How to tell if something on the internet is spiritually helpful, harmful or bonkers

In a time of lockdown, where everything is online, the danger of being led astray by weird teachings on the internet has been very significantly increased. All preaching has had to move online. Hundreds of thousands of churches are putting out teaching and devotions of varying qualities. Millions of Christians with time on their hands are either producing content or looking for content to consume. Interested non-Christians are searching for meaning and answers. Thousands of 'ministries' of all kinds and sizes with large video and podcast libraries are no longer on the periphery of 'real life' but at the centre of the online marketplace where most of us are now spending the majority of our waking hours.

The chance of false teachers 'worming their way into homes' (2 Tim 3:6) has increased exponentially. The potential for destructive teaching to 'spread like gangrene' (2 Tim 2:17) is supercharged by overactive social media. Our ability to accumulate a great number of teachers to say what our itching ears want to hear (2 Tim 4:3) is now staggering. The amount of time we can waste is similarly staggering.

So how can you tell if something online is edifying or corrosive, worth your time or worth avoiding? Here are a few questions to ask (arising from 2 Timothy 2:14-19) and then a few additional red flags to watch out for.

1. Is this teaching emphasising the gospel of Christ crucified, risen and returning? Timothy is to 'keep reminding God's people of these things' (v4) - the 'these things' being 'Jesus Christ raised from the dead' (v8) and the good news that, united to him, sharing in his death and resurrection, we will be eternally safe (v11-13). Similarly Titus is told to 'stress these things' (Titus 3:8). A sign of good teaching is proportionality. Does it stress the things the Bible stresses? Does it major on Christ crucified? Does it keep circling back to the gospel? Does it glory in Jesus' suffering and glory? Or does it major on minors? Beware inordinately long articles which strain at gnats while swallowing far more dangerous camels of gospel neglect or distortion. 
2. Is it quarrelling? (2 Tim 2:14) It's good to contend for the faith but there is an 'unhealthy craving for controversy' (1 Tim 6:4). There are 'foolish and stupid arguments' (2 Tim 2:23). Teaching should be marked by kindness and gentleness (2 Tim 2:24-25) not sarcasm and venom. Beware those 'for whom there are no shades of theological grey' (Ian Hamilton), who fail to distinguish between primary and secondary issues (1 Cor. 15:1-3) and who neglect the massive emphasis on peace and unity in the New Testament letters.
3. Is it a quarrelling about words? (2 Tim 2:14) While it is absolutely true that every word written by the prophets and apostles, in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek, contained in the canon of Scripture, is completely faultless and not a single stroke is out of place (Matt 5:18), it does not follow that we should do as some Jewish interpretative schools did in the first centuries AD and as the Gnostics did, and seek hidden meanings in biblical words, letters and numbers.  The apostles in the New Testament don't do that. They interpret the Old Testament text as normal human language (where you read everything in context not as isolated words) and in relation to Christ and in relation to the big storyline of the Bible. It's also worth noting that they were very happy to quote and paraphrase Greek translations of the OT Hebrew and of course they wrote in Greek themselves - so arguments that 'only those who know the Hebrew words can be in touch with the real meaning of the Scriptures' or 'we must use the Hebrew name for God' or 'only this Bible translation is reliable' are wrongheaded. 
4. Is it careful handling of the Scriptures? Paul says that a Bible teacher has to work hard (2 Tim 2:15) not 'wing it' and throw out Bible verses or springboard off them to his own teaching. Good Bible handling will be carefully pointing you back again and again to the text, showing the connections, showing what is clearly there. That was Paul's method in Acts 17:2 and it meant that the Bereans could check for themselves that these things were true (Acts 17:11). If a Bible teacher is pulling rabbits out of hats - you can't see how they've got that out of that text - then run a mile. 
5. Is there substance? 'Avoid godless chatter' (2 Tim 2:16). A lot of 'Christian teaching' online is really simply motivational speaking, puffing you up - 'You can do it!' 'You are heading for a breakthrough!' The oratory might be very stirring, there might be '10 steps to dramatic life change' all with amazing alliterating headings but a few hours or days later when the emotion fades you're left with nothing of substance.
6. Is it swerving from the truth? (2 Tim 2:18) This is very similar to saying swerving from the Scriptures because they are the 'Word of truth' (v15). But the verb 'to swerve' is telling. It suggests that they are departing from the path, going off on a tangent. One way to spot false teaching is to look across the 2000 years of church history and think - does this look like mainstream Christian teaching, in line with the historic creeds and confessions, or does it look like it's going off in a strange and new direction? Of course the church has got things wrong and been through long low periods (hence the need for a reformation) but is it likely that everyone in church history has got been reading the Word completely wrongly on issue X for 1900 years and then suddenly someone has discovered a radically different teaching?
7. Is it claiming 'that the resurrection has already happened' (v18). This is what is technically called over-realised eschatology. Eschatology (concern with the last things) is absolutely vital. It drives the whole Bible. We are a people waiting, longing for the Lord Jesus. We grown for the resurrection life. But the false teachers will often claim that we can have now what belongs to the New Creation. They will claim that Christians will not be touched by Covid-19. They will promise prosperity and promotion and OT blessings and freedom from the frustrations of a fallen world. That kind of teaching is the Snake striking at our faith. What we need is teaching that points us towards the great Day of Christ's return and stirs us up to practically live in light of that hope, love one another in light of that hope and share that hope with others.
8. Is this teaching coming from your pastors - those who know and love you? Perhaps this should have been the first question. All through our passage, and 2 Timothy as a whole, Paul is telling a specific man (Pastor Timothy) to remind, warn, teach, rebuke, correct and train a specific people (the church in Ephesus, the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made him an overseer). In his first letter to Timothy, Paul reminded him (and through him the church) that it is the local church which is the 'pillar and foundation of the truth' (1 Tim 3:15). God's strategy is not that the truth is encountered in a depersonalised way, floating in the ether, but that it is held up and held out by local churches - structured, beautiful, counter-cultural, prayerful, loving, intergenerational, diverse communities of people who are rejoicing in and obeying and shaped by the truth of the gospel as it is taught them by properly qualified godly pastor-elders. That local church family is the main context in which we are to receive Bible teaching. That's not to say there's no place for following Desiring God or the Gospel Coalition. They are hugely helpful sites. But it is to say we need to be careful that our main meal, the majority of our food, is coming from our local church and also that we should look to our local church leaders for guidance and discernment when it comes to consuming content from elsewhere. In an enormous online world of bewildering range, our pastors are a great blessing in curating that content for us, pointing us towards good things (e.g. particularly helpful posts and resources from Piper or Biblical Counselling UK or Faith in Kids) and guarding us from rubbish. 

And, for what it's worth, here are a few more pointers and warnings on online content:

• Beware overuse of capitalisation, bold, underlining, italics, coloured, highlighted and (worst of all) flashing text.
• Beware overuse of the phrases Satanic deception, End Times, New World Order, One World Religion, Cabal, Anti-Christ, Mark of the Beast.
• Beware allegations of complex conspiracy theories with massive scope substantiated only rather vaguely by ‘suspicious connections’ between different organisations or ‘suspicious correlations’ between different trends. 
• Beware lack of proper citation, evidence, relevant academic expertise or fair engagement with scholarship. (General guidance on evaluating the trustworthiness of web-based information.)
• Beware overuse of ‘heresy’ and ‘heretic’.
• Beware sites that decry the sins of the church while at the same time rubbishing the beautiful doctrines of sovereign grace that are the only cure to such sin.
• Beware claims of 'we just believe the Bible' which are strangely twinned with fanatical allegiance to the teaching of one or two men or to a particular politics or theological system.
• Beware an incredibly tortuous complexity or claim to reveal 'deep things'. The Bible and theology is complex and wonderfully deep but at the same time it is clear and accessible to a child (2 Tim 3:15). Remember Deut. 29:29.

The great irony is that as websites by the thousand promote 'deep things of God', sadly many are actually promoting the deep things of Satan (Rev. 2:24). As websites by the thousand detail Satanic conspiracies behind every Bible translation or church movement or see the tiniest deviation from their -ism as demonic, Satan himself is actually very happy as he spreads division, discord and distraction. We are indeed in the end times (as we have been since Acts 2) and Satan is at work, trying to confuse us, split us, trying to get us to fight one another rather than fight for the lost, striking at our faith. Let’s stand against him, not be tossed to and fro by every website but rather get stuck into a good local church and there, hearing the Word faithfully taught and speaking the truth in love to one another, we will grow up into the mature, unified, fitting body of Christ our head.