The False Teachers' Claim
For Week 29 of our ‘Stand Firm’ Series, we continued with a hard but important topic that Peter wants his audience to be aware of — false teachers. Here’s what he has to say in 2 Peter 2:10b-17:
Bold and willful, they do not tremble as they blaspheme the glorious ones, 11 whereasangels, though greater in might and power, do not pronounce a blasphemous judgmentagainst them before the Lord. 12 But these, like irrational animals, creatures of instinct,born to be caught and destroyed, blaspheming about matters of which they are ignorant,will also be destroyed in their destruction, 13 suffering wrong as the wage for theirwrongdoing. They count it pleasure to revel in the daytime. They are blots and blemishes,reveling in their deceptions, while they feast with you. 14 They have eyes full of adultery,insatiable for sin. They entice unsteady souls. They have hearts trained in greed.Accursed children! 15 Forsaking the right way, they have gone astray. They have followedthe way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved gain from wrongdoing, 16 but was rebukedfor his own transgression; a speechless donkey spoke with human voice and restrainedthe prophet’s madness.
17 These are waterless springs and mists driven by a storm. For them the gloom of utterdarkness has been reserved.
We established a couple of weeks ago that the dual themes of “faith and works: and :grace and effort” weren’t new to Peter’s readers. They knew them — they were “established” in them. But they needed to be reminded of these things. They needed to be reminded that our discipleship is a cooperation with God and that cooperation is rooted in the trustworthy, authoritative, and life-giving Word of God. It seems that Peter built all of that up to defend the apostolic authority and ministry and in 2:1-10b to attack the false teachers who were pushing against it. Peter wants his audience to know that these false messengers were as untrustworthy as their false messages. One of the key takeaways was for us to understand what heresy really means. Heresy is more than just false teaching — it is any opinion that destroys true faith. We continued exploring false teachers and looked at Peter’s focus on their character. For this last week exploring False Teachers in 2 Peter 2, Mike Wilcox joined us to look at False Teachers’ Claims and how we go about discerning them in community. Some of the audio was lost, but we’ve attached what was captured.
Give the sermon text a read and a listen and we hope to see you this week at a Family Meal and/or a DNA group to dive even deeper.