Colossians 2: How to Recognize False Teaching

Introduction

"What forms you?" Malcolm Duncan, pastor at Kensington Temple in London, opens this message with that question. Not just: who do you follow on social media? But: what shapes the way you tell truth from lies, what matters most to you, and what a successful life looks like?

This is the sixth message in the series "Living Well: Kingdom Principles for a Flourishing Life," which walks through the letter to the Colossians verse by verse. Today's text is Colossians 2:20-23, where Paul warns against human rules: "Don’t handle, nor taste, nor touch."

From it, Malcolm Duncan draws three simple marks of false teaching. The message is followed by a time of questions and answers on prophecy, culture, marriage, and speaking in tongues.

Outline of the Message

1. What Forms You?

We live, the preacher says, in the age of "your truth": if you think it's true, it's true. The problem comes when two people think exactly the opposite.
He tells a story about C. S. Lewis at Oxford. A young man tells him that truth is relative: "If I think it's right, it's right." Lewis comes back from his kitchen with a kettle of boiling water and holds it over the young man's head. "You can't do that!" "Why not, if I think it's right?" The young man admits it is universally wrong. So there is a universal right and wrong.
"We are formed by the voices we trust," by the images we take in, the habits we repeat, and the communities we belong to.
Religious voices enter the competition too: what a serious Christian should wear, watch, eat, and say. There are things to avoid, the Bible says so. But when religious preferences are placed above biblical teaching, "you have a problem."
Others promise instant breakthroughs: "Pray this prayer and you will be set free." Christianity is not a religion of formulas. It takes faith and participation.
Pointing a hand toward someone while praying comes from a revival in California in the 1970s: it was hot, so people stopped touching each other. "There is nothing wrong with it, but it is not a biblical practice." Laying on of hands, on the other hand, is. The problem is turning it into an obligation.
The same goes for blowing on people or for falling down when receiving prayer. The test is not the person's reaction, but what happens afterward in their life: are they becoming more like Jesus?
"False teaching rarely presents itself as false. It presents itself as confident." It can use Christian vocabulary, quote Scripture, be carried by a gifted person, and produce visible results.

2. First Test: Does It Add Something to Jesus?

"If you died with Christ from the elements of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you subject yourselves to ordinances" (Colossians 2:20). The real problem is not the number of rules, but what they imply: Jesus is not enough.
False teachers say, in essence: "You have Jesus, but you need this too." That is how spiritual manipulation begins: it creates a lack that only the teacher, the ministry, the movement, or the conference can fill.
The Christian faith is not Jesus plus a personality, plus a political ideology, plus someone's private revelation, plus a style of worship, plus cultural preferences presented as biblical commandments. "The gospel does not say Jesus is a useful starting point. The gospel says Jesus is Lord."
No preacher, pastor, prophet, podcaster, or Christian influencer has the right to take Jesus' place, "and that includes me." If someone presents themselves as a source of revelation who cannot be questioned, do not trust them. Do as the Bereans did: examine the Scriptures.
The preacher tells of receiving a message presented as "the prophetic voice of God" for him. He tested it, and it contradicted Scripture. "But I am a prophet." "Who decided you were a prophet?" "I did." Every believer has the right and the responsibility to test prophecies.
"If you forget everything else about my ministry, remember this: the authority is this book." Many want a shortcut, to be told what the Bible says rather than reading it.
A faithful leader does not make you dependent on them, they teach you to depend on Jesus. "I am an under-shepherd of the great Shepherd. My job is not to replace Jesus for you."

3. Charisma Is Not Character

A clear test: does this teaching draw attention to Jesus, or does it create dependence on the teacher?
Be careful when a leader says they cannot be questioned, when disagreement makes you look disloyal, when private revelations weigh more than the public testimony of Scripture, when fear is used to control your decisions, your relationships, your money, or your future.
"Kingdom authority is never given to protect the leader from all accountability." Jesus gives authority to serve, equip, protect, and set people free in their calling, not to control them.
"He makes me laugh, so he must be a good teacher." The devil can make you laugh too. "It's one of the biggest churches in London." Unhealthy things grow too. "Look how many books they sell." Jesus never wrote a book.
His older brother, now deceased, was a well-known journalist who had a gift for seeming right even when he was wrong. One day he confidently explained to him how a school he had never been to worked. "You can be sincere and sincerely wrong."
"Charisma is not character. Confidence is not truth." Popularity is not divine approval. A big audience tells you how many people are listening, not whether God is speaking.

4. Second Mark: Outward Control Instead of Inner Transformation

"Why ... do you subject yourselves to ordinances, 'Don’t handle, nor taste, nor touch'" (Colossians 2:20-21). Rigid religious systems attract people, especially young adults, because they remove uncertainty. You no longer need discernment, just obedience.
The preacher refuses to call young adults a fragile generation: "You are a generation anointed by the Holy Spirit." But when it comes to choosing relationships, work, and calling, you can look calm while wondering whether you are behind. Controlling teachers then become very persuasive.
What they offer is certainty, not maturity. To grow, you have to face uncertainty. Anyone who stops you from making your own decisions is teaching you childhood, not adulthood.
As a father and grandfather, he gives parents this advice: "Don't teach your children what to think. Teach them how to think." Teach them to read the Bible, and even to let the Bible read them.
"Certainty and truth are not the same thing." A person can keep a demanding religious code and still be jealous, dishonest, cruel, and proud. As a young convert, he heard: "Never miss a meeting and you will never backslide." He sat next to people who missed no meeting and were full of bitterness.
That very day, outside the church, a homeless man collapsed with hypothermia in the middle of the street. People were stepping over him to come to worship. "Something is wrong there, don't you think?"
The Kingdom does not only ask: "What are you doing?" It asks: "What are you becoming?" Am I becoming more generous? Am I learning to forgive? Do I rejoice in other people's success? Am I the same in private and in public?
Guilt can change behavior without transforming desire. Fear can produce conformity, not love. Locking a door prevents an action, but does not make you loving. Blocking a website may keep you away from pornography, but does not create a desire for holiness. A budget limits your spending, but does not produce contentment. "Only Jesus can do that."

5. Third Mark: An Appearance of Wisdom, Without Power

"These things indeed appear like wisdom in self-imposed worship, humility, and severity to the body" (Colossians 2:23). Paul does not say that false religion looks absurd. It looks wise, but it changes nothing.
"Cults rarely remove Jesus. They dethrone him." False teaching makes Jesus less important than he should be and offers a list of obligations that cannot transform us.
Beautiful lighting, powerful music, moving language, and confident declarations can touch us deeply. "But emotional impact is not the same thing as spiritual authority."
These practices can regulate behavior and repair an image, but they "aren’t of any value against the indulgence of the flesh." They do not heal disordered desire.
The Holy Spirit does not stand outside shouting instructions. He lives in us. The one who inspired the Scriptures leads us to the one they speak of, the Lord Jesus.
"Jesus doesn't need to be improved. We don't need a Jesus 2.0," nor a trendy Jesus who approves of all British values, but the Jesus who stands above our values and calls us to follow him.

6. Questions and Answers: Prophecy, Culture, Marriage, Loved Ones Led Astray

Testing a prophecy. By the Word of God (1 John 4:1). Does it lift up Jesus? Does it honor Scripture? Does it lead to freedom or to bondage? Does it tell you what you want to hear or what you need to hear? Matthew 7 adds four tests: the narrow gate, the fruit, the lordship of Jesus, and the house that stands when the rain and the winds come.
Culture and Scripture. What is culturally widespread is not right for that reason. Culture must be placed under Scripture, not the other way around. Paul counts his privileges as refuse "for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord" (Philippians 3:8), without denying that they shaped him. The preacher, an Irishman, keeps his accent and his hospitality, but adapts his words to be understood.
He tells of a mother who wanted him to tell her ten-year-old daughter that she was a failure, because she had failed an entrance exam. He knelt down: "You are not a failure." Jesus might tell someone they failed at something, never that they are a failure.
Marriage. Biblical marriage involves public, lifelong covenant commitments of faithfulness and monogamy. Claiming that submission allows a man to hit his wife is heresy: "Any man who raises his hand against a woman sins," and the reverse is true too. Using vows to control, or saying "we're going to get married, so let's sleep together now," turns the other person into an object.
Helping a loved one caught in false teaching. Charging at them will push them away. Invite them to read the Bible with you: Romans for the work of the cross, Colossians for the divinity of Jesus, the letters of John for a spirit of judgment, Ephesians 1 and 3 for the power of the Holy Spirit.
You cannot persuade anyone by your own strength. Their understanding is darkened (Ephesians 4:18): it takes the Spirit, prayer, sometimes for months, compassion, and patience. Satan disguises himself as an angel of light (2 Corinthians 11:14): the answer is to keep bringing the person back to Jesus. "He is better than we are at setting people free."
A pastor has the responsibility to speak out against false teaching, even if it makes him unpopular: "The job of a pastor-teacher is not to be popular, it is to lead people into the truth."

7. Speaking in Tongues, Without Pressure or Formula

Paul writes to the Corinthians that tongues prove no superiority. But he also says: "Now I desire to have you all speak with other languages" (1 Corinthians 14:5) and "earnestly desire spiritual gifts" (1 Corinthians 14:1). So you can ask God for this gift. You cannot judge someone's spirituality by whether or not they speak in tongues.
Tongues are first of all a gift of prayer: "he who speaks in another language speaks not to men, but to God" (1 Corinthians 14:2). The preacher prays in tongues every day. He cooperates with the Spirit, he does not produce it.
When someone addresses the congregation in tongues at the microphone, he wants people to stop and wait for the interpretation, which is not a prophecy but a word addressed to God, to be weighed against Scripture. Kensington Temple taught him the power of praying and worshiping together in tongues.
To anyone who desires this gift: keep asking. If God gives you a few sounds, use them every day. A child doesn't quote Shakespeare at two years old. One of his grandsons, born with a lump on his lip, was almost impossible to understand for two or three years. Today he speaks clearly, "because he spoke every day when no one understood what he was saying."
He confides that when he was converted, two men from his church pestered him to speak in tongues. Exasperated, he ended up repeating their sounds, and they shouted "Hallelujah." "It was a sin, I'm not proud of it."
Three weeks later, at a prayer meeting in Belfast, a shooting broke out in the street between armed groups. He cried out to Jesus, and the Spirit filled him. The first thing God told him: go and apologize to those two men. He did. "I know what it is to be under pressure to perform. Don't do it."

Key Takeaways

False teaching rarely presents itself as false: it presents itself as confident, quotes Scripture, and can look wise.
Anything that adds something to Jesus, a system, a teacher, a private revelation, dethrones him. Jesus is Lord, not a starting point.
A faithful leader makes you dependent on Jesus, not on them. Kingdom authority never shields anyone from accountability.
Outward rules can change behavior, not a heart. Only Jesus transforms desire.
The authority is the Bible: read it yourself and test what you receive.

Personal Application

Which voices are forming you most right now, and are they pointing you toward Jesus?
Is there a teacher, a ministry, or an influencer you depend on more than on your own reading of the Bible?
In what area are you checking religious boxes without your heart really changing?
Are you the same person in private and in public? Are you becoming more generous, quicker to forgive?
Do you know someone caught in false teaching with whom you could read a book of the Bible, patiently and prayerfully?

Verses Quoted

Frequently Asked Questions

How can you recognize false teaching according to Colossians 2?

Malcolm Duncan draws three marks from Colossians 2:20-23. False teaching adds something to Jesus, as if Jesus were not enough. It replaces inner transformation with outward control: don't handle, don't taste, don't touch. Finally, it has an appearance of wisdom, but lacks the power to change the heart.

How do you test a prophetic word you have received?

You test it by the Word of God, as 1 John 4:1 urges. Does it lift up Jesus? Does it honor the teaching of the Bible? Does it lead to freedom or to bondage? The preacher adds the tests from Matthew 7: the narrow gate, the fruit, the lordship of Jesus, and the house that stands in the storm.

How can you help a loved one caught in false teaching?

Not by charging at them. Malcolm Duncan advises inviting them to read the Bible with you, choosing a fitting book: Romans for the cross, Colossians for the divinity of Jesus, the letters of John for a spirit of judgment, Ephesians 1 and 3 for the power of the Holy Spirit. You also need to pray, show compassion and patience, and keep bringing the person back to Jesus.