53 Bible Verses about False Teachings

Yet I hold it somewhat against you that you have among you some who are clinging to the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to set a trap for the children of Israel, to entice them to eat the meat that had been sacrificed to idols and to commit immoral practices. And you also have among you some who are clinging to the teaching of the Nicolaitans.

Whoever, therefore, breaks one of the least of these commands and teaches others so to do, will be ranked as least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices them and teaches others so to do, will be ranked as great in the kingdom of heaven.

As to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our final muster before Him, we beg you, brothers, not to let your minds be easily unsettled or even be excited, whether by some message by the Spirit or by some saying or letter that is claimed as coming from me, saying that the day of the Lord is already here.

Now the Spirit distinctly declares that in later times some will turn away from the faith, because they continuously give their attention to deceiving spirits and the things that demons teach through the pretensions of false teachers, men with seared consciences, who forbid people to marry and teach them to abstain from certain sorts of food which God created for the grateful enjoyment of those who have faith and a clear knowledge of the truth.

But I hold it against you that you are tolerating that Jezebel of a woman who claims to be a prophetess, and by her teaching is misleading my slaves to practice immorality and to eat meat that has been sacrificed to idols.

Their worship of me is an empty show; the things they teach are only men's precepts.'"

Their worship of me is but an empty show; the things they teach are but men's precepts.'

Stop letting anyone deceive you with groundless arguments about these things, for it is because of these very sins that God's anger comes down upon the disobedient.

If once through fellowship with Christ you died and were separated from the world's crude notions, why do you live as though you belonged to the world? Why submit to rules such as, "You must not handle," "You must not taste," "You must not touch," which refer to things that perish in the using, in accordance with human rules and teachings?read more.
Such practices have the outward expression of wisdom, with their self-imposed devotions, their self-humiliation, their torturings of the body, but they are of no value; they really satisfy the lower nature.

As I begged you to do when I was on my way to Macedonia, I still beg you to stay on in Ephesus to warn certain teachers to stop devoting themselves to myths and never-ending pedigrees, for such things lead to controversies rather than stimulate our trusteeship to God through faith. But the aim of your instruction is to be love that flows out of a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith.read more.
Some people have stepped aside from these things and turned to fruitless talking. They want to be teachers of the law, although they do not understand the words they use or the things about which they make such confident assertions.

Now there were false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you too, who will insidiously introduce destructive heresies and deny the Master who has bought them, thus bringing on themselves swift destruction.

"Look out for false prophets, who come to you under the guise of sheep, but inside they are devouring wolves.

Because I know that after I have gone violent wolves will break in among you and will not spare the flock. Even from your own number men will appear who will try, by speaking perversions of truth, to draw away the disciples after them.

For there are many insubordinate people, mere talkers with nothing to say, but deceivers of their own minds, especially those of the circumcision party, whose mouths must be stopped, for they upset whole families by teaching things they ought not to think, for the sake of dishonest gain.

Even from your own number men will appear who will try, by speaking perversions of truth, to draw away the disciples after them.

so that we may not be babies any longer, or like sailors tossed about and driven around by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men through their cunning in inventing new methods of error.

Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to you; continue to turn away from the worldly, futile phrases and contradictions of what is falsely called "knowledge," by professing which some individuals have failed in the faith. Spiritual blessing be with you all.

You must stop being carried away with varied and strange teachings. For it is a good thing for the heart to be strengthened by God's spiritual strength, not by special kinds of food, from which those adhering to them have gotten no good.

They have eyes full of adultery and insatiable by sin. They practice enticing unsteady souls. They have trained their hearts in greed. They are doomed to a curse! They have left the straight road and gone astray. They have followed the road that Balaam, the son of Beor, trod, who fell in love with the profits of wrongdoing

I write you this with reference to those who are trying to lead you astray,

Many people will follow their immoral ways, and because of them the true Way will be abused,

Jesus answered, "Look out that no one misleads you about it, for many will come bearing the name of the Messiah, and saying, 'I am the Christ,' and will mislead many people.

Jesus began to say to them: "Look out that no one misleads you about it. Many will come bearing the name of Messiah, and saying, 'I am He,' and they will mislead many.

For a time will come when they will not listen to wholesome teaching, but to gratify their own evil desires will surround themselves with teachers who teach to gratify their own evil desires, because their ears are itching so to be tickled,

For by uttering arrogant nonsense, through base desires of the lower nature, they entice into immorality men who are just escaping from those who live in error, promising them freedom, though they are slaves of destruction themselves; for a man is the slave of anything that conquers him.

Dearly beloved, stop believing every so-called spiritual utterance, but keep testing them to see whether they come from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. In this way you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spiritual utterance which owns that Jesus Christ has come in human form comes from God, and no spiritual utterance which disowns Jesus can come from God; it is the utterance of Antichrist. You have heard that it is coming, and right now it is already in the world.read more.
You are children of God, dear children, and you have conquered these men, because He who is in our hearts is greater than he who is in the world. They are children of the world; this is why they speak what the world inspires, and why the world listens to them.

for false Christs and false prophets will announce themselves, and they will show great signs and wonders to mislead, if possible, God's chosen people.

For false Christs and false prophets will announce themselves, and they will do signs and wonders to mislead, if possible, even God's chosen people.

that is, the representative of lawlessness, whose coming is in accordance with the working of Satan, with his plenitude of power and pretended signs and wonders, and with a completely wicked deception for men who are on the way to destruction, because they refused to love the truth so as to be saved.

Then I saw another wild beast coming up out of the land. He had two horns like a lamb, but he spoke like a dragon. He exercises the full authority of the first wild beast in his presence; he makes the earth and its inhabitants worship the first wild beast, whose mortal wound had been healed. He performs great wonders; even makes fire come down out of heaven to earth before men's eyes.read more.
He leads the inhabitants of the earth astray because of the wonders he is permitted to perform in the presence of the wild beast, telling the inhabitants of the earth to erect a statue to the wild beast that bears the sword-thrust and yet has lived. Permission has also been given him to impart life to the statue of the wild beast so that it can speak, and to have all who do not worship the statue of the wild beast killed.

Now the Spirit distinctly declares that in later times some will turn away from the faith, because they continuously give their attention to deceiving spirits and the things that demons teach through the pretensions of false teachers, men with seared consciences,

But I am apprehensive that, somehow or other, as the serpent by his cunning deceived Eve, your thoughts may be turned aside from single-hearted devotion to Christ. For if anybody comes along and preaches another Jesus than the one I preached, or you receive another spirit different from the one you did receive or a glad message different from the one you did accept, you listen to it all right!

Dearly beloved, stop believing every so-called spiritual utterance, but keep testing them to see whether they come from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. In this way you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spiritual utterance which owns that Jesus Christ has come in human form comes from God, and no spiritual utterance which disowns Jesus can come from God; it is the utterance of Antichrist. You have heard that it is coming, and right now it is already in the world.

Then I saw three foul spirits leap like frogs from the mouth of the dragon, from the mouth of the wild beast, and from the mouth of the false prophet. They are the spirits of demons that perform wonders, and they go forth to the kings of the whole world, to muster them for battle on the great day of the Almighty God.

In their greed they will exploit you with messages manufactured by themselves. From of old their condemnation has not been idle and their destruction has not been slumbering.

Take care that nobody captures you by the idle fancies of his so-called philosophy, following human tradition and the world's crude notions instead of Christ.

In this way you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spiritual utterance which owns that Jesus Christ has come in human form comes from God, and no spiritual utterance which disowns Jesus can come from God; it is the utterance of Antichrist. You have heard that it is coming, and right now it is already in the world.

So I want to inform you that no one speaking under the power of the Spirit of God can say, "Jesus is accursed!" and no one except one under the power of the Holy Spirit can really say, "Jesus is Lord!"

But you have been anointed by the Holy One. You all know the truth; I do not write to you because you do not know it, but because you do know it. Who is the notorious liar, if it is not the man who denies that Jesus is the Christ? He is the real Antichrist, the man who disowns the Father and the Son.read more.
No one who disowns the Son can have the Father. Whoever owns the Son has the Father too.

"Look out for false prophets, who come to you under the guise of sheep, but inside they are devouring wolves. You must recognize them by their fruits. People do not pick grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles, do they? So any healthy tree bears good fruit and a sickly tree bears poor fruit.read more.
A healthy tree cannot bear poor fruit, and a sickly tree cannot bear good fruit. Any tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and burned up. So you must recognize them by their fruits.

For you listen to a man, if he makes you his slave, or spends your money for his living, or cheats you, or puts on airs, or slaps you in the face.

Dear children, avoid letting anyone lead you astray. Whoever practices doing right is upright, just as He is upright. Whoever practices sin belongs to the devil, because the devil has practiced sin from the beginning. This is why the Son of God appeared, to undo the devil's works. No one who is born of God makes a practice of sinning, because the God-given life-principle continues to live in him, and so he cannot practice sinning, because he is born of God.read more.
This is the way to distinguish God's children from the devil's children. No one who fails to do right is God's child, and no one who fails to love his brother.

If anyone teaches different doctrines and refuses to agree with the wholesome messages of our Lord Jesus Christ, the teaching that is in accordance with true religion, he is a conceited ignoramus with a morbid appetite for discussions and controversies which lead to envy, quarreling, abuse, base suspicions, and perpetual friction between people who are depraved in mind and deprived of truth, who imagine that religion is only a means of gain.

As I begged you to do when I was on my way to Macedonia, I still beg you to stay on in Ephesus to warn certain teachers to stop devoting themselves to myths and never-ending pedigrees, for such things lead to controversies rather than stimulate our trusteeship to God through faith.

Continue shunning worldly, futile phrases, for they lead on to greater depths of godlessness, and their message will spread like a cancer; men like Hymenaeus and Philetus, who have missed the truth by saying that the resurrection has already taken place, are undermining some people's faith.

Let what you have heard from the beginning continue to live in your hearts; if you do, you will always remain in union with the Son and the Father.

I am astonished that you are beginning so soon to turn away from Him who called you by the favor of Christ, to a different good news, which is not really another one; only there are certain people who are trying to unsettle you and want to turn the good news of Christ upside down. But even if I or an angel from heaven preach a good news that is contrary to the one which I have already preached to you, a curse upon him!read more.
As I have said it before, so now I say it again, if anybody is preaching to you a good news that is contrary to the one which you have already received, a curse upon him!

This is the instruction which I entrust to you, my son Timothy, which is in accordance with the prophetic utterances formerly made about you, that you may, aided by them, continue to fight the good fight, by keeping your hold on faith and a good conscience; for some have thrust the latter aside and so have made shipwreck of their faith. Among these are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have turned over to Satan to be so disciplined that they will stop their abusive speech.

Continue to be an example in wholesome instructions which you learned from me, in the faith and love that come through union with Christ Jesus. Guard this fine deposit of truth by the aid of the Holy Spirit who has His home in our hearts.

But I beg you, brothers, to keep on the lookout for those who stir up divisions and put hindrances in your way, in opposition to the instruction that you had, and always avoid them. For such men are really not serving our Lord Christ but their own base appetites, and by their fair and flattering talk they are deceiving the hearts of unsuspecting people.

Now you must know that in the last days there are going to be hard times. For people will be selfish, avaricious, boastful, haughty, abusive, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, irreverent, lacking in love for kinsmen, irreconcilable, slanderers, having no self-control, savage, lacking in love for the good,read more.
treacherous, reckless, conceited, loving pleasure more than God, keeping up the forms of religion but not giving expression to its power. Avoid such people. For some of them practice going into people's houses and capturing weak and silly women who are overwhelmed with the weight of their sins, who are easily led about by all sorts of evil impulses, who are always trying to learn but never able to come to a full knowledge of the truth. Just as Jannes and Jambres resisted Moses, these people resist the truth, for they are depraved in mind and so counterfeits in the faith. But they will not make any more progress, for their folly will be evident to everybody, as theirs was.

But hold yourself aloof from foolish controversies, pedigrees, strife, and wrangles about the law, for these are fruitless and futile. After one or two warnings to a man who is factious, stop having anything to do with him, for you may be sure that such a man is crooked and sinful, even self-condemned.

No one has God, who goes too far and fails to stay by the teaching of Christ. Whoever stays by this teaching has the Father and the Son. If anyone continuously comes to see you without bringing this teaching, you must stop welcoming him to your house and stop bidding him good morning, For whoever keeps on bidding him good morning is sharing in his wicked works.