This is the most direct and powerful answer given to this question of how to identify false pastors that has ever been given.... in my humble opinion. You hear of answers such as you will know them by their fruit but that is not the correct criteria for making such a judgement.

BP uses the Word of God given through the apostle Paul to show how serious it is to appoint yourself the job teaching the meat of God when you are not qualified; because you have not gotten off the milk yourself. Perhaps you believe you are correct in your understanding of scripture but with a bit of sincere study of the truth, you may find out that you have been sincerely wrong. How many times has God used others to cause you to search a subject more closely. How many times, has laziness for searching God's Word led to following the false teachings past down through generations and generations of Seminary studies?

How much better it is to say, " I have been wrong, thank you Lord God Almighty for your correction and by your Holy Spirit, continue to show me Your Truth, not man's truth." thus receive His forgiveness and the promise that He will show you all things if asked. I know because I've had to admit I was wrong and when asked for the real answers, always received them through His Holy Spirit's guidance in God's Word. Just this year alone, I have learned so much depth to His Word. And you know what....it leads to more and more wonderful revelations.

Our Heavenly Father loves that kind of humility because He can see that the correction He has been trying to give has stopped one from going down the path of false teaching, which in turn, stopped all those others that were influenced by you to that man-man teaching from the end of the road destruction that will surely come from straying from God's Word..

You will not want to miss this message by BP.
Gerlinda

Jesus said to let the little children come unto Him.

Jesse seems to be full of enmity for those who preach the simple Gospel of Christ.

Graduate school is not always the healthiest place for a sound mind. I have been to "graduate school" and half the idiots in my family have Ph.D.'s.

After all these years I find the "basics" of the Gospel are the best.

To learn more deeply is attractive and can be good, but we must not criticize so sorely those who just preach Jesus Christ's death, burial and resurrection to save our souls. We are only here for a few years, on Planet Earth. Lots of time for the really deep things when we are with Him.