By Ken Yates

In Matt 7:15, the Lord warns us about false prophets. They can come to us in sheep’s clothing but are wolves. In other words, sometimes people can look good when, in fact, they are evil. People who teach evil things can appear to be godly. Wolves can look like sheep.

It is not difficult to find examples of this. A man can claim to be an orthodox Bible teacher. He can dress in a suit. He can have a large following. He can pray. He can have a wall full of degrees from theological seminaries. He can have a lovely wife and family. Everything on the outside looks good. But if he teaches false doctrine, he’s a wolf.

Even though it is not stated in the Bible, I am sure the reverse is true. A person can look like a wolf when he is actually a sheep. A Bible teacher may not look good on the outside but teach the truth. If that is the case, the Lord’s point in Matt 7:15 is the same: Appearances can be deceiving. A wolf might look like a sheep, and a sheep might look like a wolf. We cannot look at outward things when we evaluate the truth of what a Bible teacher teaches. We must listen to what he says.

Even though it did not deal with teaching the Bible, I recently saw an illustration of a sheep who looked like a wolf. In fact, the incident involved me.

Picking Up My Grandson

My youngest grandson attends a preschool. I am familiar with the place since his older brothers also went there. Their nickname for me is “Poppy.” Many of the kids at the school know me. Sometimes, I join them in their games when I pick my grandson up. Some of them also refer to me as Poppy.

I often take my grandsons to lunch. Other kids will ask if they can come with us when I do. I told them I couldn’t because their mommies and daddies must say it’s okay. One little girl asked so often that her parents permitted me to take her. The child’s mother is a good friend of my daughter and had met me. My grandson, his friend, and I had a great lunch together.

As has happened many times before, I was recently responsible for picking up my grandson. For security reasons, an electronic key is needed to open the door. My daughter had forgotten to give it to me, so I had to wait at the front until somebody came to the door to let me in.

As I describe what happened next, I must relate some embarrassing information.

I Look Like a Bum

When left to my own devices, I dress like a homeless person. For me, comfort is the guiding principle when it comes to fashion. I love sweatpants and hoodies. I can put them on quickly. I don’t have to worry if I spill something on them. There are no buttons. The hoodie keeps my rather large ears warm. I almost always wear it in the up position over my head. This has caused some problems with my family members. My wife and daughters regularly point out that I look like a slob. Their most common way of describing how I dress is to say that I look like the Unabomber if he had been homeless. They know that if we are going somewhere where I need to be presentable, such as church, they have to lay out my clothes for me. In those situations, I cannot choose appropriate clothing for myself.

Picking up my grandson is not one of those situations. On the day of the incident I’m recounting, I had on my customary sweatpants and hoodie. As usual, my ears were cold, so the hoodie was up.

Another factor impacted how I looked that day. I had an allergy attack with a bad headache. I felt terrible. I looked sick.

As I stood at the door of that preschool, waiting for somebody to let me in, I looked like a homeless Unabomber who was strung out on drugs. That didn’t bother me. However, it bothered the person who came to the door.

A Wolf at the Door

The person who came to the door was the mother of one of the children. I had never seen this woman before, but I was grateful to see her coming now because when she opened the door to go out, I could go in. However, just as she was about to open the door, she looked through the glass and saw me. She stopped dead in her tracks.

I asked her to let me in. She shook her head, turned around quickly, and went back into the school. I found out later that she went to the school’s manager and told her there was a strange man at the door who wanted to come in. There was no way she was going to let him in, and the manager needed to investigate. I feel confident that she thought I had a bomb under my hoodie and that the manager would need to call the police. The children at the school were surely in imminent danger.

Obviously, that was not the case. But that concerned mother saw a wolf through the door’s glass. She did the right thing. No mother in her shoes would have let me in. Based on outward appearances, she had no way of knowing that I was the fluffiest sheep in the world when it came to the kids in that school.

Her words rightly concerned the school’s manager. She would have to face the danger at the door. Fortunately, she was a long-time friend of my daughter. She also knew me well.

That Is Not a Serial Murderer!

At the time, I was unaware of what the mother said to the manager. I only saw the manager’s expression when she looked through the glass. She laughed out loud and exclaimed, “That’s Poppy!” The mother was still keeping her distance. I didn’t realize what was going on and that the manager was letting her know that I was not the Unabomber.

I heard the manager reassure the mom that I was harmless. I could come into the school whenever I wanted and stay for however long I needed. I may have looked like a wolf, but I was a sheep.

I am unsure whether the mother immediately believed what the manager told her. That is the power of outward appearances. I was able, however, to spend a little time with her, and I hope I convinced her that the manager was right. I was not a wolf at the door.

Heeding the Lord’s Words

Even though it was understandable, the mother at that preschool judged me because of my appearance. She misjudged me. The Lord says we can do the same when it comes to those claiming to be servants of the Lord. We can mistakenly think that we’re looking at a sheep when we are actually face to face with a wolf.

But we can also be like the mom who looked at me through the glass. We might look at a teacher and think we’re looking at a wolf when he’s really a sheep.

My sweatpants and hoodie find parallels with other areas. I have heard people reject the teachings of Bible teachers because they smoke cigarettes or drink alcohol. I grew up in Southern Baptist churches and have listened to some members of these churches express the view that no true preacher of the Lord would dare preach without wearing a suit and tie. Many of us are aware of churches that say they would never allow a person to teach in their pulpit if they had tattoos.

Others reject the teachings of certain men because of where they went to school. They think the diploma on the wall tells us whether we are dealing with a sheep or a wolf.

I think there is another way people can mistakenly conclude, based on outward appearances, that a teacher is a wolf. If you are known as a person who belongs to a Free Grace organization such as GES, some automatically label you a wolf. You are seen as belonging to a group so in the minority that it must be heretical and harmful. They are unwilling to listen to what you have to say and consider whether or not it is Biblical.

Conclusion

The Lord tells us that we can’t tell whether a person is a sound teacher by looking at the outside. The modern way of putting that is that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. Outward impressions, especially first ones, can be misleading. They can lead us to mistake a wolf for a sheep or a sheep for a wolf. It is something about which we all need to be careful. Our backgrounds and culture often drive us to judge a person by their appearance.

A wolf—a bad teacher—can wear a suit, be a teetotaler, and be tattoo-free. He can have attended the most conservative Evangelical seminary in the world and belong to only the most respected and popular theological societies.

A sheep—a sound teacher—might wear sweatpants and a hoodie, drink and smoke, and have tattoos all over his body. He might not even have a seminary degree. He might be a card-carrying member of GES. He might even look like I did outside my grandson’s preschool.

Fortunately, we can change our minds. I am pretty sure that if the mom at the school gave me a chance, I could convince her that I am not a threat to her child. She might even let me take him to lunch with my grandson. Maybe that will happen in the future!

The same thing is true when it comes to Bible teachers. How do we know a sound teacher? How do we know whether he’s a sheep? By what he says. We might be surprised as we listen to what he has to say. A tattooed, Unabomber-looking individual might divide God’s Word accurately.

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Ken Yates is a retired Army chaplain (Lt. Col). He has many theological degrees, including a Ph.D. from D.T.S. in New Testament. He leads the GES international ministry, cohosts the daily podcast, and assists Bob in all aspects of the GES ministry. His new book, Elisabeth, is a powerful testimony to the power of God manifested in a Christ-centered family. He and his wife, Pam, live in Columbia, SC.