Participants: Tom Shepherd & Deyvy Rodriguez
Series Code: PBOTB
Program Code: PBOTB00021B
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00:01 Welcome back to Books of the Book.
00:02 We are studying the second chapter of 2 Peter. 00:05 Dr. Shepherd, we're talking about the angry pastor and we're 00:10 saying that it's referring to Peter. Yeah. Now is Peter angry 00:15 at the flock or is Peter angry at the false teachers? 00:18 Peter is a good shepherd and he is guarding the flock. So the 00:21 ancient shepherds used to have a club you know like with a big 00:25 ball on the end of it and he's using this to fight off the 00:28 wolves; these are the false teachers. He's not hitting the 00:32 sheep. He's not attacking the flock. He's attacking the 00:35 falsehood, the false teachers and what they're after. 00:37 Now these false teachers, where did they come from and how did 00:41 these teachers become false? 00:43 Yeah, it's interesting that the term is false teacher. That's 00:47 really like an oxymoron. You know, a teacher is somebody that 00:51 you look up to, somebody who teaches you and somebody that 00:55 you respect. But these are teachers who are false and the 00:59 question we have is how in the world did this happen? 01:03 Well we've already read the first 11 verses and it's rather 01:07 interesting that Peter uses terminology throughout chapter 2 01:11 to indicate that the false teachers didn't start that way. 01:17 He says in chapter 2 verse 1 that they... he speaks of the 01:23 Master who purchased them. That sounds like they were redeemed. 01:26 In chapter 2 Peter 1 verse 9 he says that they forget the 01:36 cleansing of their former sins. All right. In chapter 2 verse 12 01:41 he said that they left the straight path and in verse 20 01:46 of that same chapter that they had escaped the defilements of 01:50 the world and in verse 21 that they knew the holy commandment. 01:55 So it seems quite clear that these people began as Christians 02:01 They began the right way, they began the right path. They had 02:04 been purchased by Jesus Christ, their lives had been cleansed 02:10 from sin and they belonged to Jesus. And somehow they got off 02:15 from the right path. Now if we go back to the book of 1 Peter 02:21 we remember that there's a very strong stress on a holy life and 02:26 this strong stress on the holy life in 1 Peter is based on 5 02:31 great truths. We have a graphic that puts these up there to show 02:36 what these great truths are. 02:38 The great truths where he begins 02:40 in chapter 1 are the new birth 02:42 that God has given us in Christ. 02:44 He goes on in chapter 1 and 02:46 again in chapter 4 to speak of 02:49 the holiness of God and of 02:51 judgment. He speaks of the great 02:53 redemption price that was paid 02:55 for us. That's in 1 Peter 02:57 chapter 1. He speaks of the 03:00 example of Christ that he laid 03:02 out before us as he went to the 03:04 cross and how he suffered and 03:06 that's in chapter 2 and again in 03:08 chapter 4. And then he speaks of 03:10 the eschatological reward that 03:12 they will receive at the end 03:14 when Christ returns and that's 03:17 in chapter 1, chapter 4 and 03:19 chapter 5. So over and over he 03:22 had these wonderful realities that impel the Christian to 03:28 live a holy life. But evidently those didn't have the same 03:34 impact for these false teachers. So how did they go wrong? 03:40 Well if we remember back to 1 Peter 5 verses 1-4 and perhaps 03:47 we should just go and read those verses one more time. 03:50 First Peter chapter 5 verses 1-4 03:55 The elders who are among you I exhort, I who am a fellow 03:59 elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ and also a 04:03 partaker of the glory that would be revealed. Shepherd the flock 04:07 of God which is among you serving as overseers, not by 04:10 compulsion but willingly, not for dishonest gain but eagerly 04:16 nor as being lords over those entrusted to you but being 04:21 examples to the flock; and when the chief shepherd appears you 04:25 will receive the crown of glory that does not fade away. 04:29 Now you remember when we studied this passage that we said there 04:32 were these three pair of antitheses, the opposites that 04:38 didn't fit together: not under compulsion but willingly, not 04:43 for gain but freely, not to be a master but to be an example 04:48 to the flock. It's just possible now this is only one scenario, 04:53 but it's just possible that what happened to these false teachers 04:58 is that they took this wrong path of ministry that Peter 05:03 talks about in 1 Peter chapter 5 and where that may have started 05:09 is they maybe were rushed into leadership too soon. They were 05:13 pushed into leadership, someone pressured them to do something 05:17 that they didn't feel called to do or they didn't want to do, 05:21 but well we need leaders and there's nobody else to do it and 05:25 wouldn't you be willing to do it The person might have been a 05:27 little bit new in the faith but, you know, they were going to 05:30 push them on into that anyways. And then they got into 05:35 leadership and they hadn't got in there because they felt 05:40 pulled by God but they had been pushed by men and so they 05:44 started to focus on the wrong things, what they could get out 05:48 of it. I mean, after all they had made a great sacrifice to 05:51 become a leader so they ought to get something back for it, 05:55 shouldn't they. And they maybe started to focus on money, on 06:00 gain that they might get compensated for doing that work. 06:05 Something to help them, money or material, was probably given 06:09 to early church leaders and this became the focus of their 06:12 ministry rather than the free service that they should be 06:17 giving to truly help the flock of God. And along with that of 06:22 receiving compensation and maybe good things to go with that they 06:27 started to use their power for themselves and so they became 06:30 masters over the congregation and went off into false 06:35 teachings. Now we've all been to school, 06:38 we've all had a teacher, as you mentioned earlier, and we know 06:41 what a teacher ought to teach and that would be the truth. 06:45 Now in this case what are false teachers or what they like? 06:50 Peter describes these people quite extensively and he focuses 06:55 on four main characteristics. The four characteristics are 07:01 greed or avarice, out-of-control passions, conceit, that is 07:07 huberous or pride and deceit. They were false. 07:11 So it's not necessarily what they are teaching but rather 07:14 like their lifestyle. 07:16 Aw, that's a very big part. In fact, in chapter 2 that's what 07:18 he tends to focus completely on is their lifestyle and what they 07:21 were like and we're going to see how he works through that and 07:24 carries through discussing their type. He will get to their 07:28 teaching and their teaching is false. Yeah, so the big emphasis 07:31 is the greed, out-of-control passions and conceit; those all 07:35 have to do with the character. The deceit links up with the 07:38 false teachings. Do you think that these are 07:40 principles that we can use today to discern false teachers other 07:44 than their doctrines. Yeah, I think so. As we'll go 07:47 along here in this discussion of chapter 2 we may not go all 07:52 of it verse by verse and everything but we're going to 07:54 describe how these people went off the wrong way and there are 08:00 very clear warnings, I believe, for us today. Peter notes that 08:04 the false teachers are chasing after and seem to have obtained 08:07 some kind of unjust gain. He says that in verse 13 of chapter 08:12 2. They train their hears in, I call it, materialistic aerobics. 08:17 They're good at exercising what they can receive as money. 08:23 Their forefather in evil is Balaam in the Old Testament 08:28 who you remember was a false prophet who went after money. 08:33 There's a certain kind of poetic justice or better we might say 08:38 biblical justice, biblical fairness in what the false 08:41 teachers receive. Jesus said the measure you use is the measure 08:46 that will be measured for you and to you. These people are 08:53 after greed and after money and so what do they get? They get a 08:58 wage of wrong in verse 13. So they are getting wages. Their 09:02 wages are bad things that are coming to them and they're going 09:06 to be deprived of the wages of wrong that they've obtained. 09:11 They act like animals; that's what Peter says and so a donkey 09:16 speaks to their forefather Balaam. They're like Balaam and 09:20 an animal takes and warns them okay. They have out-of-control 09:26 passions also play a major role in this. I'd like us to look at 09:31 verses 4-9 of chapter 2, we read this before, and just get a 09:36 little picture here. It's a very long if/then statement. Okay, so 09:41 I'll read it in the ESV because it has all the ifs. Sure. Okay. 09:45 It says, For if God did not spare angels when they sinned 09:49 but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of 09:52 gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment, if he did not 09:56 spare the ancient world but preserved Noah, a herald of 10:00 righteousness with seven others when he brought a flood upon the 10:03 world of the ungodly, if by turning the cities of Sodom and 10:06 Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction making them 10:10 an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly and if he 10:13 rescued righteous Lot greatly distressed by the sensual 10:16 conduct of the wicked for as that righteous man lived among 10:20 them day after day he was tormenting his righteous soul 10:23 over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard, then the Lord 10:28 knows how to rescue the Godly from trials and to keep the 10:33 unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment and 10:38 especially those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and 10:41 despise authority. Well here's this long, you know, litany of 10:45 what these people are like. It's if this, if this and in the 10:49 group there's always there's always those who are going to 10:52 lost and those who are going to be saved. There's Noah, there's 10:56 Lot and yet there's Sodom and Gomorrah, they are the 10:58 antediluvians who were destroyed by the flood. So he goes back 11:02 and forth and he has this emphasis on the theme about 11:07 their irrational focus on passions. He says, they're like 11:13 irrational animals and he ties them to Balaam. He ends the 11:17 chapter with two proverbs: They're like dogs that return to 11:22 their vomit; they're like pigs that wallow in the mud. When 11:26 somebody starts talking about the dogs and the pigs you 11:30 realize it's pretty bad what's going on. He also focuses on 11:35 their conceit and their deceit. They are bold and stubborn and 11:41 they are also people who use sarcasm. We'll come back to that 11:46 when we study chapter 3. And they promise people freedom but 11:51 they are in abject slavery to corruption. It's an amazing 11:56 litany that he lays out about what these people are and what 12:02 they became like. You see, it's interesting. People in Peter's 12:07 church you might think, no, wow if it's that bad everybody could 12:12 see that, everybody could realize it's obvious what these 12:16 people are like. You'd be surprised though. Most people in 12:20 the church where this was happening probably didn't 12:24 recognize all of the danger that was going on and Peter 12:28 being an apostle, being inspired by God's word, he pulls the 12:32 curtain aside and says now this is what these people are really 12:37 like. Let me show you how they are so controlled by passions, 12:41 how they're deceitful, how they are conceited and how they are 12:45 just after money. So these characteristics that 12:48 Peter mentions is kind of like their fruits. As Jesus said, by 12:52 their fruits you shall know them. Jesus said that a good 12:56 tree cannot bear bad fruit and so on. 12:59 And a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. 13:01 Well, Dr. Shepherd, thank you for joining us. We are not 13:04 finished with this study and we still ask our viewers and 13:07 listening audience to join us in the remainder of the part of 13:11 2 Peter. Dr. Tom Shepherd is with us. He comes from Andrews 13:15 University, a teacher at the theological seminary there. 13:18 Well God bless you friends. We'll see you next time. 13:21 We hope and pray that you too can continue reading the 13:24 scriptures for in it is the will of God. 13:26 God bless till next time. |
Revised 2014-12-17