I recently preached a sermon from the first 16 verses in the book of Jude entitled “How to Spot a False Teacher.” In that sermon I mentioned several “preachers” to avoid, and naturally some folks in my church then asked, “Well, then, who should we listen to?”
That is a great question.
There are a few hallmarks I want to give that are helpful in discerning the type of biblical content we allow into our minds. Since, after all, we are transformed by the renewing of our minds, we want to guard what goes into our ears so that we’re not stumbling over the finish line of conformity to Christ. We want to dwell deeply in the word and allow it to transform our hearts to look more like Jesus. With that, here are a few distinguishing hallmarks of a faithful Bible teacher:
The sermon is driven by or derived from a biblical text. A lot of pastors will preach topically, which is fine, but here’s the big principle: The Bible is our authority in faith and life, so any sermon (topical or verse-by-verse) must be grounded in the biblical truth according to the whole counsel of God. I prefer expository sermons, where a pastor preaches from a particular text. But I also enjoy a topical sermon now and again. What you should look for is not someone who’s preaching their own ideas, but rather someone who’s preaching soundly the text of Scripture.
The sermon must be biblically and theologically accurate. We don’t ignore the councils of Christian history. We embrace them. They (and the creeds they produced) have guarded the church from heresy then, and if we follow their lead, they’ll guard us from heresy now. Our church has a faith statement for a reason. It helps us in alignment with doctrinal truth, and guards us from going off the road of sound doctrine and theology.
The lifestyle of the preacher matters. If someone has disqualified themselves from the ministry through credible accusations, it doesn’t matter how great of an orator they are. They shouldn’t be teaching and they’re in danger of God’s judgment for continuing to do so. There are some preachers I used to listen to quite often that I’m not recommending on this list because they didn’t finish well.
There is a proper balance of Word and Spirit. Many preachers are all about the biblical text with no room for the Spirit of God to move. Others are all about the whimsical, Spirit driven experience and don’t care about the exposition of Scripture. I personally would rather err toward solid exposition because the Spirit can use that, whereas there have been all sorts of abuses and heretical teachings from some folks on the other side of things. The list I provide is full of either textual folks, or text+Spirit people. I avoid the people who are only Spirit without the Word.
Avoid, avoid, avoid teachers in the word-faith movement, and be careful of those in the charismatic movement. The word-faith guys are just all about health, wealth, prosperty, etc. It’s a distortion of the biblical message. The charismatic movement is full of good preachers, so long as they stick to the gospel message and don’t elevate the gifts of the Spirit over the importance of the gospel message. Several of the preachers I listed would be considered part of the charismatic movement, but they’re also Bible guys.
So, here’s my list of folks that I’ve found to be trustworthy. There’s always going to be something that I disagree with theologically, and I’m sure that someone somewhere will look through this list and ironically label a few of them as false teachers. I get that. I recently ran across a list of “false-teachers” that included John Piper! Really?! Then I remembered… Opinions are like belly buttons – everyone has one! So, here’s where I land: The men (and women for the ladies) on this list will faithfully teach me the Bible, and I can learn from them even if there are points where we disagree. May we drink deep from the Scriptures, grow from hearing the Word preached, and rest in the Sovereignty of the One who gave us the Truth by which we live our lives.
Generally trusted publishers:
Lifeway, Crossway, Navpress, Serge/NewGrowth Press.
Be careful with Thomas Nelson and Zondervan – evaluate them on a case by case basis.
Trusted Preachers:
Matt Chandler
Francis Chan
Sinclair Ferguson
John Piper
John MacArthur
CJ Mahaney
Tim Keller
Adrian Rogers
Allistair Begg
Charles Stanley
David Jeremiah
Tony Evans
HB Charles Jr.
Greg Laurie
Michael Youssef
Chuck Swindoll
Brian Chapell
D. James Kennedy
Ligon Duncan
Albert Mohler
Mark Dever
David Platt
Robby Gallaty
Craig Groeshel
Sam Storms
Paul David Tripp
Louie Giglio
Riley Prather (seriously – how could I not put myself here?!)
Trusted Women’s Voices:
Jen Wilkin
Sally Clarkson
Daily Grace Co. podcast
She Reads Truth podcast
Lisa Harper
Beth Moore
Trillia Newbell
Margaret Feinberg
Priscilla Shirer
Alisa Childers
Kelly Minter
Jennifer Rothschild
Angie Smith
Elizabeth Woodson
Jada Edwards
Sheila Walsh
Gloria Furman
Nancy Guthrie
Risen Motherhood podcast
Marked – podcast by Lifeway Women
