I was a junior in college when I realized she was a universalist.

My favorite author, whose lyrical style and captivating storytelling filled my bookshelves, had finally shown her cards in one of her non-fiction works. I had to read the paragraph three times to realize that she had departed from the gospel of Jesus Christ. No other writer to date had shaped my theology and love for the written word like she had. When I came face to face with her expression of eventual grace for those who reject Christ, I realized I had a lot of work to do to unravel truth from lie. This was 2001. The internet was still new, and I chose books based upon friends’ suggestions or a professor’s recommended reading list. Sometimes I just scanned shelves at the local bookstore looking for an interesting cover.

It’s easier these days to see what’s popular. Through social media, blogging, and the irresistible Facebook share button, we can know exactly which book is making the rounds, what article or Instagram post has gone viral, what podcast is most empowering, which speaker is most enlightening. Beautifully curated bookshelves are photographed and tagged #amreading and #givemejesus but are loaded with a wide and varying degree of “Christian” authors, many of whom never address issues like atonement, redemption, depravity.

No, the colorful book jackets and podcast logos of today’s Christian pop-culture don’t often bring up terms as antiquated and demoralizing as sin. No, it’s more like flaws, or the Christian favorite, struggles. If anything, the term must deflect fault to something else: society, upbringing, victimization, hypocrisy in the church. Someone else’s sin, but not yours. That’s the whole point of these books, sometimes: excusing our flaws by explaining them. Or hyper-focusing on one moral code that will lead to genuine happiness, no matter where you fall on the infallibility of Scripture.

I’m grieved every time I see another woman I care about succumb to the latest “Christian” bestseller which, more often than not, is feel-good psychology scantily clad in a few decontextualized Bible verses. Sometimes I feel like I’m watching Paul’s second letter to Timothy play out in front of me when people I love fall prey to vacuous teaching that holds to a form of godliness but denies its power. I’ve been deceived myself, and I have to fight against weak-mindedness.

Weak-Minded Women

“For among them are those who creep into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins and led astray by various passions, always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth.” (2 Tim. 3:6-7, ESV)

Weak women. In some translations it’s idle. In others, it’s weak-minded, and I think that explains the condition best. It “suggests a wandering into counterfeits, with no awareness that truth has been left behind.²”

I’m not immune. As illustrated above, it’s happened to me. I’ve been sucked in by writers and speakers who pull us up close to their stories with warm-hearted charisma and a finger that gently points elsewhere for blame. I’ve cast many an admiring glance towards teachings that free me from responsibility and let me “be me.” I’ve been tempted by books that promise to uncover God’s specific, secret words to me personally in case my Bible is feeling out of date or too non-specific. What warms our hearts with fuzzy feelings about God’s plans for our lives amounts to nothing more than treating the Almighty like a fortune teller while scraping off any culpability for sin off Jesus’ commands for us to be like Him. The section of the bookstore titled “Christian Living” is a buffet where we can stuff ourselves with forms of godliness while starving for the knowledge that really does lead to the truth. It means we’ll always be back looking for that next book that might fix us by denying there’s anything wrong with us.

I don’t want to paint with too broad a brush. This isn’t every book for Christian women by a clear, long shot. I’ve read some of the most encouraging, gospel-saturated books by women and for women in the last two years that were high and above anything else I’ve read in that genre in my adult life. But those books don’t often make it to the front page of Amazon or to the bestseller shelves at the book store. Be wary of the ones that do take the lead. If a book resonates with someone opposed to the gospel or its transformative effects, then that book probably shouldn’t be a source upon which you build your theology. Critical reading is one thing. But, trying to glean “something good” from an author who denies Christ’s supremacy, man’s depravity, or Scriptural inerrancy is entirely another thing altogether and should be avoided.

Hold Fast to the Gospel

As I’ve worked my way through 2 Timothy over the past month, the thick thread holding Paul’s letter together is his charge to Timothy to preach the Word faithfully, holding fast to the gospel of Christ Jesus. At the risk of repetition, Paul exhorts over and over to stay true to the message of Jesus and Jesus only. And I don’t mean exhorts like “this would be a really great thing for you to do,” but exhorts like “preach the gospel like your life depends on it.” Because you know Paul. He doesn’t play. From his jail cell where he was imprisoned for this very gospel, he had heard about the pervasiveness of false teaching that was capturing people weighed down by sin and led astray by various passions. His exhortations always carry urgency, and with good reason. This is life and death.

Paul’s urgency translates well to the 21^st century for there is nothing new under the sun. We may be two-thousand years removed from Paul, but the creeping nature of false teaching is still one of the enemy’s greatest tools for leading people astray. A form of godliness will work just fine. It doesn’t have to be that far off from the truth. Just enough to carry a shadow of the truth but that doesn’t actually result in a life transformed by the death of Jesus and the repentance of our sins.

Pray for Discernment

Here’s the good news, sisters. “It is not God’s will that women be weak in their discernment, burdened with sin, and led astray by passions.¹” God desires more than this for you. He created you! His will is that you hold fast to the message of the gospel which is Christ and Him crucified and resurrected. In James 1, we are encouraged to pray for wisdom if we lack it. Wisdom isn’t fortune-telling. It’s discernment. And I believe praying for wisdom in regard to what we read and hear is a prayer God is moved to answer.

The gospel is your measuring stick. If what you’re reading, hearing, or watching isn’t anchored to the truth that you were dead in your sins until Jesus gave you new life by paying for your sins at the cross, then what you’re engaging with is missing the mark. If, like my college epiphany, what you’re filling your mind with denies the damning effects of sin and rejection of Christ, it is missing the mark. It is, as Paul said in 2 Timothy 3:5, a form of godliness that denies the power of the gospel. If you are building your theology (what you believe about God) upon what other people think about the Bible without ever studying the living, active Word of God for yourself, you are missing the mark and opening yourself up for dangerous error.

Exercise Discernment

“But as for you, continue in what you have learned and firmly believed. You know those who taught you, and you know that from childhood you have known the sacred Scriptures, which are able to give you wisdom for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” (2 Timothy 3:14-17, HCSB)

We have been given the gift of God’s words to us in the Bible. If you want to know His will for you, take up and read. If you want to find freedom from sin, take up and read. If you want to know how to speak the gospel of hope to your unbelieving friend, take up and read. If you want to learn how to persevere through trials, take up and read. Study the Word of God as much as you can, and by it measure everything else you read. There is no other book that is infallible or breathed out from the Maker of the universe. He has loved you by revealing Himself to you through His Word. Take up and read. Know His Word inside and out, and in so doing, you will be protecting yourself from weak-mindedness because you will be learning the mind of Christ.

Study the Word of God as much as you can, and by it measure everything else you read. Share on X

I’m not telling you not to read books besides the Bible. I love to read a wide range of writers, and I encourage others to as well! Read old books, new books, commentaries, poetry, blogs, articles. But first and foremost, read your Bible. All of it. As much as you can. The only way to really know if a writer or speaker is worming their way into your heart with a knowledge that doesn’t lead to truth is if you really, really know the truth.

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Notes:

¹Piper, John. “When a Lover of Good Thinks About Evil.”

²Guthrie, Donald. The Pastoral Epistles: An Introduction and Commentary. (Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press), 1990, 179.

*Are men excused from the need for discernment? Certainly not. Paul’s exhortations to Timothy are to hold fast to the gospel message so he can help others hold fast to it. I address women because Paul does, and because of the lack of discernment I’m seeing within my own gender. Additionally, most of my readers are women.

*Need a place to start? Check out the books I’ve loved and been profoundly shaped by here.

Photo by Sarah Noltner on Unsplash