Jumpstarter 7 of 10

Direct Answer The transcript doesn’t list modern examples like news cycles or celebrity teachers, but it describes gullibility as being easily deceived by flattery and listening to “the wrong people.” Discernment grows, according to the lesson, by being “wise” in what is good—especially through training in the Scriptures—while remaining “innocent concerning… evil,” echoing Jesus’ call to be “wise as serpents and harmless as doves.”

Support from Transcript:

• Bercot: the deceived are “not… evil,” rather “the problem is their gullibility.”
• False teachers “deceive” through “good words and fair speeches,” which the Otterate calls “flattery.”
• Paul’s desire: “be wise to that which is good and… innocent concerning that which is evil.”
• Bercot connects this to Jesus: “Be wise as serpents and harmless as doves.”
• Origen’s remedy: wisdom comes from being “thoroughly grounded in the Scriptures,” and he warns of “the peril of those who neglect training themselves in the divine scriptures.”
• Bercot infers some Romans “have often listened to the wrong people,” attracting false teachers.