So we are no longer to be children, tossed back and forth by waves and carried about by every wind of teaching by the trickery of people who craftily carry out their deceitful schemes.
Paul is giving a vision of the destination we are going to. He is making a negative case, meaning what we do not want, before making a positive case, meaning what we want in the next verse.
He makes it plain that we start as children. We do not start mature.
We may think otherwise, but we all start as children, and as children we are susceptible to being tricked.
Why?
We might be too trusting
We might be too easily influenced by what we see
We might be influenced by respect for human beings, by the stories people tell us
We might think that what some people say is valid because they use the name of Jesus
We might be influenced by clout, by externals
We might be ruled by our immediate need, adopt a victim mentality
We might think that because they have white skin and we have black skin, they are correct and we are wrong, or vice versa.
In this focus verse, Paul is saying we are in a dangerous terrain.
Look at the characteristics:
trickery of people
The point is that people doing the tricking know they are doing it, but the people being tricked do not know.
The magician doing the sleight of hand knows how he is doing it, but the rest are wowed, captured by the externals.
They can trick you with fear for your life, making them the solution you must have; otherwise, you feel lost.
It seems clear that the possibility of being taken in by the trickery is very high. So we have several biblical warnings that we should be aware of false teachers.
We need to pause here because Paul is not talking about the ignorant here. He is talking about things that are done deliberately, like wolves in sheep’s clothing (Matthew 7:15).
Meaning devil’s messengers, the sons of the evil one sown that are left to be uprooted later (Matthew 13:24–30, 36–43). The kind of people Jesus said By their fruit you shall know them, the people Jude raged about in his letter; these are people whose consciences are seared (1 Timothy 4:2).
wind of teaching
This is the crux of the issue. It is not about whether the person saw seven angels when he was being called by God; it is about the teaching. It is not about whether the person can fast 1,000 days; it is about the teaching.
And in a way, everything is teaching. If a group wears only white to church, you are teaching that that is what God wants, that God wants such a monolith, and that is what gains his favor rather than looking unto Jesus (Hebrews 12:2), regardless of what they say. Sometimes what you do preaches more than what you say.
Paul is saying that there is a lack of maturity when it comes to evaluating the teaching.
The only antidote to the wrong teaching is the right teaching, and note that no one can mature themselves; the maturity has to come from Christ, who deploys the true apostles, etc for the work of the ministry to equip the saints (Ephesians 4:11–12).
So if there is something the saints need to be equipped with, it is to ensure that they are not subjected to the trickery of men.
The men with the sleight of hand
The man who can look straight into the camera and lie in the name of God with a solemn, calm voice
The men who are in it for the money, for the lifestyle, and nothing more
The men who command you not to criticize them, saying any criticism of them and what they are doing is criticism of God and what He is doing
The men who say there is going to be divine judgment on you if you warn others about them.
The men (or women) who devour widows’ houses (Mark 12:40), promising that if they send them money, their children will be saved, their sickness will disappear
The men (or women) who can produce false repentance, but ultimately the dog goes back to its vomit (2 Peter 2:22)
The men who may have large platforms and large followings and some testimonies
They are motivated by money; their god is their belly (Philippians 3:19).
The point is, we are living in a dangerous place where deception is rife, and finding someone who is not deceived in some places would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.
They have the planes, may be very good-looking, and are associated with the right people with the right pedigree, and they are all over the place doing ministry, almost like they have become the face of the church. But God allows that. In my mind, it is to separate the children from the mature. If those flashy things would lead to your being captured, we are still children tossed to and fro.