I’ve heard the word all my life, it seems.
“Heresies!”
(Yet I still have trouble spelling it!)
But there’s no way around it today, it being in Paul’s “works of the flesh” list.
Look with me. “Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, HERESIES, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like ….” Galatians 5:19-21
Wow!
Fleshly (sexual) sins, the first four.
Spiritual sins, the next two.
And social sins, the “bulk” of the list, the remaining 11 violations.
In that order, too.
But, what are “heresies?”
The word Paul wrote on his (Galatian) parchment was “airesis.” But when pronounced, we get “hairesis.” Virtually our English word, as is “transliterated” in the King James Bible, “heresies.” (Thus, we are studying a “loan word” today, borrowed from the Greek and employed by the English, the Americans too!)
As far as I can tell, at least in English … the noun “heresy” always has a negative, a bad meaning! In all its etymological history!
It actually derives from a root verb, “aireo,” which simply means “to lift up,” maybe even “to raise up.” And the implication is “to lift up” oneself! Or, really much more to the point in Paul’s enumeration here, “to lift up one’s particular point of view!”
The word is sparsely used (9 times, total) in the New Testament. Where it also is only engaged in a contextually negative manner.
Most often translated “sect,” Paul (always) voices the word in reference to the Pharisees, or Sadducees. Acts 15:5 is representative. “But there rose up certain of the SECT of the Pharisees which believed, saying, That it was needful to circumcise them, and to command them to keep the law of Moses.”
Even Christianity is called this, a “sect,” by certain Roman leaders … at times anyway, at first. See Acts 28:22 for an example.
But Paul, most importantly for our Lesson today, uses the word to define a “splinter group” in one of his local Churches. Some who have “lifted themselves up,” their “doctrinal views,” above that of all the other brothers and sisters in Christ.
In 1 Corinthians 11:9 Paul admits the existence of such “heresies” in the Church there. And later Peter agrees, adding an adjective to the mix! “But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable HERESIES, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.” 2 Peter 2:1
Today we label “heresies” as “clearly false teachings,” of any kind.
Now it is true that “aireo,” the root verb behind “heresy,” can just mean “to choose.” As in Hebrews 11:25-26, there spoken of the faithful man of God Moses … “CHOOSING rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt: for he had respect unto the recompence of the reward.”
But once becoming a noun, “heresies” are negative, sinful and (according to Peter) deadly!
Christians, stay away from them, from heresies. Let the Word of God be your Guide, your Canon, your Mentor … and all will be well.
— Dr. Mike Bagwell