2 Peter 2:1-3a
(A Bible Study Led by Dr. Larry Reynolds)
May 1, 2014
Chapter 1 of 2 Peter contains a beautiful description of what
it means to be a genuine follower of Jesus.
True believers--
--have
equal standing before God (v.1)
--know
God in personal, intimate way (v.2)
--share
in the power of God (v.3)
--are
recipients of the precious and magnificent promises of God (v.4)
--grow
and mature in their walk with God (vv.5-9)
--persevere
in the faith (vv.10-11)
--understand
that Christianity is rooted in history (vv.12-18)
--focus
on God’s Word
Now is chapter 2 Peter turns to the subject of false
believers. In this chapter Peter warns us that there will be people who claim
to be followers of Jesus and who claim to speak for Jesus, but they are really
charlatans and fakes...always have been two kinds of people among the people of
God...there are—
--true
believers/those who only pretend to believe...
--really
know God/only profess know God...
--faithful/unfaithful...
--committed/uncommitted...
--God-centered/self-centered...
In
1st chapter of this letter Peter described true believers. In 2nd chapter he turns to the
pretenders.
At
the end of chapter 1 Peter says that God produced for us the “prophetic
word” or the Bible through true prophets, through people who were moved
by God’s Spirit. Now, he begins chapter
2 by pointing out that in addition to those true prophets who were among God’s
people, there were also false prophets among God’s people.
T.S.
- The “false teachers” to whom Peter refers in this passage were
people in the church pretending to be in touch with God, passing themselves off
as spiritual leaders, as teachers of others, but who were not in touch with God
and who were leading not closer to God but further away from God...
Warren
Wiersbe points out three things that false teachers, pseudo-spiritual leaders
will invariably do...
I. False
teachers deceive
1. One
of the marks of false teachers/spiritual leaders is that they never put their
true face forward...they don’t want you to see who/what they really are...they
want you to see an illusion, a contrived image of them...
2. Jesus
warned of “...false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but
inwardly are ravenous wolves...” [Matt.7:15]...and that is precisely
the kind of people Peter describes in this passage...notice how they are
deceptive—
--in
their approach (“secretly”-v.1)...don’t operate in the
open...they move in the shadows...are not comfortable being exposed to the
light...their agenda is always hidden...they are always manipulating, scheming,
working in under-handed ways to get what they want...
--in
their motive (“greed” – v.3)…refers to much more than just the desire for
material things...can be greed for power, for popularity, for getting one’s own
way...point is their purpose is always selfish and self-centered...
--in
their purpose (“exploit” - v.3)...their motives are always
less than pure...instead of genuinely desiring to help people, to build up
people, their mind-set is to use people...the word means “to make
merchandise of”...people just become objects, a means to an end...
--in
their words (“false words”-end v.3)...the Greek word is “plastos”
from which our word plastic comes...it means they twist words to make them mean
what they desire...you can’t really trust the plain, obvious meaning of the
words they use...they always have a hidden, under-the-surface meaning as
well...their words cannot be trusted...
1.
Deceptiveness
is a consistent characteristic of the kind of people being described in this
passage...read interesting thing about Joseph Stalin this past week...despite
the mind-numbing brutality of the Joseph Stalin regime in the Soviet Union, his
propaganda machine did its job well. Many Russians hailed him as a hero and a
savior, including a young school girl who was chosen to greet Stalin on one
occasion. Years later, this woman
recalled Stalin taking her onto his lap, smiling like a loving father. She was
starry-eyed, and she cherished the moment for many years. Only later did she
learn that during this period, Stalin had her parents arrested and sent to the
labor camps, never to be seen again. [Today in the Word, October, 1997, p. 36]
II. False teachers deny
1. In
v.1 Peter says these counterfeit Christians are “...even denying the
Master who bought them...”...several things about that phrase are
important to understand...
--”who
bought them” does not mean that they are genuine Christians...while
Christ died for them and while His death potentially paid for their sins, it is
obvious from how Peter describes them in this chapter they had no real
relationship with Christ...they were not true believers...perhaps they thought
they were, but they did not have a saving relationship with Jesus...
--”denying
the Master”...Master obviously refers to Jesus...how were they denying
Him?...two possibilities...
--possible
was a theological denial of Jesus, denying His deity or denying that His
sacrificial death on the cross was necessary for our forgiveness or denying His
resurrection...I think that is unlikely because anyone teaching such things
would have been immediately recognized as a fake and would not have been
tolerated in the early church...
--more
than likely, talking about a practical denial of Jesus... denied Him by the way
they lived...while claiming allegiance to Jesus, their life-styles said they
obviously had other priorities, other loves in their lives more important to
them than Jesus...their real heresy was professing Jesus with their mouths but
denying Him with their lives...in v.2 Peter refers to the “sensuality”
of these false teachers...the word refers to sexual impurity...the NIV
translates it “shameful ways”...by the way they lived they were
denying their professed commitment to Jesus...
2. It
is not that Christians will never make mistakes...the Scripture does not teach
that…as a matter of fact, many of the great characters of the Bible had deep
flaws…not any one of us is perfectly, 100% consistent all the time...all of us,
in some way or another, fall short of God’s ideal...if you expect perfection
from any person, you are going to be disappointed...
3. But
the habit of our lives, the direction of our lives must not deny the faith we
claim to have...
1.
He made
free use of Christian vocabulary. He talked about the blessing of the Almighty
and the Christian confessions which would become the pillars of the new
government. He assumed the earnestness of a man weighed down by historic
responsibility. He handed out pious stories to the press, especially to the
church papers. He showed his tattered Bible and declared that he drew the
strength for his great work from it as scores of pious people welcomed him as a
man sent from God. Indeed, Adolf Hitler was a master of outward
religiosity—with no inward reality! [Today in the Word, June 3, 1989]
III. False teachers destroy
1. In
Psalm 23 David proclaimed “Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all
the days of my life...”...in the wake of genuine Christians you will
find good, positive things...where they go lives are improved...people are made
better...but not so with false teachers...they do not bring good things, they
bring destruction...
2. If
look carefully at text will see the destruction they bring is on several
levels...
--last part of
v.1 speaks of them “bringing swift destruction upon themselves...”...that
is, God is aware of what they are doing and He will not leave their actions
unpunished...we’re going to develop this idea further next week...
--also bring
destruction upon others...v.2 says that “many will follow them...”...can’t
always judge the truth of what someone is saying by the size of the
crowd...often times false teachers are saying what people want to hear...people
gladly follow because many times the demands of God on our lives are minimized
or ignored...
--finally, the
bring destruction on the church...last part of v.2 says “because of them
the way of truth will be maligned...”...non-believers see the excesses
and abuses of false teachers and assume that is real Christianity...and they
reject, not the real thing, but a distortion, a caricature of the real
thing...nothing hurts the cause of Christ more than those who misrepresent Him
to the world...
Conclusion
1. What
a sorry legacy--deception, denial, destruction...I don’t know about you, but
when my life is over and done, that is not what I want written on my
tombstone!...that’s the legacy of counterfeit Christians, of false teachers...
2. The
legacy of true believers is just the opposite...
--instead of
deceptiveness, true believers are characterized by openness and honesty...
--instead of
denying Christ by their life-styles, true believers live in such a way that affirms
their commitment to Christ...
--instead of
causing pain and destruction, true believers are a source of healing and
comfort...
