You will find the origins of sophistry in writings 400 hundred years before the birth of Jesus. You may be saying, “I’ve never even heard the word and have no clue what it means. What does it have to do with my Christianity?” That’s OK. You don’t need to know all the ins and outs of sophistry. Yet, Christians should be aware we are confronted everyday with deceptive reasoning sophistry purports and people utilize to bring us to false conclusions. Sophistry is prevalent in advertising, politics, and includes so called Bible teachers who use sophistic reasoning to deceive Christians into accepting their unfounded doctrines. Sophistry means the use of reasoning or arguments that sound correct but are actually false. The logic may seem plausible on a superficial level but is based on unsound, unsupported, or irrelevant fallacies in order to mislead people.
TV commercials employ this method every day in their advertising. They present an argument that without their product your life will be incomplete. Politicians are skilled artisans with this form of reasoning when arguing for and against a new law. Some televangelists especially tend to distort the Bible into saying what they want by selective reading and omitting scriptures. By taking snippets of verses out of context, they arrange them in such a way that people believe their misleading message. The only sermon I’ve heard a ‘faith’ teacher preach from the Book of Job is that he went through his suffering because of a lack of faith. ‘Prosperity’ teachers never deal truthfully with suffering or poverty other than saying believers won’t suffer or be poor if they follow their teaching.
One of the greatest needs today for countering unbiblical doctrines is believers who are critical thinkers, which should be all Christians. One evaluation we gave entering students at the Bible College was “Critical Thinking Skills”. It was an eye opener every year such a large percentage of the students scored at the lowest levels. Critical thinking is simply the process of thinking carefully about a subject or idea, without allowing feelings or opinions to affect you; thinking for oneself and questioning accepted notions of authority, truth, and meaning; rational thoughts based on evidence to reach a conclusion. We all know Christians who we could label as gullible believers. Paul wanted people to mature to the point they were are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming (Eph 4:14). Christians will believe unbiblical teaching and live a certain lifestyle because their Pastor or ‘the man of God’ told them they must.
Although you won’t find the terms sophistry or critical thinking in the Bible it mentions the ideals throughout scripture. The gullible believe anything they’re told; the prudent sift and weigh every word (Prov 14:15 MSG). Paul tells Timothy, Think about what I am saying . . . (2 Tim 2:7 NET). Think means to exercise the mind, consider, and reflect on. The grammar indicates a command and a continuous process. Luke commends the Berean believers as noble-minded because they received Paul’s message and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true (Act 17:11 NIV).
The apostate teaching of the Gnostic cult was deceiving the Colossian congregation. Paul well aware of sophistic reasoning writes, I say this so that no one will deceive you through arguments that sound reasonable (Col 2:4 NET). One writer translates this verse; I say this to prevent your being misled by any one’s plausible sophistry. The entire book focuses on people who these teachers led astray through false reasoning and believers failing to exercise critical thinking. The warning Paul gave the Colossian church should be a strong warning today with so many deceivers and people who don’t exercise critical thinking. Watch out for people who try to dazzle you with big words and intellectual double-talk. They want to drag you off into endless arguments that never amount to anything. They spread their ideas through the empty traditions of human beings and the empty superstitions of spirit beings. But that’s not the way of Christ (2:8 MSG).
Again, my grandmother’s homespun adage is appropriate. “Don’t believe anything you hear, half of what you see, and keep your mouth shut and you will be OK.” I would change it today not to believe anything you see especially in media. Don’t be a gullible Christian, regardless of who presents it. Don’t become one of the multitudes of people that will embrace almost anything without questioning it as long as the presenter seems believable because of appearance, smooth talk, and persuasive arguments. God gave us a mind and is renewing it (Rom 12:2)—use it.
Sustaining Word for the Week: Don’t believe everything you hear. Carefully weigh and examine what people tell you. Not everyone who talks about God comes from God. There are a lot of lying preachers loose in the world (1 Jn 4:1 MSG).