserting themselves into the text is a person full of personal stories that seemingly has a profound message behind it. It gets the crowd going, they are energetic in their deliverance, and charismatic. At first glance, you wouldn't recognize the story has nothing to do with the actual text. In fact, once you do pay attention you come to realize that all they are really doing is speaking in incoherent circles. If someone is preaching and in their reference to scripture they are all too often saying I believe or in my opinion You may want to pause and really open your ears to what it is they have to say next. If it is anything that does not coincide with what the word says, then you may want to remove them from your list of credible preachers. False teachers and preachers are not always going to blatantly teach against Christ.
They will teach in a way that magnifies them and their deeds and their works. Sprinkling here and there biblical truths to dress up their lives as a caricature of Christ rather than the what it actually is. Their words are very well articulated and seemingly empowering. They may take short phrases and put emphasis on those short phrases in order to get their desired reaction. Once they have that desired reaction it is quite easy for them to slip in their own interpretations of the Word and its meaning rather than the truth. The bible is not there to compare our lives to, but to strengthen it through the lessons and parables already taught. Yes you may feel like Job or feel like Moses but that does not mean that you yourself has been inserted into the exact same role they played in the Bible.
False teachers are not only dangerous to new Christian's but to hungry Christian's as well. We all need to be diligent in paying attention to the full lesson being taught so that we may not be lead astray. Take the time out to make sure that in a person's teachings they are not glorifying and magnifying themselves. Always, always, always, test the Spirit and don't take everything preached at face value.
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