The trouble with those who preach new things and deep things is that they trouble our minds. For they appear so confident. That which appears a mystery to us, and one of those things that we trouble with, is in effect easy for them.

However, some of this is a deliberately setting up straw men and Mary Sues. A stray man is broken, weak and can be burned, for there are errors in what he says, and a Mary Sue is perfect. By pretending to be perfect, they appear to be wise, and by saying they are perfect and this discipline or that will make you better and more spiritual is false.

The more intelligent opponents know this: as do we. There are noble neo pagans, loving Muslims, and deeply pious Buddhists. One cannot fault the zeal of the Socialists and their bastard miscegenatious children the social justice warriors.

I will get back to this in a minute, but first let’s look at the scripture.

Then it seemed good to the apostles and the elders, with the whole church, to choose men from among them and send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. They sent Judas called Barsabbas, and Silas, leading men among the brothers, with the following letter: “The brothers, both the apostles and the elders, to the brothers who are of the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia, greetings. Since we have heard that some persons have gone out from us and troubled you with words, unsettling your minds, although we gave them no instructions, it has seemed good to us, having come to one accord, to choose men and send them to you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. We have therefore sent Judas and Silas, who themselves will tell you the same things by word of mouth. For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay on you no greater burden than these requirements: that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what has been strangled, and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell.”

	So when they were sent off, they went down to Antioch, and having gathered the congregation together, they delivered the letter. And when they had read it, they rejoiced because of its encouragement. And Judas and Silas, who were themselves prophets, encouraged and strengthened the brothers with many words. And after they had spent some time, they were sent off in peace by the brothers to those who had sent them. But Paul and Barnabas remained in Antioch, teaching and preaching the word of the Lord, with many others also.

(Acts 15:22-35 ESV)

What did the Church elders in Jerusalem do? Look at the giants of the church who were there: James, John, Peter, Barnabas and Paul. They wrote a letter to comfort the minds of those troubled and to give them guidance. But that was not all.

1. They sent witnesses with the letter to attest its veracity. This is the only time you hear of Barsabbas: Silas remains in Antioch and goes on missionary journeys. But these were men with a reputation for truth-telling and who were trusted.
2. They praise Paul and Barnabas, as people who have risked their necks for the gospel, and indicate that their teaching was correct. The false teachers were wrong. If I can refer to other scriptures; Paul was not physically impressive and did not use Rabbinical rhetoric (much: we was a trained rabbi) for he chose to speak plain. Those Rabbis looked so learned and spiritual.
3. Barsabbas and Silas stayed in Antioch (for they were prophets) and taught, preached and prophesied for a period. It was not one letter and one meeting, it was multiple meetings over a period: the errors in teaching from the Judaizers had to be taught against again and again.

In this time we have multiple errors we need to deal with, many of which are so pernicious and endemic we barely see them for we swim in them as a fish swims in water and ignores the aether it moves through.

At present this water, this culture, is actively anti-rational: it sees all things through the paradigm of power, disavows duty, and despises morality.

But the Apostles did not despise morality. There is a final message we need to repeat: to be moral, to keep the simple rules around eschewing idolatry, sexual immorality, perjury, fraud, theft and avoiding envy (which is covetousness)are good things and we would do well to live that way.

But no one claims these cause our salvation. For we are, by nature, impious, greedy, envious, lustful, gluttonous and fear stops us from defrauding each other and stealing. It is the work of the Holy Spirit that changes us. If we live righteously, it is the consequences of that Spirit.

It is not our doing. In case we fall into that most difficult of all mires to leave: believing we are righteous and spiritual, and having pride in that.