Missionaries on the field must carefully emphasize God’s distinctness from creation, Christ’s authority over every spiritual entity, and both the emptiness and danger of magical practices that attempt to connect the user with the divine.

When we think of the Great Commission, we often focus on reaching the lost and preaching the gospel.

Yet, in Matthew 28, Jesus commands his followers not only to go and make disciples but to accomplish that task through teaching them to observe all that he has commanded (v. 20). This instruction does not just have unbelievers in view; it also applies to the shepherds of the church itself.

As Paul reminds Timothy, the survival and health of the church hinge on training the next generation of faithful leaders (2 Timothy 2:2). Yet, one oft-cited, sobering statistic reveals that nearly 85 percent of the world’s pastors and ministers lack formal theological training.

The challenge is compounded by the fact that many church leaders around the world don’t wait for such education before diving headlong into ministry. While some, like Apollos, are open to correction and growth, others—whether through ignorance or ill intent—may lead their congregations astray. The church must rise to meet this need, ensuring its leaders are grounded in sound doctrine and equipped for faithful ministry. In this vein, consider these five forms of false teaching plaguing the global church.

1. Trinitarian Heresie

Since the earliest days of the church, the enemy has sought to corrupt biblical doctrine with respect to the nature of God himself. In the third century, for instance, Sabellius taught the error of modalism, the unbiblical notion that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are merely three different manifestations of one God, rather than three distinct, co-equal, co-eternal persons.

Little has changed since the 400s; false teachings relating to the Trinity continue to threaten the health of local churches. One missionary in South Asia recently described to me that most of the Christians among whom he ministers have embraced or are at risk of embracing modalism themselves. Islam and Mormonism also represent equal and opposite corruptions of the biblical doctrine of God—the former conceiving of God as a single, solitary monad incapable of possessing love and community within his singular nature, and the latter by positing an infinite number of finite, planetary demigods. Missionaries engaged in teaching today must be well-versed on the doctrine of God—both in his oneness of being and his threeness of person, subsisting in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

2. Christological Errors

A related yet distinct category of heresies common in the world today includes those teachings which corrupt the Bible’s Christology, or its doctrine of Christ. Islam proffers a Jesus (or “Isa”) who is merely a prophet and not the divine Son. Hindus usually affirm Jesus as some sort of avatar, or physical manifestation of a god. Jehovah’s Witnesses teach that Jesus is the first creation of God and is to be identified as Michael the archangel, despite Scripture’s teaching that God has created all things through Christ (Colossians 1:16) and Christ is superior to the angelic species (Hebrews 1:4-6). And modern Talmudic Judaism holds that Jesus was not only merely human but was a false prophet.

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