In an information-overwhelming age, navigating your way to truth can feel like an Olympic sport. News outlets are hyperpartisan. Social media runs on the currency of suspicion. The noise is not just dizzying; it’s disheartening. No wonder so many of us are tired.

Seasoned pastor Steve Bateman wants to help you find your bearings. In a new article for TGC, he identifies a cluster of fallacies that plague our public discourse:

• Hasty conclusion (accepting a conclusion based on relevant but insufficient evidence)
• Argument by repetition (believing a claim because it’s frequently and confidently repeated)
• Ad hominem (attacking the person rather than the argument)
• Double standard (applying a standard differently in some cases to gain an advantage)
• Suppressed evidence (concealing evidence unfavorable to your argument)
• Appeal to celebrity (accepting someone’s claim due to their celebrity status rather than their argument’s soundness)
• Appeal to motive (dismissing a proposition by questioning the person’s motives)

What’s at stake when Christ’s people fall prey to such fallacies? The peace and credibility of his church, for starters. “We don’t have to be experts in every subject,” writes Bateman, “but we do have to practice strategic hesitation before accepting a claim as true and publicly endorsing it.”

“Let your reasonableness be known to everyone” (Phil. 4:5) is not a nice wish—it’s a divine command. And fostering a reputation of reasonableness will make us “less gullible, and more persuasive, as we bear witness to the facts of the gospel.”

The peace and credibility of the church aren’t the only things at stake. So is the reputation of our King.