Ministry of Grace Church

My brothers, if anyone among you should stray from the truth, and someone should turn him back,

Truth to Learn

We need to lovingly reach out to those who have strayed from the truth.

 

Behind the Words

There are a couple of words we want to look at in this verse. The first is “stray.” Some translations have this as “err” or “wander.” The Greek word is planaō which means “to stray,” “to roam,” “to wander,” or “to be out of the way.” The implication is that this person knew the truth and has since changed direction and has wandered into something that is not the truth. This word is expressed in the subjunctive mood as part of a 3^rd class conditional clause, indicating that it is possible, but there is no assumption as to whether it is true or not.

The other word we want to look at is “turn” which comes from the Greek epistrephō, which is made up of epi, meaning “upon” or “over” and strephō, meaning to turn. Hence, epistrephō literally means “to turn upon” or “to turn toward.” Here it carries the meaning “to turn back around to the original way.” This again emphasizes the fact that the person was originally going the correct way, has since turned away, but has now turned back around to the truth.

 

Meaning Explained

This verse does not stand on its own, but needs the next verse to make complete sense. We as Christians need to be ever on the guard against seducing doctrines that draw us away from the truth. That’s why it is so important for us to be reading the Bible daily and listening to doctrinally sound preachers, always seeking confirmation from the Spirit of God and the Bible itself as to the things that are being taught. Look at what was said of the believers in Berea concerning the teaching of Paul and Silas. These believers went directly to the Word to verify what they were being taught.

And the brothers immediately sent Paul and Silas by night unto Berea: who having arrived went into the synagogue of the Jews. And these were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, examining the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so. (Acts 17:10,11)

Today’s verse is not talking about salvation, even though the word “convert” is used in some translations rather than “turn … back.” It is talking about a believer who has been led into false doctrine.

People who are trained to spot counterfeit money are not taught what all the various fakes look like, instead they are taught in excruciating detail what the real thing looks like. Likewise, we will be able to detect false doctrine only when we know without a doubt what true Biblical doctrine is. In the next verse we will see that James speaks very strongly about the effect of false doctrine.

 

Application

You obviously want to know the truth of God’s Word, otherwise you wouldn’t be going through these daily devotional verse studies. But it can’t stop here. You need to be reading your Bible daily and regularly hearing good sound preaching based on God’s Word and nothing else. Only by thoroughly knowing the true doctrines taught in the Bible will you be able to detect false doctrine.