Wolves revile those who challenge them. They use pious words to cloak their malice and then blame their agitation on their victims. When called to account, false teachers may leave the scene of their crimes fully convinced of their own faithfulness and the justness of their cause. But a wolf’s true nature is revealed in the carnage he leaves behind, in the tears and scars of the sheep upon whom he’s preyed.

The Bible commands Christians, “Have confidence in your leaders and submit to their authority, because they keep watch over you as those who must give an account” (Heb. 13:17, NIV). But God’s Word also tells of times when we shouldn’t trust and submit to leaders. What are the circumstances when honoring God means disobeying, fleeing, or even calling out those who minister in his name?
Paul warned the Ephesians elders of wolves who would come and not spare God’s flock (Acts 20:29). The apostle borrows the image of the wolf directly from Jesus (John 10:12; Matt. 7:15). As patterns of abuse come to light in the church, we urgently need this biblical warning that shows us the difference between a godly shepherd and one who preys upon the sheep.
False teaching—preaching “a different gospel” (Gal. 1:6–7)—is a primary way a wolf reveals his true nature, but what are some other ways to tell a true shepherd from a wolf in sheep’s clothing?
Anatomy of a Wolf
Identifying wolves is difficult because the marks of a dangerous soul seldom manifest in physical appearance. Even more, false teachers are people made in God’s image. A wolf shows his humanity in his seemingly healthy relationships. His personal charisma and the genuine good his ministry accomplishes can further hide his true nature from others, and even from the wolf himself.
But the Bible teaches us that a wolf’s ignorance of his own identity does not excuse his behavior. False prophets may come in sheep’s clothing (Matt. 7:15), but there are clear signs that reveal wolves for who they really are.
1. Wolves emphasize gifting over character.
When the biblical authors write about the qualifications for church leadership, they emphasize moral graces over ministerial gifts. The apostles repeatedly insist that elders be “above reproach.” They pit the self-control, gentleness, and humility that should characterize true pastoral ministry against the harshness, disrespect of civil authorities, and abuse of church authority that characterizes wolves (Titus 1; 1 Tim. 3; 2 Pet. 2). 
At the final judgment, there will be some who stubbornly insist upon the sincerity of their Christian life but whom Christ will declare that he never knew (Matt. 7:21–23). As proof of their faith, these false teachers will appeal to the mighty works they’ve done in the Lord’s name, including prophecy and even exorcisms!
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Like the rest of Scripture, the psalms are both divinely inspired and thoroughly human. Even more wondrously, they are simultaneously God’s words to us and our words to God. Most important, these spiritual songs filled and expressed the heart of the eternal Word made flesh. They prophesied cosmic wholeness, and they fed the soul of the human who’d accomplish it.

Our era is marked by a deep hunger for wholeness, intactness, integrity. We’re all painfully aware that—globally, nationally, and personally—“things fall apart.” Christians know the Lord is the one in whom all things hold together (Col. 1:17) and that he’ll return to bring full healing to a fallen, fragmented world. But what happens in the meantime—when, under severe pressure, our most personal way of connecting to him collapses as well? If we’re not careful, efforts to bind up a brokenhearted faith can create further fractures within our souls.
In a moving personal reflection, James K. A. Smith describes himself as a philosopher who has lost faith in the religiously persuasive power of reason. Smith isn’t advocating an anti-intellectual faith; he’s calling for anti-intellectualism in connecting to Christian truth. He decries the emotional barrenness and pastoral ineptitude of the “baseline Platonic picture of the human person in which reason rules the passions and emotions.”
Smith’s confidence in philosophy (as he frames it) crumbled during a time of deep depression when reason couldn’t make sense of his condition, much less lift him from a pit of inexplicable despair. He lauds the presence of his counselor who, instead of offering abstract analysis, lovingly jumped in beside him.
Seeing his personal despair writ large in culture, Smith concludes that “we can’t think our way out of this mess.” Tired of trading in the “truths of the intellect,” he announces: “I’m throwing in my lot with the poets and painters, the novelists and songwriters.”
My purpose here is not to directly respond to Smith (others have done so). If Smith is merely rejecting rationalism and its residue in Western faith, then with him I say “good riddance.” His vision for creative art’s contributions to faith and human wholeness is beautiful. Yet there is a warning in the way that—in tune with our tribalistic times—Smith praises good things partly by punishing other good things for being different.
Fragmented Faith
Smith cites Hans Urs von Balthasar as motivation for a new modus operandi: “Love alone is credible; nothing else can be believed, and nothing else ought to be believed.” Smith reasons, “If love alone is credible, literature is truer than philosophy.” He wants to write with “allure rather than acuity,” in a way that works “from the imagination up. Philosophy is out because it “doesn’t ‘speak’ imagination,” and the logician “speaks a tongue that’s foreign to the heart.”
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