The Didache 20 – Who Causes You To Err?

This series is reflecting on the Didache if you want to read it separately.

See that no one causes you to err from this way of the Teaching, since apart from God it teaches you.

The construction of the sentence above is awkward in this, probably more literal, translation. I’ve read a number of the available translations and the general sense I get from them all is a warning about those who teach a way that is different than the way in the Teaching (didache) because if you practice the things they tell you to do, your practice of those things will move you away from God.  Father Stephen had a post the other day about belief and practice that seems to me to fit like a glove with this idea. What we truly believe is to a very large degree shaped by those things we actually do. It makes perfect sense to me, as someone who has practiced many different spiritual paths, that when we do the things “false teachers” would have us do, when we follow their way, that we are led astray from God.

The problem in modern, pluralistic Christianity, is discerning true practice from false. This is not an easy matter. The teachers today in Christian pluralism to a large extent sincerely and earnestly believe they are teaching true practice consistent with the teachings of Holy Scriptures and the apostles. They seek to bring the life of God to people even as they teach divergent and contradictory practices. We do not face a problem of motive today as much as a disconnect from the history and tradition of the church.

I’ve heard some suggest that “false teacher” will fail to produce “fruit”. While there are instances where that may certainly be true even today, I would suggest that observation largely does not conform to reality. First and foremost, it attempts to limit God in a way that it seems to me that God refuses to be limited. For my evidence, I point to the pluralism in belief and practice across the Christian spectrum and suggest you show me a place where God is not working at all. That is in spite of the fact that we find utterly contradictory practices in that spectrum and contradictory portraits of God. It is my impression that God surveys the landscape we have created and does what he can in every corner of it. God is eager to save and is not willing that any should perish. And he doesn’t tend to accept or even acknowledge limits. I will observe, though, that some flavors of Christianity today give him less to work with than others. And since we are to a large extent shaped by the things we do, the more iconoclastic among us are actually stripping away tools for our salvation.

As James notes, it is the teacher who will give an account to God. It is the teacher who will be judged more strictly. I pray that I have never led anyone from the way of life. Mostly, though, I pray for mercy. I’ve done the best I knew to do. And sometimes when I survive the modern landscape of Christianity, I marvel that we are not all prostrate before God praying for mercy for that which we have done to the body of the Son. I’m not even sure it’s of supreme importance who is “right” and who is “wrong”. None of us have any excuse for letting things reach this point. We need to beg forgiveness of one another.

I had actually intended to reflect on a larger segment of the Teaching in today’s post rather than this single sentence. I thought I had little to say on it. But as I wrote, the words kept coming in a direction I did not anticipate when I began. I always find that aspect of writing fascinating and sometimes a little disturbing.

Grace and peace, all.