The Real McCoy

Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood. I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them. Therefore be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to admonish every one with tears. And now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified. (Acts 20:28-32 ESV). Idioms are often fun to research. After reading our text for today I began to think of the common phrase “the real McCoy.” The history of the phrase is well documented. It revolves around the inventor Elijah McCoy who was born in Canada in 1844. He had many different inventions including an ironing board and a lawn sprinkler. Other companies copied his devices, but these never worked as well as Elijah's so people would go to the hardware store to purchase one of these items and say, “Make sure it's a real McCoy." The reason there was such a difference is not rumor or innuendo. The people who wanted only the “real McCoy” knew the difference because they had experienced the real thing. The story is told of an inspector who worked for the counterfeit department of Scotland Yard. His job was to detect the false currency from the real. When asked if he spent a lot of time handling and examining counterfeit money, he said no. He spent so much time handling the real thing that he could immediately detect the counterfeit. The best way to detect what is false is to know what is true. And I believe that if you have a good working knowledge of the Bible, then you will be able to detect the false rather quickly, because you are so familiar with the genuine article. People who have been deceived by false doctrine usually come from the same culture as those preaching the heresy. Heresy grows from within. Jesus spoke of it as if it were yeast. A little bit spreads throughout the whole batch. It seems like these teachers of false come into strong, growing churches and infiltrate their ranks. Then they go about their deception in a clandestine, secretive way. We need to be equipped. We need to be prepared. We need to know the truth, because when we are conversant with the Word of God, we will recognize when something strange comes along. We will be aware that it does not align with Scripture. So be a student of the Word of God.