Peter has put his case postively in Chapter 1. He calls us to healthy, intentional, full-orbed, developing Christian living, rooted both in looking back to what we have been redeemed from, and forward to what we have been redeemed to, when Christ return at the end of the age (see I Pet.1:3-5). He pleads with us to grow strong and stable so that we do not stumble in our pilgrimage. He builds everything on God’s revelation of Himself in Christ, which we connect with, and encounter through the Spirit-inspired Scriptures. God has given us everything we need to live a godly life (1:3)! But it is not enough to be ‘positive’. Peter knows that he must also now spell out the dangers the Church faces from those in her midst who will undermine genuine and authentic Christianity (see II Pet.2).
Incredible though it may seem to us, there have been, and always will be, those in the Church who will disregard all this. Betraying their own spiritual immaturity, indeed their own lack of spiritual life at all, these ‘false teachers’ dismiss Scripture in favour of their own ‘fabricated stories’, and their own desire for what they want the Christian life to be about. They long to have all they think this world has to offer them here and now, and then to enjoy New Creation life as well. Christ becomes nothing more than a servant who can protect us from the consequences of our decisions. They both forget they have been cleansed from past sins, and are blind to the question of the welcome they will receive into the eternal kingdom… or not.
And as there will always be such ‘false teachers’, there will tragically always be those who follow them. Disregarding Peter’s pleas, the remain culpably ignorant of the Bible’s teaching and chronically underdeveloped in their disicpleship. As such they are equipped neither to recognise nor resist those who will lead them away from Christ. They are enticed back into slavery, and Peter - rather disturbingly - tells us that it would have been better if they had never heard the Gospel, than to have heard it and allowed themselves to be drawn away from it again.
Such stark warnings don’t sit well with our ‘tolerant’ age. But tolerance is not always a virtue. Think about it this way: imagine a tolerant immune system. The loss of an immune system leaves a body vulnerable to a thousand different ways to die. Likewise, a lack of discernment, or worse a willingness to tolerate that which we know is hostile to the body of Christ, leaves the Church vulnerable to being wounded, and her people in danger of eternal destruction.
Questions:
Where do you draw the line between recognising a legitimate difference of opinion between Christians, and recognising false teachers / false teaching?
Why are we so susceptible to believing false teachers, and thier ‘fabricated stories’? How do you assess teaching that you hear by those claiming to teach the Bible?
What Old Testament incident is Peter referring to in 2:4? What is the relevance of it to his argument throughout Chapter 2?
How do you feel about the vision of God’s unrelenting judgment that Peter paints for us in 2:4-9? What do you think we have lost by marginalising the Bible’s teaching on God’s judgment?
Do you think God still judges people ‘within history’ in the ways He did in these Old Testament narratives?
What harm do ‘false teachers’ do to the Church (2:13)? How could we protect the Church from such people?
Do you think false teachers know they are false teachers? Does it matter?
Based on II Peter 2 (and other passages you might be aware of) how would you recognise a false teacher? How would you respond to being exposed to one? Have you ever experienced false teaching? Are you aware of any false teaching prevalent in the Church today?
Read II Peter 2:20-22. Is Peter teaching us that Christians can lose their salvation if they listen to and believe false teachers?
