← Discern & defend
Discern & defend module

Responding to false doctrines

Ten pieces of content like the ones you really run into. You don't learn to refute · you learn to probe. For each case, choose the question that puts the claim to the test, question yourself, then uncover what lies beneath.

You don't learn to refute · you learn to probe

These ten cases don't hand you comebacks to recite. They train you to do what Jesus did constantly: answer a claim with a question that puts it to the test. Two questions open almost everything: “What are you basing that on?” and “How did you arrive at that conclusion?”

  1. Read the content as if a loved one sent it to you.
  2. Choose the question that probes · not the one that accuses.
  3. Question yourself honestly, then reveal what lies beneath.
The compass · four questions that probe
  • “What are you basing that on? Show me the text.”
  • “How did you arrive at that conclusion · your own reasoning, or the video's?”
  • “Have you read this passage in its full context?”
  • “Who is saying this · and who can correct them?”

Two cases touch tender places · a bereavement (the state of the dead) and money (prosperity). There, doctrine comes after the person: listen first, probe second.

▶ First, test yourself
Are you yourself in the truth?
A self-diagnostic simulator on eight doctrines. If you're in the truth, we strengthen it; if you slip, we walk with you · without judging you · toward Scripture. We defend better what we hold ourselves.
Your turn · reliable, caution, or trap? 6 pieces to classify

Apply the traffic lights and V.R.A.E.: for each piece, choose reliable / caution / trap · including one that flatters you, one that's “almost true,” and one where succeeding means knowing what you would check first.

Being right isn't enough

You can win every point of doctrine and lose the person. To probe is not to trap: it is to help the other see for themselves. These cases serve only to protect and bring back, never to expose in order to shine. Before a loved one who has been led astray, the order stays the same · listen, ask a question, keep the bond · as in the two conversations to role-play: Yannick and Manon.
Source: Apologetics Guide for members (FACSAR / FEAR · Indian Ocean), Module 4 · Common heresies and false doctrines (4.1 to 4.9): what they say, the biblical response, and where it spreads, taken up and adapted into Socratic case studies. The Holy Spirit case was added from the trinitarian foundation (4.1) and the Scriptures on the personhood and divinity of the Spirit. The Ellen White quotation (“the third person of the Godhead”) was verified: The Desire of Ages, p. 671.
SuggestionFR