Galatians 4:15-16. Paul is writing to the Galatians who have turned away from the Gospel after his departure. He asks what has become of the satisfaction they felt when he was with them? While he was there, preaching to them, they were so on fire with the Word that, he says, "if possible, you would have plucked out your eyes and given them to me." But now that he has no longer there, they are starting to follow deceivers. "Have I then become your enemy by telling you the truth?" Paul asks.

Wow, yes, we are becoming people's enemies for telling them the truth. That is the corrupting and sinister power of lies and deception. People have put their trust in human beings (politicians, political parties, scientists, doctors, priests, etc.) over God, and have been slowly conditioned to believe all kinds of false things, a lot like crabs slowly being brought to boil in a pot. Often the people they are trusting are in the same boat - they don't mean to be deceptive, they are just as conditioned as those who believe them.

Watching people's reactions on Twitter to the Kyle Rittenhouse trial was a good way to see this. So many who had been 100% convinced that Rittenhouse was a hateful racist looking for trouble and gunning down innocent protesters were shocked when they actually listened to the evidence and testimony at the trial. Kudos to the ones who admitted to themselves and publicly that they had believed a false narrative. Plenty of people still shut their ears to the trial and the truth and continue to believe the lies, and we are all the worse off for it.

Now, take that one example, and realize that this is happening all the time - practically everything we are being told right now as a lie, although based on a small kernel of truth (those are the best and most convincing lies). The Galatians were being duped by those who wanted to "pervert the Gospel of Christ" Galatians 1:7. The deceivers, who may not have realized that they were wrong, were basing their teaching on a kernel of the Gospel, the truth, but then going astray.

Once a small mistake or lie creeps into the truth it spreads like a cancer - growing and metastasizing until the whole thing is corrupted. That is why Christ left us his Church guided by the Holy Spirit. We can always find the truth in her teachings. That does not mean that many of her followers and even her priests cannot be led astray - they can be and they have been. So we must not believe the deceivers, the ones who have been led astray, we must test everything against the truth, against the Church's true teachings. We cannot let others' misunderstandings or wrongs make us enemies of those who tell us the truth. We are in a very dangerous time. We must seek out and cling to the Gospel, the truth, at all costs.