Somewhere in most churches that discourage naming false teachers by name, someone will eventually quote “touch not mine anointed” (Psalm 105:15). Someone else will point to Paul’s instruction that a servant of the Lord “must not strive; but be gentle unto all men” (2 Timothy 2:24). Both texts are real, and the caution behind them is real too. Gossip is a sin Scripture names directly (Proverbs 16:28). Slander is grouped with murder and theft in Paul’s own vice lists (Romans 1:29-30). Speaking evil of a brother is condemned in language sharp enough to make anyone doing naming-false-teachers-work think twice (James 4:11). Anyone naming a person publicly for spreading error takes on the burden of getting it right, and Scripture does not go easy on people who get it wrong.
None of that caution, taken seriously, produced a New Testament that avoids names. Paul named Hymenaeus twice, in two different letters, for two related reasons. He named Alexander, possibly two different men by that name, for two different kinds of harm. He named Philetus alongside Hymenaeus for teaching a specific, identifiable heresy. He named Phygellus, Hermogenes, and Demas for conduct that damaged his ministry, with not one accusation of false doctrine attached to any of them. John named Diotrephes in a personal letter for conduct that never gets called heresy either. Paul named Peter, an apostle, to his face, and then again in a letter meant to be read aloud to an entire region, for behavior that “walked not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel” (Galatians 2:14). Naming false teachers, it turns out, is only part of what the New Testament actually does, and it sits alongside a related question this site has taken up before: why a leader answers a named criticism by attacking the critic instead of the claim. The rest is just as instructive. It shows exactly where the line sits between a doctrinal accusation, a moral warning, and a plea for two believers to get along.
Named for False Doctrine: Hymenaeus, Alexander, and Philetus
Paul’s first letter to Timothy opens with a charge to “war a good warfare; holding faith, and a good conscience; which some having put away concerning faith have made shipwreck: Of whom is Hymenaeus and Alexander; whom I have delivered unto Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme” (1 Timothy 1:18-20, KJV). The Greek behind “made shipwreck” is nauageō, the same verb Paul uses of his own literal shipwrecks in 2 Corinthians 11:25. He is not describing a minor doctrinal slip. He is describing a vessel broken apart on rocks, a total loss. “Delivered unto Satan” is formal, disciplinary language. Paul uses the same phrase for the man in open sin at Corinth (1 Corinthians 5:5). The goal there is stated plainly: removal from the church’s protection, so that the discipline itself might teach the offender not to blaspheme. Restoration is the aim, not punishment for its own sake.
Second Timothy returns to Hymenaeus and adds a name: “their word will eat as doth a canker: of whom is Hymenaeus and Philetus; Who concerning the truth have erred, saying that the resurrection is past already; and overthrow the faith of some” (2 Timothy 2:17-18, KJV). Paul does something here he does not always do. He states the specific content of the error. Hymenaeus and Philetus were teaching that the resurrection had already happened, likely spiritualizing it into something already completed at conversion. That claim gutted the future hope Paul anchors the whole gospel to in 1 Corinthians 15. The word translated “overthrow” is anatrepō, the identical verb John uses for Jesus overturning the money-changers’ tables in the temple (John 2:15). Paul uses it again in Titus 1:11 for false teachers who “subvert whole houses.” The image is consistent across all three uses. Nothing here is gently corrected. It is knocked over.
What makes this a model for naming false teachers, rather than simply an angry outburst, is the precision. Paul names the men. He states the specific claim they were making. He states the specific damage it caused, “the faith of some.” He does not call them stupid. He does not mock their character or speculate about their private motives. He identifies an error and its effect, attaches names to both, and moves on.
A Named Pattern from the Past: Jannes and Jambres
Paul reaches for a different kind of name later in the same letter. Warning Timothy about a coming wave of men “ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth,” he writes: “Now as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith” (2 Timothy 3:8, KJV). Exodus itself never names Pharaoh’s magicians. It simply calls them “the magicians of Egypt” (Exodus 7:11). By Paul’s day, Jewish tradition had already attached the names Jannes and Jambres to those men, a tradition also reflected in the Dead Sea Scrolls’ Damascus Document. Paul uses the tradition without hesitation, treating it as common knowledge his readers would recognize.
This is a distinct use of naming from the Hymenaeus and Philetus case. Paul is not identifying a contemporary false teacher in Ephesus by this name. He is naming a historical pattern, using two well-known opponents of Moses as a type for a category of person Timothy would soon meet. The technique matters because it shows Scripture is comfortable naming specific opposition even when the point is typological, rather than a direct, present-tense accusation against a living member of the congregation.
A Personal Warning: Alexander the Coppersmith
Near the end of his final letter, Paul writes: “Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil: the Lord reward him according to his works: Of whom be thou ware also; for he hath greatly withstood our words” (2 Timothy 4:14-15, KJV). Commentators disagree on whether this is the same Alexander delivered to Satan in 1 Timothy 1:20, or a different man who happened to share a common name. The text does not settle the question, and neither will this article. What the passage does settle is the purpose of the naming. Paul is not asking Timothy to punish Alexander. He explicitly hands judgment to God: “the Lord reward him according to his works,” language that echoes Psalm 62:12. He refuses personal vengeance even while naming the man responsible for real harm. The instruction to Timothy is narrow and practical: “be thou ware also.” Watch out for this specific person, because he has already opposed apostolic teaching once and will likely do it again.
This is naming for protection rather than naming for correction. Paul is not trying to win an argument with Alexander or force his repentance in print. He is arming Timothy, by name, against a danger Timothy would otherwise meet unprepared.
Not Every Named Person Is a False Teacher
Reading Hymenaeus, Philetus, and Alexander together with every other name Paul drops in these letters can create the impression that naming someone in a New Testament letter always means accusing him of heresy. The text does not support that reading, and getting this distinction right matters as much as the naming itself.
Demas gets one sentence: “Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world, and is departed unto Thessalonica” (2 Timothy 4:10, KJV). Earlier letters mention Demas as a fellow laborer in good standing (Colossians 4:14; Philemon 24). Nothing in 2 Timothy 4:10 accuses him of teaching error. The charge is worldliness and desertion of the apostle in a moment of real need. That is a serious failure, but a different failure from Hymenaeus and Philetus, and Paul does not blur the two.
Phygellus and Hermogenes appear even more briefly: “all they which are in Asia be turned away from me; of whom are Phygellus and Hermogenes” (2 Timothy 1:15, KJV). The context is Paul’s imprisonment. Fear, not false doctrine, is the likeliest explanation; people close to a man on trial for his life quietly distanced themselves from him. Paul immediately contrasts this with Onesiphorus, named two verses later for the opposite behavior. Onesiphorus sought Paul out “very diligently” in Rome, unashamed of his chains (2 Timothy 1:16-17). One pair of names records failure under pressure. The other name, right beside them, records faithfulness under the same pressure. Naming, in this passage, cuts both ways.
Euodias and Syntyche receive the gentlest treatment of all: “I beseech Euodias, and beseech Syntyche, that they be of the same mind in the Lord” (Philippians 4:2, KJV). Paul names two women publicly, in a letter meant to be read aloud to the whole Philippian church, over what appears to be a personal disagreement. There is no doctrinal or moral charge here at all. There is no rebuke, no accusation of sin, just a named, public appeal for peace between two people whose disagreement had apparently become known enough in the congregation that Paul felt it needed a named, public answer.
Three different sentences, three different reasons for naming someone, and not one of them accuses the person of false teaching. A reader who treats every name in these letters as an accusation of heresy is not reading carefully. Scripture itself models the distinction the objection at the start of this article assumes does not exist.
When the Named Man Holds Real Authority
The clearest test of whether naming is reserved for outsiders and minor offenders comes from two passages involving actual church leaders. John writes to Gaius about a man named Diotrephes, “who loveth to have the preeminence among them” (3 John 9, KJV). The Greek is philoprōteuōn, literally “loving to be first,” a rare word chosen to name a specific character flaw rather than a doctrinal one. John’s charges against him are entirely behavioral. Diotrephes refuses to receive traveling teachers. He goes “prating against us with malicious words.” He forbids others in the congregation from showing hospitality to them, and “casteth them out of the church” those who do (3 John 9-10, KJV). Nowhere in this short letter does John accuse Diotrephes of teaching anything false. The charge is abuse of position. A man who loved being first used his standing in the local congregation to control who could be welcomed and who would be expelled. John names him anyway, in a letter meant to circulate, and promises to “call to mind his deeds” in person when he arrives (3 John 10).
Paul goes further still in Galatians. Peter came to Antioch and began withdrawing from table fellowship with Gentile believers, out of fear of a group insisting on circumcision. Paul “withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed” (Galatians 2:11, KJV). He explains why in the next verses. Peter’s conduct was not itself heresy, but it “walked not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel” (Galatians 2:14), and it was public enough that Barnabas and the rest of the Jewish believers were carried away by the same inconsistency. Paul names Peter, by his given name, in a letter written to be read aloud across an entire region of churches, over a matter of conduct rather than doctrine. If naming a leader by name for a failure that threatened the gospel’s integrity had been out of bounds, this letter could not exist in its current form.
Truthful, Sober, and Protective: The Standard for Naming False Teachers
Set the categories side by side and a pattern holds across every case. Paul and John name people for stated, specific reasons, never for vague impressions. They name the conduct or doctrine at issue rather than attacking the person’s character in general terms. They aim the naming at protecting others: Timothy’s ministry, a congregation’s faith, a region’s fidelity to the gospel. The goal is never settling a personal score. Even the coppersmith who did Paul “much evil” gets handed over to God’s judgment instead of Paul’s own retaliation. And they distinguish carefully between a man who taught something false, a man who behaved badly under pressure, a man who abused his position, and two people who simply needed to reconcile. None of these get treated identically, and none of them get named without a stated reason attached.
That is the actual standard, and it is a higher bar than silence, not a lower one. It rules out naming someone because a rumor sounds plausible. It rules out naming someone to build an audience, or naming someone for a disagreement that never rose above personal taste. It does not rule out naming a man, in writing, for a specific doctrine he taught, specific harm he caused, or a specific abuse of the authority he held over other believers. The condition is that the claim be true, stated soberly, and aimed at protecting the people who would otherwise walk into it unprepared. That is the same standard this site tries to hold itself to whenever it names a pastor, a book, or a specific teaching connected to the Potter’s House. The claim gets traced to its source, the harm gets stated specifically, and the goal stays where Paul kept it: the protection of people still inside.
Sources
- 1 Timothy 1:18-20 (KJV)
- 2 Timothy 1:15-18; 2:16-18; 3:8; 4:10, 14-15 (KJV)
- Titus 1:11 (KJV)
- 1 Corinthians 5:5; 15:12-19 (KJV)
- Philippians 4:2 (KJV)
- 3 John 9-10 (KJV)
- Galatians 2:11-14 (KJV)
- anatrepō, Strong’s G396, and philoprōteuōn, Thayer’s Greek Lexicon, via Blue Letter Bible
