How to Test Your Pastor’s Teaching With Scripture Like the Bereans
🌿 How to Test Your Pastor’s Teaching With Scripture Like the Bereans
“And the people of Berea were more open-minded than those in Thessalonica, and they listened eagerly to Paul’s message. They searched the Scriptures day after day to see if Paul and Silas were teaching the truth.” — Acts 17:11 (NLT)
How do you know that what you hear on Sunday is true? Not because the preacher is famous, not because the crowd said amen, and not because the story moved you. You know it the way the Bereans knew it: you open the Scriptures yourself and you check. This teaching shows you why that habit is not rebellion but the very thing the Bible calls noble.
On this page
- The Bereans checked Paul himself
- Open-mindedness is the door to truth
- Watch and pray, then screen what you hear
- You are not in church to be entertained
- What has happened to the altar
- Study, obey, teach: the order of Ezra
- Preach plainly and keep your eyes on Jesus
- TB Joshua’s word to those who accuse other pastors
- Practical application: how to be a Berean today
- Prayer
📖 The Bereans Checked Paul Himself
Think about who was standing in front of them. This was not a stranger with a borrowed message. This was the apostle Paul, a man who had met the risen Christ, planted churches across the known world and performed miracles by the power of God. If anyone deserved to be believed on sight, it was Paul. And yet the Bereans went home after the meeting and opened the Scriptures to see for themselves whether he was right.
Luke does not describe this as an insult to Paul. He describes it as a mark of character. Just before our verse he tells us what happened in Thessalonica, where many heard the same message, became jealous and stirred up a mob (Acts 17:1-9). Then he turns to Berea and says these people were “more open-minded.” Another word for that is noble, and it is the word many Bible versions use. The Bereans were not the suspicious ones. They were the ones who loved the truth enough to want to see it with their own eyes.
The Bereans heard the apostle Paul himself and still went home to check the Scriptures every day.
Look at the details of the verse:
- They listened eagerly. They did not come to the meeting with folded arms. They were hungry.
- They searched the Scriptures. The message did not replace the Word. The Word judged the message.
- They did it day after day. This was not a single moment of doubt. It was a daily habit.
- They wanted to know if it was true. Their goal was not to find fault. Their goal was to be certain.
Daily reading is not distrust of the preacher. It is a love of the truth that wants to see it for itself. A believer who searches the Scriptures every day is not a threat to a sound pastor. That believer is the best friend a sound pastor will ever have, because a congregation that knows the Word cannot be pulled away from the pastor by any wind of false doctrine. The only people who fear a Berean are those whose message will not survive the light.
🔍 Open-Mindedness Is the Door to Truth
As a Christian, be open-minded like the Bereans who searched the Scriptures daily to be sure Paul and Silas were teaching the truth. Notice that open-mindedness here does not mean believing everything. It means being willing to be corrected by the Word, even when the correction comes against what you have always been taught.
Truth requires open-mindedness to receive it.
A closed mind cannot receive truth, because it has already decided what truth is allowed to say. That is the problem in too many pews today. Many believers have become very lazy, accepting anything they have been fed by their pastors as divine truth. They do not ask where it is written. They do not check whether the verse says what the preacher said it says. They simply nod and carry it home.
Even worse, this generation of religious Christians would rather defend a teaching than search the Scriptures themselves the way the Bereans did. When someone raises a question, the first reaction is to protect the pastor, protect the denomination or protect the tradition. Very few ask the Berean question, which is simply: is it true? A person who defends before checking has stopped serving the truth and started serving a position.
Paul told Timothy where the standard lives:
“All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right. God uses it to prepare and equip his people to do every good work.” — 2 Timothy 3:16-17 (NLT)
Notice the first part of that verse: “is useful to teach us what is true.” Scripture is the measuring line. It teaches what is true first, then it shows what is wrong, then it corrects, then it trains us to live right. If the Bible is the thing that teaches us what is true, then the truth of what your pastor is teaching must be confirmed by you, listening with the Scriptures open in your heart.
Even a gifted preacher can be a student of the Word. Apollos was a powerful and eloquent teacher, yet when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they “took him aside and explained the way of God even more accurately” (Acts 18:26). Apollos did not take offense. He received the correction, and he became even more useful to the church. A humble teacher welcomes the Berean. A proud one resents him.
🕯️ Watch and Pray, Then Screen What You Hear
This is why Jesus warned us to watch and pray.
“Keep watch and pray, so that you will not give in to temptation. For the spirit is willing, but the body is weak.” — Matthew 26:41 (NLT)
Watching is not only for the night hours of a prayer meeting. It is a posture of the mind. You watch what enters your ears, you watch what settles in your heart, and you pray for the Holy Spirit to show you what is of God and what is not. Watching without prayer turns into suspicion. Praying without watching turns into gullibility. God wants both in the same believer.
As you pray, screen what you hear with the Scriptures. Confirm it, validate it, search it, and be sure you have not been misled. The Bible gives us the same instruction in more than one place:
“Dear friends, do not believe everyone who claims to speak by the Spirit. You must test them to see if the spirit they have comes from God. For there are many false prophets in the world.” — 1 John 4:1 (NLT)
“Don’t scoff at prophecies, but test everything that is said. Hold on to what is good.” — 1 Thessalonians 5:20-21 (NLT)
Look at how the command is built. Test everything, then hold on to what is good. It is not “test everything and throw it all away.” The Berean filter is meant to keep the gold and drop the counterfeit. It protects the believer who wants to receive from God without being poisoned along the way.
Jesus put it just as plainly when He warned about teachers who would look harmless on the outside:
“Beware of false prophets who come disguised as harmless sheep but are really vicious wolves. You can identify them by their fruit, that is, by the way they act.” — Matthew 7:15-16 (NLT)
A wolf does not announce itself. It arrives in sheep’s clothing, which means it can sound gentle, quote Scripture and carry a smile. That is exactly why the daily search of the Word matters. You cannot recognize a counterfeit unless you have handled the real thing every day. A bank teller does not study fake notes. The teller studies the genuine note until the fake feels wrong in the hand.
Prophet TB Joshua gave believers a short instruction that fits this principle:
“Be sure that those in whom you trust are led by God each day.” — Prophet TB Joshua
Be sure. He did not say hope so, assume so or trust the crowd. He said be sure. And the way to be sure is the way the Bereans were sure: you look at what is being taught, and you hold it against the Word.
⚔️ You Are Not in Church to Be Entertained
Now ask the question directly. Is your pastor led by God through what he is teaching? This is what the Bereans did. They did not ask whether the sermon was funny, whether it was long, whether it was well delivered or whether the choir was in tune. They asked whether it was true.
You are not in church to be entertained by your pastor’s stories, jokes and encounters. Stories can illustrate the Word, but a story cannot replace it. A joke can open a heart for a moment, but only the Word can change it. When the whole message is built from anecdotes and the Scripture is only a decoration at the beginning, the congregation walks out smiling and unchanged.
Prophet TB Joshua puts this plainly:
“Life is not an encounter group, a bonding meeting or a playground; life is a battlefield where only the serious minded are victorious.” — Prophet TB Joshua
A battlefield does not need a comedian. It needs a soldier who has been trained with the right weapon. If you sit in church as if you were in an audience, you will leave defenceless. If you sit in church as a soldier who is receiving instructions from heaven, you will leave armed. The difference between the two is whether you take the Scriptures with you into the meeting and whether you check what is said against what is written.
This is also where many believers are quietly robbed. Because they do not search the Scriptures, they cannot tell when a verse has been bent. A verse is quoted out of context, and they say amen. A promise is stretched past its meaning, and they say amen. A fear is planted where no fear was written, and they say amen. Slowly their picture of God is no longer the picture in the Bible but the picture in the pulpit.
🏛️ What Has Happened to the Altar
Today the altar has become a campaign ground for politicians seeking election. It has become a pulpit for telling conjured stories with no video evidence and no supernatural move of God, because we grieve the Spirit of God. We speak of ourselves instead of Jesus Christ. We use the altar to respond to trending issues. But God cannot be moved by earthly trends. He has His own agenda, and He does as He wills. Remember, man can preach, but the Holy Spirit preaches as He wills.
The altar has also become a place where pastors respond to their critics, condemn other pastors, challenge doctrines and make and entertain comedies. Jesus Christ is not the topic. The trending issues are the topic of the sermon. Pride and ego stifle or quench the Holy Spirit.
“Do not stifle the Holy Spirit.” — 1 Thessalonians 5:19 (NLT)
Do not be deceived. The Holy Spirit cannot inhabit such an atmosphere, and if the Holy Spirit is not there, you are wasting your time sitting there. A church can have a full building, loud music, a strong sound system and perfect order, and still lack the one thing that makes it a church: the presence of the Holy Spirit. Programs can gather people. Only the Spirit can change them.
What should a Berean do when the altar looks like this? Not shout. Not start a campaign. First, examine yourself and your own hunger. Do you still love the Word? Do you still pray? Then bring the sermon to the Scriptures, find what is true, hold on to it, and let the rest fall away. If the atmosphere never changes and the Word is never opened, you owe it to your own soul to ask God where He wants you to be fed. This is not about hating a church. It is about refusing to starve.
📚 Study, Obey, Teach: The Order of Ezra
Before Ezra stood before the people to teach, he first studied the Scripture and then lived it. Only then did he teach.
“This was because Ezra had determined to study and obey the Law of the Lord and to teach those decrees and regulations to the people of Israel.” — Ezra 7:10 (NLT)
Look at the sequence again: study, obey, teach.
Ezra studied first, lived it second and taught third. Today, many want to teach before they have lived the Word, and many want to live it before they have studied it. Both orders break something. If you teach before you have lived it, you are handing people a map of a country you have never visited. If you try to live it before you have studied it, you will obey your own idea of what God said, and a sincere mistake is still a mistake.
Ezra shows the order that carries authority. People do not follow a voice that merely knows the material. They follow a life that has first been changed by it. This is why people teach wrongly from the pulpit: they are not living and obeying what they preach. A preacher who skips the first two steps will soon fill the third with stories, jokes and borrowed ideas, because he has nothing of his own from the Word to give.
This order is also a standard for the one in the pew. Before you repeat what you heard, study it. Before you share it, obey it. A Berean is not only a listener who checks. A Berean is a future Ezra, a believer being prepared to hand on what has first worked in his own life.
Prophet TB Joshua said it this way:
“What you do in secret is what will answer you in the open.” — Prophet TB Joshua
Authority in the open is built by study and obedience in secret. It does not come from a loud voice. It comes from a life that has been in the Scriptures first.
🗣️ Preach Plainly and Keep Your Eyes on Jesus
Paul himself tells us how a true messenger should come:
“When I first came to you, dear brothers and sisters, I didn’t use lofty words and impressive wisdom to tell you God’s secret plan. For I decided that while I was with you I would forget everything except Jesus Christ, the one who was crucified.” — 1 Corinthians 2:1-2 (NLT)
“And my message and my preaching were very plain. Rather than using clever and persuasive speeches, I relied only on the power of the Holy Spirit. I did this so you would trust not in human wisdom but in the power of God.” — 1 Corinthians 2:4-5 (NLT)
Paul had every reason to impress. He was educated, trained and capable of the kind of speech the Greek world admired. He chose plainness on purpose, because he wanted the faith of the people to rest on the power of God and not on his skill with words.
We are called to preach God’s word in plain and simple language, not in men-pleasing, nice-sounding big words and not in clever and persuasive speeches. Keep all the focus on Jesus Christ and not on self. Avoid the temptation of wanting to sound eloquent so that church members begin to hail you and call out to you: “Preach on, Papa!” “Go deeper!” These words draw attention to ourselves. They distract the people who are listening and meditating, and in all they quench the Spirit of God, because they take the focus off Jesus Christ.
For the hearer, this gives a very simple test. When the sermon is over, whose name is bigger in your heart? Is it the preacher’s, or is it Jesus’? Did you leave amazed at how a man spoke, or did you leave wanting to pray, to repent, to forgive, to obey? A true message makes you smaller and Christ greater. A performance makes the performer greater and leaves you applauding.
🕊️ TB Joshua’s Word to Those Who Accuse Other Pastors
There is a balance that every Berean needs to keep. Searching the Scriptures to test a teaching is one thing. Becoming an accuser of other servants of God is another. The first protects you. The second poisons you. Hear Prophet TB Joshua’s message to these preachers who spend the altar time accusing others:
“When you hear a pastor accusing another pastor, you should know he is possessed. If I stand here and say that the pastor in that church is not good, that that church is not a church of God, it means I am possessed. The Bible says we should stand as sons and daughters of love. Love does not discuss sin. Love does not draw attention to sin. No one has the right to stand and condemn a church or a pastor. If you see somebody doing that, he or she is possessed.
Do not take people by what they say they are until they are tested. If I say I am a pastor, do not just take me by my confession. The word ‘pastor’ needs to be examined in the light of God’s will. This is a principle in the Holy Bible. A man may confess to be a pastor, but he must be tested. If we say we are pastors, do not take us by what we say we are. We need to be examined in the light of God’s word as well. Therefore, we have to watch and pray.” — Prophet TB Joshua
Notice two things in that message. First, no one is given the right to stand and begin to condemn a church or a pastor. A Berean does not go through the city with a list of accusations. The Bereans did not attack Paul. They searched, they compared, and they believed. Love does not draw attention to sin, and a heart that is set on love uses the Word to build, not to hunt.
Second, no one should be taken by his own confession. A title is not proof. A man who says he is a pastor must still be examined in the light of God’s will, and so must the man who says it about himself. Prophet TB Joshua did not exempt himself. He said that if he claims to be a pastor, he too must be tested. That is the Berean spirit applied to the pulpit itself, and it ends with the same instruction Jesus gave in the garden: watch and pray.
So the two fit together. You test teaching with the Word, and you do it in love. You do not need to broadcast your findings. You need to know what is true, hold on to it, and let the Holy Spirit deal with the rest. You can watch and pray for a pastor you are unsure about without writing a single accusation. You can leave a place quietly without cursing it on the way out.
If you would like to hear this in his own voice, watch the message here.
✅ Practical Application: How to Be a Berean Today
Being a Berean is not complicated, but it is daily. Here is how to start.
- Take your Bible to church and keep it open. Write down the verses the preacher cites. Do not rely only on the screen. Turn to the page and read the verse before and after it.
- Ask where it is written. When a teaching sounds new or strange, ask what verses it stands on. Check whether the verse says what was claimed, and whether the whole passage agrees.
- Read the context. A single verse pulled out of a chapter can be made to say almost anything. Read the paragraph around it, and then the book it belongs to.
- Search daily, not only when you doubt. The Bereans searched day after day. Set a fixed time for the Word, so that you handle the real thing every day and can spot the counterfeit quickly.
- Pray before and after. Ask the Holy Spirit to open your understanding before you read, and to confirm or correct what you heard after you read. Watch and pray.
- Test the fruit. Jesus said you will identify them by their fruit. Look at the life, the humility, the focus on Jesus and the obedience in the one who teaches.
- Hold on to what is good. When you find truth, keep it and obey it. Do not throw away a whole message because one part was weak.
- Do not become an accuser. Use the Word to correct yourself first. If a matter is serious, bring it in love and with order, not on social media.
- Become an Ezra. Study, obey, and then teach. Let the Scriptures change you before you try to change anyone else.
Here is a simple comparison to keep in mind:
| A passive listener | A Berean |
|---|---|
| Accepts whatever is taught | Compares it with Scripture |
| Defends the preacher without checking | Checks first, then holds on to what is true |
| Reads the Bible only when told to | Searches the Scriptures day after day |
| Is moved by stories and style | Is moved by the Word and the Spirit |
| Remembers the preacher’s name | Remembers what Jesus said |
| Is easily misled | Is steady in truth |
Ask yourself honestly where you stand in that table. If you have been the passive listener, do not be ashamed. Begin today. Open your Bible tonight and read what you heard on Sunday. That single act puts you on the Berean side.
Truth does not fear a search. Only error does.
🙏 Prayer
Father, thank You for Your Word, which is truth. Give me the heart of the Bereans, eager to hear and eager to search. Deliver me from laziness and from the pride that defends before it checks. Teach me to watch and to pray, and let the Holy Spirit lead me into all truth. Keep me from being misled by lofty words, by stories, by titles or by fear of men. Fill every pulpit with Your Word and Your presence, and make me a believer who studies, obeys and then shares what You have taught me. Let my love for the truth never turn into a spirit of accusation. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Good Morning 🌄 and PROSPER ✨ today!
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