Every day for over 700 years, a bugle has been sounded from the steeple of St. Mary’s Church in Krakow, Poland. This commemorates a heroic trumpeter who blew his horn to call people to the city’s defense until the enemy killed him with an arrow. To honor him, the last notes on the bugle are always muted and broken.

Like that brave trumpeter, we, too, need to be on guard against the enemies: false teachers. If they convince us to believe untruths, we can be tempted to do wrong things. What strategies do these false teachers use? They tend to prey on the weak or immature (v. 18). They attempt to dazzle people with “empty, boastful words.” They do whatever they can to appeal to the “lustful desires of the flesh,” that is, to our fallen sin natures. They promise freedom while themselves serving as evidence that they’re lying (v. 19). A harsher judgment is reserved for them because they heard the truth but then turned their backs on the way of righteousness (vv. 17, 20–22).

The best way to be on guard against false teachers is to know God’s Word and to be committed to it as our authority and standard for all of life (see Day 2). As a church, we must take special care of the “spiritual babies” in our midst, watching over them protectively just as we do our physical children. As a community, we can help one another be on guard against false teachers. There’s literally nothing to them: “These people are springs without water and mists driven by a storm” (v. 17). They have no substance. Their teachings cannot truly satisfy. With God’s help, we should be able to see right through the outward show to the hypocrisy and lies beneath.

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