Is it real? or Imitation?

Fashion puzzles me. The current mystery is the price of a handbag. I could pay a few hundred dollars for an imitation, a knock-off of a purse priced at several thousand dollars. Some would call that a bargain, but I think the imitation is over-priced. And then there are imitations of the imitations—the Wal-Mart specials that might look like the real imitation, at least at fifty yards.

In my mind, no one imitates something that has no value, but how on earth can a handbag cost as much as a small car? It doesn’t make sense.

Another puzzle is false teaching, fake Christianity, people who say they know God but have never entered a relationship with Him. Jesus warned about “wolves in sheep’s clothing” and these wolves have always been a problem for the church. For two thousand years, genuine believers have been duped by fakes and led into error, which is far more serious than buying an imitation purse. I don’t think Christians are more gullible than anyone else. It is just that the truth of God is so valuable that false teachers work overtime to come up with ways to use it to exploit others. For them, it is a way to have power, then get people’s money.

Paul wrote to a young pastor in 1 and 2 Timothy. He warns him about those who “strive about words to no profit, to the ruin of the hearers.” He tells him to “shun profane and idle babblings, for they will increase to more ungodliness.” Clearly the early church had the same imitators as I see in today’s religious circles.

Further, Paul said false teaching “will spread like cancer” and can even “overthrow the faith of some.” But he does not sound surprised at this. He says as a statement of fact that, “In a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay, some for honor and some for dishonor.” He tells Timothy if anyone cleans up his act and rids himself from any false teaching and false ideas about God, that person can become a “vessel of honor” and be useful for “every good work.”

I hate to be fooled by a fake, but know that I don’t need to study false teaching so I can spot it. Someone told me he saw a wall of counterfeit bills under glass at the Franklin Mint in the U.S.A. He asked the security guard how much time they spent studying these bills. The man said none; to spot a phoney, they study the real money. By being familiar with it, fakes become obvious.

Paul said the same thing. “Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed (or duped), rightly dividing the word of truth.” That last phrase means to “cut it straight” as a carpenter would, be accurate. Anything less than that is shameful.

In my mind, false teachers seem easy to spot; they do not know the Bible. The parts that they do know are interpreted out of context, and made to say something that suits the false teacher’s agenda. But that does not mean I’m infallible and can never be fooled. Paul’s command to be diligent applies to me too, especially when I think I know the fakes. The Bible says that pride goes before a fall, so I must not boast that I know God’s Word. Instead, I need to remember that I’m easy to fool—and I can’t tell the difference between a genuine $45,000 Louis Vuitton and a $35 knock-off.