3 false teachings have permeated large sections of the church for most of the last 2000 years.
Different branches of the church have taught these 3 teachings, both directly and by implication, as absolute, unquestionable truth.
I myself personally believed these teachings, in varying degrees, for a large part of my adult life.
The effects of believing these teachings are far from obvious, as we will see. They are all damaging to our relationship with God and our spiritual growth.
I have written about each of these 3 subjects in detail and this writing contains summaries of them and links to them.
Many people believe and teach that “The Bible is the Word of God.”
This teaching is most common in Evangelical, Pentecostal and Charismatic environments.
The problem is that the statement “The Bible is the Word of God” is half true and half false.
If we change it to “the Bible is a word of God”, it becomes much nearer to the truth.
A further problem is that the statement “The Bible is the Word of God” leads directly to the statement “the Word of God is the Bible.”
The statement “the Word of God is the Bible” then leads to the idea that in many places where the Bible speaks about “the word of God” it is referring to itself.
This is where it becomes dangerously false.
Note carefully the following scriptures:
Many people treat these and other verses which refer to the “word of God” as though they refer to the Bible; but none of them do. Obviously, the New Testament had not even been completed and assembled at the time it was being written!
The Bible never refers to itself as the word of God.
The Bible refers to Jesus as the word of God: “The word was made flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). Calling the Bible the Word of God is putting the Bible in the place of Jesus.
The Bible also refers to the gospel as the word of God: “The word of the Lord remains forever. And this word is the gospel that was preached to you” (Pet 1:25).
But the Bible never refers to itself as the word of God.
For more on this subject, see Scripture and the Word of God.
The doctrine of the trinity is the teaching that God is 3 persons: God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.
This doctrine has been the primary teaching of the church since the time of the Roman emperor Constantine. Constantine reigned from CE 306 to 337. He converted from paganism to Christianity and brought many pagan ideas and institutions into the church. These included the doctrine of the Trinity. Doctrines of trinities - 3 gods - existed in several other religions, and it seemed a good idea to have a trinity in the Christian religion as well!
Neither the word “Trinity”, nor the word “person” occurs anywhere in the Bible. The English word “person” comes through Latin from the Greek word προσωπον meaning a face. Father, Son and Holy Spirit were seen as the 3 faces of God.
Father and son were obvious choices for the first 2 members of the trinity, but who was there who could be the third? The Holy Spirit - the spirit of God - was co-opted for the third. Though it is difficult to see how the spirit of God could be a different person from God.
For much of the church the doctrine of the trinity has been the acid test for sound belief. Anyone who believes in the Trinity is sound in doctrine. Anyone who does not believe in the Trinity is heretical.
According to this teaching, Catholics, Anglicans, Baptists, Methodists and various others are basically genuine Christians. Jehovah’s Witnesses, Latter-day Saints, Christadelphians and Unitarians, among others, are considered outsiders.
The reality, I believe, is that both true believers and nominal or false believers are found in all the denominations that call themselves Christian.
For more on this subject, see the Doctrine of the Trinity.
Most people who base their teachings on the Bible believe in eternal torment. That is to say, they believe that those who accept Jesus as saviour will spend eternity with him in heaven; but those who do not accept him as saviour, will spend eternity in hell in terrible agony. This torment will continue for ever and ever without end.
Some people believe that the millions of people that have never even heard the name of Jesus will in some way be judged more leniently, perhaps by the way they have lived their lives.
However, the teaching of eternal torment is based on mistranslation of Greek words in the New Testament and Hebrew words in the Old Testament.
The English words for ever are a mistranslation of the Greek words εἰς τον αἰωνα (eis ton aiona) which literally mean “to the age”.
The English adjective eternal (or everlasting) is a mistranslation of the Greek adjective αἰωνιος (aionios) which means “age-lasting”.
This teaching places a terrible burden on those who believe it. How can anyone live with the thought their unbelieving relatives or friends, maybe their own parents or children, are in imminent danger of spending eternity in horrific unending torment? A sudden car accident or an unexpected fatal disease could send them into something far worse than anything that could happen to them in this present world.
For more on this subject, see Universal Reconciliation.