2:1Jesus had told the disciples that false teachers would come (Matthew 24:11; Mark 13:22, 23). Peter had heard these words, and at this time he was seeing them come true. Just as false prophets had contradicted the true prophets in Old Testament times (see, for example, Jeremiah 23:16-40; 28:1-17), telling people only what they wanted to hear, so false teachers were twisting Christ's teachings and the words of his apostles. These teachers were belittling the significance of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. Some claimed that Jesus couldn't be God; others claimed that he couldn't have been a real man. These teachers allowed and even encouraged all kinds of immorality, especially sexual sin. We must be careful to avoid false teachers today. Any book, tape series, or TV message must be evaluated in the light of God’s Word. Beware of special meanings or interpretations that belittle Christ or his work.
Life Application Study Bible2 PeterChapter 2
2 Peter 2
New Living Translation · Life Application Study Bible · Original pages: 2140, 2141
A few verse numbers on this page were hard to read in the scan and are marked with a dotted underline — compare with the original page image if in doubt.
False Teachers
12 But there were also false prophets in Israel, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will cleverly teach destructive heresies and even deny the Master who bought them. In this way, they will bring sudden destruction on themselves. 2Many will follow their evil teaching and shameful immorality. And because of these teachers, the way of truth will be slandered. 3In their greed they will make up clever lies to get hold of your money. But God condemned them long ago, and their destruction will not be delayed. 4For God did not spare even the angels who sinned. He threw them into hell,* in gloomy pits of darkness,* where they are being held until the day of judgment. 5And God did not spare the ancient world—except for Noah and the seven others in his family. Noah warned the world of God’s righteous judgment. So God protected Noah when he destroyed the world of ungodly people with a vast flood. 6Later, God condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and turned them into heaps of ashes. He made them an example of what will happen to ungodly people. 7But God also rescued Lot out of Sodom because he was a righteous man who was sick of the shameful immorality of the wicked people around him. ®Yes, Lot was. righteous man who was tormented in his soul by the wickedness he saw and heard day after day. 9So you see, the LORD knows how to rescue godly people from their trials, even while keeping the wicked under punishment until the day of final judgment. 10He is especially hard on those who follow their own twisted sexual desire, and who despise authority. These people are proud and arrogant, daring even to scoff at supernatural beings* without so much as trembling. 11But the angels, who are far greater in power and strength, do not dare to bring from the LORD* a charge of blasphemy against those supernatural beings. 12These false teachers are like unthinking animals, creatures of instinct, born to be caught and destroyed. They scoff at things they do not understand, and like animals, they will be destroyed. 13Their destruction is their reward for the harm they have done. They love to indulge in evil pleasures in broad daylight. They are a disgrace and a stain among you. They delight in deception* even as they eat with you in your fellowship meals. 4They commit adultery with their eyes, and their desire for sin is never satisfied. They lure unstable people into sin, and they are well trained in greed. They live under God’s curse. 5They have wandered off the right road and followed the footsteps of Balaam son of Beor,* who loved to earn money by doing wrong. 16But Balaam was stopped from his mad course when his donkey rebuked him with a human voice. 17These people are as useless as dried-up springs or as mist blown away by the wind. They are doomed to blackest darkness. 19They brag about themselves with empty, foolish boasting. With an appeal to twisted sexual desires, they lure back into sin those who have barely escaped from a lifestyle of deception. '?They promise freedom, but they themselves are slaves of sin and corruption. For you are a slave to whatever controls you. 20And when people escape from the wickedness of the world by knowing our LORD and Savior Jesus Christ and then get tangled up and enslaved by sin again, they are worse off than before. 21]t would be better if they had never known the way to righteousness than to know it and then reject the command they were given to live a holy life. 22They prove the truth of this proverb: “A dog returns to its vomit.”* And another says, “A washed pig returns to the mud.” 3. Hope for growing Christians
Textual footnotes
- probably evil angels.
- 2:4a Greek Tartarus.
- 2:4b Some manuscripts read in chains of gloom.
- 2:10 Greek at glorious ones, which are
- 2:11 Other manuscripts read fo the LORD; still others omit this phrase.
- 2:13 Some manuscripts read in fellowship meals.
- 2:15 Some manuscripts read Bosor. 2:22 Prov 26:11.
Life Application Notes 7 notes
2:3Peter gives three warning signs for identifying false teachers: (1) Immorality. Do their lives contain or condone immoral practices? Does the group listening to the false teachers have a lot of immoral sexual relationships? (2) Greed. Teachers have a right to financial support (1 Corinthians 9:1-14; Galatians 6:6; 1 Timothy 5:17, 18), but is money the teacher's or group’s prime motivation? Before you send money to any cause, evaluate it carefully. is the teacher or preacher clearly serving God or merely promoting his/her own interests? Will the person or organization use the money to promote valid ministry, or will it merely finance further promotions or extravagant lifestyles? (3) Lying. Is the leader offended when you ask for the scriptural backing behind his/her statements? Does he/she fudge on the facts when asked for evidence? Believers today would do weil to heed Peter's warnings against false teachers; the danger is great.
2:4-6If God did not spare angels, or people who lived before the Flood, or the citizens of Sodom and Gomorrah, he would not spare these false teachers. These words that promised justice were a great comfort to those who were oppressed. God will punish all evildoers. These words also served as a warning to wanderers to not stray away from the truth. Some people would have us believe that God wil! save atl people because he is so loving. But it is foolish to think that God will cancel the last judgment. Don’t ever minimize the certainty of God’s judgment on those who rebel against him.
2:7-9Just as God rescued Lot from Sodom, so he is able to rescue us from the temptations and trials we face in a wicked world. Lot was not sinless, but he put his trust in God and was spared when Sodom was destroyed. For more information on Lot, see his Profile in Genesis 13, p. 25. God also will judge those who cause the temptations and trials, so we need never worry about justice being done.
2:10-12The “supernatural beings” may be angels, all the glories of the unseen world, or more probably, fallen angels. A similar passage is found in Jude 1:8-10. Whoever they are, the false teachers slandered the spiritual realities they did not understand, taking Satan’s power lightly and claiming to have the ability to judge evil. Many in our world today mock the supernatural. They deny the reality of the spiritual world and claim that only what can be seen and felt is real. Like the false teachers of Peter’s day, they are fools who will be proven wrong in the end. Don’t take Satan and his supernatural powers of evil lightly, and don’t become arrogant about how defeated he will be. Although Satan will be destroyed completely, he is at work now trying to render Christians complacent and ineffective.
2:13,14The fellowship meal may have been part of the celebration of the LORD’s Supper—~a full meal that ended with Communion. The false teachers, although they were sinning openly, took part in these meals with everyone else in the church. In one of the greatest of hypocritical acts, they attended a sacred meal designed to promote love and unity among believers, while at the same time they gossiped and slandered those who disagreed with their opinions. Paul told the Corinthians, “So anyone who eats this bread or drinks this cup of the LORD unworthily is guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the “LORD” (1 Corinthians 11:27). These men were guilty of more than -false teaching and promoting evil pleasures; they were guilty of + leading others away from God’s Son, Jesus. , 2:15 Balaam was hired by a pagan king to curse Israel. He did . what God told him to do for a time (Numbers 22-24), but eventually his evil motives and desire for money won out (Numbers * 25:1-3; 31:16). Like the false teachers of Peter's day, Balaam t used religion for personal advancement, a sin that God does not vtake lightly. _ 2:19 A person is a slave to whatever controls him or her. Many believe that freedom means doing anything we want. But no one _ is ever completely free in that sense. If we refuse to follow God, we will follow our awn sinful desires and become enslaved to what our body wants. If we submit our lives to Christ, he will free us from slavery to sin. Christ frees us to serve him, a freedom that results in our ultimate good.
2:20-22Peter is speaking of people who have learned about Christ and how to be saved but then reject the truth and return to their sin. These people are worse off than before because they have rejected the only way out of sin, the only way of salvation. Like someone sinking in quicksand who refuses to grab the rope thrown to him or her, the person who turns away from Christ Tejects the only means of escape (see the note on Luke 11:24-26).