How To Spot a Wolf

Excerpt from "Watch Out for the Wolves Within"
By John Piper

Acts 20:28-31

Take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God which He obtained with the blood of His own Son. I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them. Therefore be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to admonish every one with tears.

3. The third incentive Paul gives to the elders is that great danger always awaits the church. Verse 29-30, "I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them."

The incentive for vigilance here is the danger that inside the church men will aspire to the eldership who are wolves in sheep's clothing (Matt. 7:15). They will slowly begin to speak twisted and distorted things about Scripture. And unless the elders are spiritually alert and thoroughly Biblical in their vigilance, the wolves may decimate the flock.

Let me just mention one feature to watch out for in the recognition of wolves. As I have watched the movement from Biblical faithfulness to liberalism in persons and institutions that I have known over the years this feature stands out: An emotional disenchantment with faithfulness to what is old and fixed, and an emotional preoccupation with what is new or fashionable or relevant in the eyes of the world.

Lets try to say it another way: when this feature is prevalent, you don't get the impression that a person really longs to bring his mind and heart into conformity to fixed Biblical truth. Instead you see the desire to picture Biblical truth as unfixed, fluid, undefinable, distant, inaccessible and so open to the trends of the day.

So what marks a possible wolf-in-the-making is not simply that he rejects or accepts any particular Biblical truth, but that he isn't deeply oriented on the Bible. He is more oriented on experience. He isn't captured by the great old faith once for all delivered to the saints. Instead he's enamored by what is new and innovative.

A good elder can be creative. But the indispensable mark when it comes to doctrinal fitness is faithfulness to what is fixed in Scripture—disciplined, humble submission to the particular affirmations of the Bible—carefully and reverently studied and explained and cherished. When that spirit begins to go there's a wolf-in-the-making.

So the third incentive for elders is the ever-present danger of wolves in sheep's clothing who twist the truth and lead the people away to destruction.


By John Piper. © Desiring God. Website: http://www.desiringgod.org/. Email: mail@desiringGod.org. Toll Free: 1.888.346.4700.