Okay, I read my blog stats. Monday’s post reintroducing the Colossians Bible Study hasn’t received much attention, whereas yesterday’s post about a tweet Beth Moore “Liked” is soaring to over four times as many views as the Colossians post got.

I can understand this discrepancy in two ways.

Firstly, I can deduce that my readers already study the Bible on their own, and therefore don’t need another study to work through. Truth be told, I don’t go through the studies that Michelle Lesley posts each Wednesday for that very reason. When I met her in person three years ago, I explained that reasoning to her, and she graciously understood my position. She says other readers have told her the same thing.

I dearly hope that my readers forego the studies I write for the same reason. I hope each of you spends time going through God’s Word each day, reading and studying it in context. If so, I have absolutely no problem with you skipping my studies.

On the other hand, I fear that a good portion of my readers are just more interested in the latest juicy tidbit about popular false teachers. Once upon a time (more recently than I care to admit), I gravitated toward discernment blogs that exposed false teachers. Some of those blogs — particularly The End Time and Michelle Lesley — are respectable websites that emphasize good Bible Study and only call out false teachers when necessary. Many other “discernment” blogs, however resemble supermarket tabloids rather than Christian ministries.

I agree that false teachers have infiltrated the Church at large, and that social media gives them even greater influence. Beth Moore uses Twitter to propagate all kinds of dangerous ideas that her followers enthusiastically embrace and retweet. So it’s necessary, at times, to blog about her errors. I’m in no way adverse to pointing out errors that any false teacher inflicts on people.

Yet the Lord has brought me to the conviction that discernment best comes through knowing sound doctrine. Anybody can write a diatribe exposing a false teacher, plugging in the usual talking points. Sometimes our readers need those articles as reminders of why a popular teacher violates Scripture.

But don’t you think it’s even more helpful to teach the Word of God itself so that more women can evaluate popular teachers for themselves? Wouldn’t a healthy knowledge of the Bible fortify them against wrong teachings?

Apparently the apostle Paul thought false teachers could best receive correction through sound doctrine. The book of Colossians demonstrates that very principle! My entire purpose in writing this study on Colossians is to teach readers how to develop good discernment by learning sound doctrine.

When I see low numbers for my Bible Study posts, I sometimes wonder if the hard work I put into writing them is worth the effort. It would be ever so much easier to write exposes about false teachers. Ten minutes on Twitter every day would give me more than enough material to write blog posts that would raise my stats exponentially!

Dear sisters, I hope you want me to provide something much healthier than exposes of popular false teachers. I would hate to think that you’d prefer celebrity gossip to studying God’s Word. When I see stats like the ones I saw this morning, it tempts me to wonder if I should stop writing Bible Studies in favor of going after false teachers. I pray that you want better from me.

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