Since there are so many books and preachers that interpret the Bible differently yet all perfectly logically, how can you truly know who the false teachers are?

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Read the Bible and interpret it for yourself. Take what other people say about it and then go and see if the actual words in Scripture match the conclusions that the teachers teach.

For example, lots of fundamentalist Christians share with Judaism the tendency to interpret Scripture literally, as in you’re not supposed to read into the actions of God and just follow them the way they’re written.

But is this supported by the Bible itself? It’s not. God is careful to punish only certain instances of supposed violations of the Ten Commandments. It’s murder that’s not condoned under the Bible, not mere killing. It’s the act of stealing a man’s wife from him, and breaking up a perfectly good home, not just sleeping with her that constitutes adultery.

God did not punish David for laying with Bathsheba and giving her child, He punishes him for sending her husband to the front lines and getting him killed on purpose so that he could take her for himself. His articulation, through His prophet, for why he was punishing David revolved around greed, not lust. God was perfectly fine with David taking dozens and dozens of wives, and even stated in his censure that God would have given David more if it wasn’t enough.

People who say you should read the Bible literally are making a political statement to you, they are saying that you should read the Bible the exact same way that they read it. But the Bible is rich enough, and contains enough examples, such that you don’t have to read that hard into the Bible in order to learn what the intention was.

The Bible also leaves a lot of things unsaid. When people argue over things the Bible leaves unsaid, it becomes a matter of theology, not a matter of Scripture. For example, the series of arguments in early Christianity concerning the specific nature of God and Jesus’ relationship to Him eventually got settled in the dogma of the Trinity.

The way you should read this is that the theological questions concern the mystery of the faith, aspects of Christianity that will forever remain unclarified by God, and that God chose to leave it like this for a reason. The precise nature of sin, what gets you into Heaven or cast into Hell, these things were immaterial enough to God to where he saw fit to say virtually nothing about them and leave it up to us to work out. God has His plan, having us figure out what it means and what it is is just part of it.

Personally, I think one of the reasons why God didn’t say more about the nature of spirits and angels and demons is because He thought it would be wonderful for us to speculate for ourselves. And indeed, it’s created a rich culture and tradition of artwork and story ideas. I absolutely adore the video game The Binding of Isaac, and it’s deliciously irreverent treatment of Christian tropes.