Question

What is the difference between someone like Apollos who is mistaken about doctrinal truth and some like a Judaizer who knowingly persists in doctrinal error?

experience
intelligence
teachability
literacy skills

Answer 1

Short answer: teachability and motive. Apollos was honestly mistaken and open to correction; the Judaizers knowingly clung to and pushed error for their own ends.

Brief explanation with the four factors you listed:
- Experience: Apollos lacked full exposure to the gospel (Acts 18:24–28) and so erred from incomplete teaching. Judaizers often had long experience in Judaism and used that background to insist on law-works as necessary for salvation.
- Intelligence: Both kinds of people can be intelligent. Intelligence doesn’t determine whether someone is right or wrong about doctrine.
- Teachability: This is the key difference. Apollos welcomed Priscilla and Aquila’s correction and grew; a Judaizer refused the gospel’s corrective authority and pressed his position. Openness to correction marks honest mistake; stubbornness marks culpable error.
- Literacy/eloquence: Apollos was eloquent and knowledgeable in Scripture but still mistaken on one point. Literacy or rhetoric can conceal but not justify doctrinal error.

In short, evaluate teachers not only by what they teach but by their motives and how they respond to correction and Scripture (see Acts 18; Galatians 1–5).