The New Testament is full of warnings to beware of false teachers and their deceptive teachings. These people twist Scripture and listening to them is dangerous to our spiritual walk. So how can we recognize false teaching?

Well, first we need to be aware it exists and that we need to be looking for it. Just because a particular teaching is popular doesn’t make it right. False teaching is usually more popular than the hard truth! But the only way to know if something is true is by comparing it to the truth—God’s Word. We need to constantly study the Word of God so that we can recognize false teaching when we hear it.

Consider this: God didn’t tell us everything about himself all at once. We don’t usually find one chapter in the Bible that fully deals with a topic. Instead, we have to compare Scripture with Scripture.

That’s why it’s important not to neglect any part of the Bible. Often Christians ignore the Old Testament and only focus on the New Testament. But we can’t properly understand the New without understanding its foundation in the Old. And we can’t properly understand the Old Testament without the New Testament. You need both!

When we read and interpret the Bible, we need to look at Scripture from cover to cover—the whole Scripture!

Many people claim that Scripture is full of hidden meanings. But the meaning of Scripture isn’t found in combinations of numbers or secret meanings of Hebrew words.

One of Jesus’ favorite replies to questions was, “Haven’t you read?” Jesus expected people to read and understand what the Bible says. This means that Scripture isn’t full of hidden meaning only the educated or enlightened can discover.

Now, there are parts of the Bible that are more difficult to understand than other parts, but this doesn't mean we should search for hidden meanings. So what is the Bible? The Bible is God’s truth declared truth plainly to all generations.

Did you know that the Bible actually says there is no God? Well, the Bible only says this if you ignore the context! The verse actually reads, “The fool says in his heart ‘there is no God.’”

Ah, yes, context makes a big difference! In fact, it’s the key to properly interpreting Scripture.

Here are three kinds of context to look for as you read the Bible: First, what comes immediately before and after? Second, what does the revelation of Scripture say as a whole? And third, what was the historical context?

Paying close attention to the context will keep us from making Scripture say whatever we want it to say.

Over and over again I hear the claim that if we interpret Genesis literally, we need to interpret the whole Bible that way. But I actually don’t say we should interpret the Bible literally. I always say we should interpret the Bible “plainly” or “naturally.”

This means we read the Bible how it was meant to be read. You see, Scripture is made up of many different types of literature that aren’t all meant to be understood the same way. We read history, like Genesis, in a straightforward fashion. But poetry, like Psalms, clearly uses non-literal figurative language.

We need to read the Bible plainly or naturally so we can properly interpret its message.

This week we saw that many of the claims of climate change alarmists are based on old-earth assumptions. But as Christians we start with the Bible’s history that our Earth is young and was radically changed by a global flood. When you start with the Bible, there is no man-made climate crisis.

So how should we respond? Well, we need to be good stewards of the earth God has given us. But this doesn’t mean we rush to make the radical changes suggested by alarmists. Instead, do good research that starts from a biblical worldview and recognize that our climate was designed by an all-wise Creator who sees the future.

Climate change alarmists tell us that it’s definitely man-made CO2 emissions causing climate change. They claim if we don’t do something now, we’ll destroy our planet forever.

Even though these alarmists like to say that the science is settled, well, some studies suggest that climate change is actually caused naturally by things such as sunspot cycles. And, while carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, it’s not really a significant one. Naturally occurring water vapor is responsible for the vast majority of the greenhouse warming that keeps us from freezing.

You know what? We need to carefully examine the claims made by these alarmists.

Anytime there’s a major weather event, the headlines remind us that it was caused by climate change. They’ll claim that virtually all scientists agree that devastating changes to our climate are the result of man’s actions. But is this true?

Well, thousands of scientists have added their names to lists stating that they don’t agree that man is the main cause. Many of these same scientists also don’t believe there even is a climate crisis. There is certainly no consensus about who or what is causing climate change or how bad it is.

So how should Christians understand climate change? Come back tomorrow and we will find out more.

I often hear the claim that creationists don’t believe in climate change. But that’s not true! There’s plenty of evidence that climates have changed in the past and are changing now. For example, people used to farm in Greenland!

What we do deny are the assumptions behind many of the claims of climate change alarmists. Many of these assumptions rely on a belief in an old earth.

When you start from a biblical worldview, well, a few thousand years ago there was a global flood that radically changed the climate, including causing an ice age. Now that’s climate change! So why are things changing now? Well, more on that tomorrow.

What does the creation/evolution debate have in common with supposed manmade climate change? Well, both are determined by your starting point!

If we begin with the idea that Earth is millions of years old and the temperature has been steady for tens of thousands of years, well, then climate change is alarming and probably our fault.

But if we start with God’s Word, we know Earth was created recently with a “very good” climate. But there was a catastrophic global flood four thousand years ago that devastated the earth including massive changes to the climate! Climate change has been a reality since the global flood of Noah’s day.