False Teachers - 2 Peter 2

                           

In the first part of his letter, Peter mentions how they, the apostles, are not following cleverly created stories about Jesus because they actually knew, lived with, and followed Jesus personally; seeing Jesus’ divinity and humanity in real life. Peter moves into talking about how prophecy comes from the Holy Spirit and its interpretation doesn’t come from the prophets themselves, but from and through the Holy Spirit. Now Peter warns us about false prophets and teachers. To be able to recognize them and their teaching, it’s important to know what we believe and why.

Peter writes, “But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them—bringing swift destruction on themselves. Many will follow their depraved conduct and will bring the way of truth into disrepute. In their greed these teachers will exploit you with fabricated stories. Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sleeping.” Peter doesn’t see or hear false teachers in their churches yet, but he’s warning them that they will show up.

Jesus has always been a controversial because his claims and teachings are rooted in his identity as the Son of God; Jesus is not simply human, he’s also divine. This adds great responsibility on his followers to accept his teaching and life as the foundation of our lives. This is part of why false teachers showed up early on, putting their own spin and interpretation on who Jesus is and what he taught. Peter calls us to be aware of false teachers and to learn to recognize their false teachings. Peter reminds the people to keep remembering, learning about what Jesus did and taught; and to keep learning about how Jesus lived out his relationship with God among and with the people.

Early on in the church, there were false teachings about Jesus already appearing. Peter may be thinking about Jewish believers who’ve also been influenced by Greek ways of thinking and philosophical movements. He may also be speaking out against charlatans who created their own teachings to appeal to those who were sceptical; teachers who mixed a little bit of truth with their own teachings. Paul in Romans 6 talks of teachers telling the people that the more we sin the greater God’s grace looks, other teachers taught that salvation depended on the secret knowledge they’ve been given by the Lord.

There are still many false teachers today. Peter talks about false prophets and teachers, carrying on from chapter 1 where he teaches that prophets spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit, but now he’s turning his focus on those prophets who spoke their own words instead of God’s words. Peter is concerned about teachers who even deny Jesus. You can identify false teachers because they tend to either lower the importance of Jesus, or they raise themselves and humanity higher in importance.

A study last year by Lifeway Research found that 28% of evangelicals believed that Jesus was a great teacher, but he was not God, 53% believe that the Holy Spirit is a force, not a personal being, 47% believe God accepts the worship of all religions, 17% believe that the Holy Spirit can tell me to do something that is forbidden in the Bible, 17% believe the Bible is not literally true, while 19% believe that modern science disproves the Bible.

Most false teachers reject the Law, setting it up against the gospel. One of the most pervasive examples of this today is the growth of the Prosperity Gospel in the church. This is not just a North American issue. When I was in East Africa with World Missions about 14 years ago, I had coffee with a pastor in Kenya and asked what his greatest challenge was. He told me the prosperity gospel was the greatest challenge because it treated God as a God who will give you what you want. A form of this gospel is called Moralistic Therapeutic Deism. Martin Horton writes about its dangerous influence in Christless Christianity: The Alternative Gospel of the American Church. It teaches that there’s a God who exists who created the world and watches over human life on earth. God wants people to be good and fair to each other like the Bible and other religions teach. The goal in life is to be happy and feel good about who you are. God will bless you when you give to him. As long as you’re good, you go to heaven. There’s no need for Jesus or discipleship.

There’s no need for Jesus’ birth, life, sacrifice, or resurrection. You don’t even need to believe in Jesus; you don’t need his grace. It makes us feel good about ourselves, and yet in the end it lacks comfort or true hope. We’re all sinners in need of a saviour, we’re unable to save ourselves, no matter how many good works we do. God didn’t give up on humanity, but guides history so that at the right time Jesus came and took our sin on himself, died on the cross, and was raised from the dead so that we’re freed from our sin, washed clean from our sin when we believe in Jesus as our Lord and Saviour. We follow God’s commands out of gratitude because God gives us the Law out of love and to shape us in his image. In the meantime, we are part of God’s plan of renewal and restoration, here to prepare the world for Jesus’ return.

Paul speaks to this in 1 Timothy 1:3–11, “As I urged you when I went into Macedonia, stay there in Ephesus so that you may command certain people not to teach false doctrines any longer or to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies. Such things promote controversial speculations rather than advancing God’s work—which is by faith. The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. Some have departed from these and have turned to meaningless talk. They want to be teachers of the law, but they do not know what they are talking about or what they so confidently affirm. We know that the law is good if one uses it properly. We also know that the law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers, for the sexually immoral, for those practicing homosexuality, for slave traders and liars and perjurers—and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine that conforms to the gospel concerning the glory of the blessed God, which he entrusted to me.”

False teachers are usually in it for their own personal gain and influence. They want you to accept their version of truth. Modern day false teachers tell us that truth is different for everyone and we can determine our own truth.  Dr. Francis Collins wrote a book that defends the idea that truth really exists. Dr. Collins observes, if you claim that you think tattoos are really cool, that may be true for you but not for everyone; it’s a matter of taste and opinion. But when we have firmly recognised facts, like 2+2=4 and that the law of gravity is real and it’s a good thing to pay attention to when you are walking along the edge of a cliff, those are established facts, and they’re true for everybody. As Dr. Collins said, facts don’t care about how you feel about them. Truth is truth, but you need to know what truth is, which is why we’ve been given Scripture and the Holy Spirit.

False prophets and teachers aren’t new, Israel often experienced their destructive presence: Jeremiah 23:16, “This is what the Lord Almighty says: “Do not listen to what the prophets are prophesying to you; they fill you with false hopes. They speak visions from their own minds, not from the mouth of the Lord.” The Old Testament is filled with false prophets. Many false stories about Jesus began circulating right after his resurrection; Matthew tells us how the soldiers at the tomb were paid to say that Jesus’ body was stolen by disciples, that his resurrection was fake.

Peter warns that God will not allow the false teachers and prophets to go unpunished for their actions; this is God’s grace, warning false teachers to not lead his people away from him. Jesus in Matthew 18:6, Jesus warns about leading children astray, “If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.” God doesn’t take false teachers lightly, he will hold them accountable for their actions, justice and righteousness will come in the end when Jesus returns.

The way of righteousness comes from the knowledge of Jesus and walking in his way. It’s not easy to stand up for the truth as found in Scripture, yet if we choose the ways of the world and its false teachers, God’s clear that there are consequences to our choices, but Peter uses Noah and Lot as examples on how God protects his people during these times of punishment.

We’re called to be discerning when we listen to teachers of God. Think of the Bereans in Acts 17. Luke describes them as “being of more noble character than those is Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true. As a result, many of them believed, as did also a number of prominent Greek women and many Greek men.” To understand Scripture, we turn to the whole Bible, letting Scripture interpret Scripture. We study humbly, knowing that there is so much more to God that we will never understand, yet trusting that God reveals all we need to know of him at this time in Scripture. We do not need secret knowledge for our salvation; all we need is the finished work of Jesus as revealed in Scripture. This is why God calls his people to gather together regularly to read Scripture, to encourage and build each other in the Lord, and to worship God, reminding us of who Jesus is and responding to him in thankfulness and gratitude, keeping us connected to the truth, to Jesus.