2 Pet 2.10-22
false teachers (2)
(2 Peter 2.10-22)
Jason Procopio
We’re still in our series on Peter’s letters, which we’ve been in since September, and I’m going to start with a warning: this is a very difficult text. One thing that many people don’t remember about the Bible is just how brutal the apostles—and even Jesus himself—can be. They pull no punches, and Peter pulls none here. They say things that make many modern people very squeamish, because perhaps the highest virtue in our culture today is “Do not judge,” and the biblical authors have no problem calling out those who do harm to God’s church.
So I want to acknowledge going in that this is a very heavy, very somber text—but one we need to remember if we intend on glorifying God in our lives and in our speech, in what we think and whom we listen to.
Last week we started looking at Peter’s concern for the churches to whom he is writing, in regards to the false teachers that would make their way among them. These teachers, he said, claim to be Christians, claim to be teaching from the Bible, but instead bring in destructive heresies, following their own selfish desires, and exploiting the weak to feed their greed. Peter is very clear (in v. 4-10a) that these people are in danger of judgment from God for taking his words and twisting them to feed their own sin.
Now we stopped at the middle half of v. 10 last week, because in the second half, Peter goes on what basically sounds like a rant—he spends several verses speaking about what motivates these false teachers, and he paints them in a light which is frankly frightening. And then in v. 17, he starts to lay out for us why their situation is not just loathsome, but tragic—and in so doing, he gives a stern warning to his readers as well.
The False Teachers’ Lives (v. 10-16)
So if you remember, in v. 4-8 Peter reminded us of stories from the Old Testament of God’s judgment on the wicked and his protection of his people. And he says that if God did all that, then (v. 9):
…then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment, 10 and especially those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority.
Bold and willful, they do not tremble as they blaspheme the glorious ones, 11 whereas angels, though greater in might and power, do not pronounce a blasphemous judgment against them before the Lord. 12 But these, like irrational animals, creatures of instinct, born to be caught and destroyed, blaspheming about matters of which they are ignorant, will also be destroyed in their destruction, 13 suffering wrong as the wage for their wrongdoing. They count it pleasure to revel in the daytime. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their deceptions, while they feast with you. 14 They have eyes full of adultery, insatiable for sin. They entice unsteady souls. They have hearts trained in greed. Accursed children! 15 Forsaking the right way, they have gone astray. They have followed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved gain from wrongdoing, 16 but was rebuked for his own transgression; a speechless donkey spoke with human voice and restrained the prophet’s madness.
What we see in these verses is essentially the dynamics of power in a false teaching environment.
The first thing we see is just the sheer audacity of these false teachers. He says that they do not tremble as they blaspheme the glorious ones. There has been a good deal of speculation about who these “glorious ones” are, and most commentators agree that Peter is speaking of angels. Angels are powerful spirits whom God created, who serve him in various ways. Peter probably has a specific false teaching of his time in mind when he says this (it’s unclear exactly which one), so let’s look at it this way: false teachers aren’t afraid to speak of God’s plan on this earth as evil when it is good—or rather, to describe God’s plan in ways he never intended, in order to make people think that God is doing something that he isn’t. That includes blaspheming his decisions, and the means he uses to execute those decisions (including the activity of angels).
The thing is that angels themselves don’t dare do what these false teachers are doing. And that goes to show just how far gone these false teachers are.
Peter goes a long way to making us see them the way God does. He calls them irrational animals, creatures of instinct. This should remind us of what he said in v. 2, when he said they follow their sensuality. That is, they speak without thinking. They’re not acting as the result of genuine reflection and consideration of the truth; it’s not as if they’re simply mistaken in what they’re saying. They’re paying no regard to the truth at all—they’re acting from their gut, not from their head or heart. They are led astray by their own appetites.
This is why they can so rashly speak blasphemous things about God and his servants and his plan: they’re not thinking about what is true, they’re thinking about what they want. And the truth of God often runs counter to what we naturally want.
Peter says (v. 13), They count it pleasure to revel in the daytime. The things most people will only do at night, because they don’t want to be seen doing it, the things most people will only indulge in from time to time, these men do these things as a way of life: for them, there is no inappropriate time for their debauchery.
But no one sees it, no one calls them on it, because the public persona they put forward is one of decency. They speak so well and they have trained themselves to put on a good show…so no one bats an eye when they feast with you (v. 13—probably a reference to the Lord’s Supper). These men are in church on Sunday. They have their Bibles open on their laps. They may even be leading a home group—they are gaining in influence, and thus have ample opportunity to deceive others…while they seek to satisfy an insatiable appetite for sin (v. 14).
And because they are so persuasive, because they seem to be so knowledgeable…they entice unsteady souls (v. 14). They are able to persuade those Christians who look at them, who see a model to follow, and who don’t know enough to discern how twisted they actually are.
Now at this point, Peter gives an illustration that will be familiar to some of you, but not to everyone. In v. 15, he talks about Balaam, the son of Beor. Balaam was a pagan prophet. He was a genuine prophet—that is, God did transmit messages through him—but as Peter says, he loved gain from wrongdoing. In Numbers 22, we see the pagan king of Moab, who is threatened by the Israelites, ask Balaam to come and pronounce a curse on the armies of Israel. Balaam refuses because God hasn’t allowed him to speak against them. But the king of Moab offers to pay Balaam a massive amount of money if he will come and do it anyway—and so, because Balaam was greedy, he accepted.
He gets on his donkey and begins riding toward the camp of the Israelites. But an angel of the Lord appears in the road before them—Balaam can’t see the angel, but the donkey can, and so the donkey turns away. Finally the donkey ends up pinning Balaam’s foot against the wall on the side of the road, and Balaam keeps hitting the donkey with his staff, to get it to keep moving.
Then—and this is kind of nuts—God makes the donkey speak to Balaam. The donkey says to Balaam (Numbers 22.28), “What have I done to you, that you have struck me these three times?” So naturally (this is hilarious), Balaam answers the donkey and says (v. 29): “Because you have made a fool of me. I wish I had a sword in my hand, for then I would kill you.” To which the donkey replies (v. 30): “Am I not your donkey, on which you have ridden all your life long to this day? Is it my habit to treat you this way?” And he said, “No.”
So finally, the Lord opens Balaam’s eyes so he can see the angel standing there in the road, with his sword drawn. And Balaam realizes that the donkey was actually protecting him, keeping him from being struck down by the angel for trying to curse the Israelites.
Peter’s point isn’t to talk about the supernatural act of making a donkey speak (as much as I would love to keep talking about that). He mentions Balaam to point out that the motivation of these false teachers is the same as Balaam’s—they are driven by their desire for gain, and they are willing to do anything to get what they want, even if it means blaspheming God himself.
So I hope you can see the shift that’s happening, between what we saw last week and what Peter’s saying now. (And if you’ve been drifting, come back, because this is really important.) Last week Peter talked about the content of these false teachers’ teaching, and the judgment awaiting them if they persist.He talked about what they say, and how they say it. This week, he moves on to their hearts—to their motivations. And he’s telling us something that far too many people—far too many ministers—overlook.
He’s saying that what makes these false teachers so dangerous is not just the words that they say. Their desire for gain doesn’t just motivate their words. It infects their life. It drives their behavior, their choices, their attitudes, the way they see and think about the people they’re teaching.
To put it simply, when we’re considering this question of false teachers, it’s not enough to just examine what a teacher says; that’s just the tip of the iceberg. We must also examine how they live—because you can teach in others ways besides just your words. Even if their message isn’t misleading—even if what they say isn’t wrong—that doesn’t mean we should follow them.
It may seem like a stretch to say that, but the text gives us reasons to think Peter’s not only talking about the message of these people.
First of all, think back to last week, when we saw Peter give several examples from the Old Testament (in v. 4-8) of how God would judge these false teachers. He could easily have given examples of false prophets from the OT (from Ezekiel 13 and Lamentations 2, for example), but he didn’t. The examples he gave were without exception examples of sinful behavior, not of false teaching. So it seems he’s wanting to go deeper than just talking about their words.
Secondly, from v. 12 on, he speaks almost exclusively of what these people do, not about the content of their message.
Thirdly—and this is less from the text than from what we see over the history of theology—those who live like this, the way Peter describes here—will almost inevitably twist the truth in some way or another: either by spreading falsehoods, or by taking the truth and framing it in such a way that it builds them up, for their glory, for their gain. It almost never remains hidden.
As we read what Peter says here, his description may seem so extreme that we find it hard to imagine how anyone like this could continue to practice ministry. So let me give you an example. (And I hesitated to even bring up this example, but a lot of people have been asking me questions about this, and it fits right in with what I believe Peter is saying here.)
Think about what came out about Ravi Zacharias a couple weeks ago. Ravi Zacharias was a well-known evangelical minister in the U.S. (he died last year). His specialty was apologetics—defending the Christian faith through reasonable arguments. And he was brilliant. Biblically sound, intellectually rigid. He did a lot of good for a lot of people, myself included.
After his death (or maybe a little before, I can’t remember when it started), several women who worked for him came forward and accused him of sexual abuse, one of them even accusing him of rape. Since he was dead, he couldn’t face a police investigation, but his ministry decided to hire an independent firm to perform an investigation into the allegations, to be able to give an answer to the public and to the accusers. A couple weeks ago the results of the investigation were released; this investigation concluded that the accusations against him were true.
Now, when we think about this, we need to remember that we are all guilty of sin, and we cannot know what happened to Ravi Zacharias when he stood before God after his death; we have no idea what was the state of his own faith.
But how many people’s faith has been utterly shaken because they trusted this man and were helped by him, then found out what he did, and now wonder if all that help was illusory, wonder if they can trust anything he said?
It’s tricky, because nearly everything this man actually taught about the Christian faith was true. So we can’t say that he was a “false teacher” in the sense of bringing in destructive heresies through his teaching.
But in today’s text (and this is why it is so important to talk about this), Peter is pushing us to go further than that simple and limited standard—to go deeper than simply considering the words which come out of our mouths.
The fact is when Ravi Zacharias used his position of spiritual privilege and influence to abuse women, he proclaimed things with his life which denied the gospel he taught.
This is why Paul gives us such strict criteria for being an elder in a church—an elder’s life should be “above reproach,” he says in 1 Timothy 3.2. Not perfect (no one is perfect but Christ), but someone whose faithfulness to the Word of God and desire to obey God is clearly evidenced in his life.
This is also why the Bible says that not only elders or pastors, but all those who teach the Bible, are to be held to a higher standard. James says in James 3.1:
Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers [not pastors, not elders—TEACHERS], for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.
No matter how good our doctrine is, when we suggest things with our lives that deny the doctrine we teach, we undermine that doctrine. Our lives can preach false gospels even if our words do not.
And that’s what I think Peter is getting at here. Look at these verses—Peter lays it on really thick, speaking of why these men’s hearts are twisted and corrupt…and from v. 12 on, he almost never mentions their words, but rather speaks about their lives.
It is not enough to be a good teacher. It is not enough to preach the Bible faithfully. If a teacher’s life runs counter to the words he proclaims, then the people who listen to him should be wary of him. And not mainly because they run the risk of being misled by his words. A charismatic Bible teacher can attract a strong following, with people who feel loyal to him because they trust him.
So best case scenario, when his sin is found out (and it almost always is, even after his death), you have shattered believers whose faith is shaken because of the sin of this person they admired. Or, even worse: he could defend his sin, and convince those who trust him that there are sometimes good reasons for sinning against God—that ultimately sin is not that big a deal.
No matter how good a teacher’s doctrine is, when he suggests things with his life that deny the doctrine he teaches, he undermines that doctrine. Our lives can preach false gospels even if our words do not.
The False Teachers’ Hearts (v. 17-22)
The gravity of the state of affairs Peter described before cannot be overstated. He says (v. 17):
17 These are waterless springs and mists driven by a storm. For them the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved.
In other words, they promise things with their words and with their lives which they are unable to deliver.
Nothing is worse for a people suffering a drought to find a spring on their land run dry. Nothing is worse for a country suffering a drought to see rainclouds on the horizon, only to have those clouds pushed elsewhere by the wind. These teachers produce more harm for their people than if they had never said a word. So for these people, their judgment is assured—and next, Peter explains why this whole situation is so tragic.
V. 18:
18 For, speaking loud boasts of folly, they entice by sensual passions of the flesh those who are barely escaping from those who live in error. 19 They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption. For whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved. 20 For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. 21 For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them. 22 What the true proverb says has happened to them: “The dog returns to its own vomit, and the sow, after washing herself, returns to wallow in the mire.”
Now let me just say something right off the bat. V. 20-21 have been frightening for a lot of Christians, because Peter seems to say that it is possible to be true, genuine believers of Christ and yet to be so led astray by our own sin that we effectively lose our salvation. We know from the rest of the Bible that this is not the case.
We saw this in chapter 1— God has given us everything we need to live for him by giving us knowledge of himself. Not just a knowledge of doctrine, of information, not a knowledge about God…but a knowledge of himself. TO KNOW HIM is what we need if we are to live for him.
Jesus Christ lived, died and was raised to pay the penalty for our sins—once and for all. If we are in him, if we have faith in Christ, then our sins were nailed to the cross with Christ; he was punished for them. There is no longer any condemnation waiting for us.
We have multiple assurances (in John 6, John 8, John 10, in Romans 8, in Philippians 1, in Ephesians 1, in 1 Peter 1, and many more) that if God has given us faith in his Son he will preserve us—he will cause us to persevere in our faith until the end.
So in v. 20-21 Peter’s doing what he did in v. 1 of chapter 2—he’s using redemption language to mark a contrast between what these people say and what’s actually going on in their lives. What has legitimately happened to us, is falsely claimed by them.
But it goes a little further than that. He says that these people who promise freedom through their teaching, are in fact slaves to their sin. And it is not just their words, but their sin which they use to entice others to follow them—they entice them, Peter says in v. 18, by sensual passions of the flesh.
(A real simple example of what this might look like: a teacher who teaches well, and thus gains a certain legitimacy in the minds of his hearers. Then he seduces an immature believer to engage with him in sinful acts, and he manages it, because this immature believer trusts him, and imagines that if he says it’s okay—if he says there are good reasons for doing what he’s doing—then he must know better than I do.)
These men are slaves to sin, although they claim to be free; they are slaves to corruption, although they claim purity. And in v. 19, Peter gives us the lynch-pin of this passage—the way to know and discern the validity (or not) of a person’s faith. (If you underline any verse in this passage, it should be v. 19).
For whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved.
This is why it is so vital to not just look at what these false teachers say, but at their lives as well. They may seem to preach good doctrine; if their lives are marked and defined by being regularly and consistently overcome by sin, then they are slaves to that sin—and men and women who have been set free from sin by the work of Christ have no reason to follow someone who is still living as a slave to sin.
Now at this point, it may be easy to wonder what the point of all this is. Peter’s helping us to identify false teachers—okay. But why do we need to know what motivates them, as long as we can identify them and stay away from them? Why does he need to go into all this detail about the hearts of false teachers, if we can’t see their hearts?
There are at least two really big reasons why everything he says here is useful to us. Firstly (and this may sound weird if you’ve never been in this situation, but I promise you, it happens), what he says here helps us turn our backs on these teachers without feeling guilty about it. Charismatic teachers can garner a loyal and fervent following; so when something like this comes out about them, many followers will feel like they have to keep supporting them, out of a misplaced sense of loyalty.
So when Peter goes into all this horrific detail about the state of their hearts, what is the message he’s trying to send? Stay away from these people. They are dangerous. They are warped and corrupt—or as he says (v. 13), They are blots and blemishes. When Peter shows us the foul state of these men’s hearts, he helps us see that we don’t need to feel bad about deciding to have nothing more to do with them. Unless they repent, of course, and commit to follow Christ once again—at which point, we’ll rejoice, and welcome them back into the fold and help them grow to know and love Christ. We probably won’t want them to go into full-time ministry again, but we will rejoice at the work God has done in their lives.
Until then, if there’s a teacher you’ve followed who has been exposed for using his teaching or his position of influence to abuse others, you don’t have to feel bad about cutting ties with that person—Peter is clear that this person is dangerous, and should be avoided.
NOTE: Before labeling someone a teacher to avoid, we have two ways of doing it. One, we saw last week—and it’s by far the easiest and most clear. Look at their words. Look at their teaching. If it is contrary to the fundamental doctrines of the faith, we should avoid them, and encourage others to do so also.
The second is their lives—this one is tougher. This kind of thing shouldn’t be based on a rumor, or on a suspicion. We have to be careful not to let “cancel culture” determine the way we live in the church. So if their doctrine is sound, then before labeling them as a teacher to avoid, we need to make sure these acts that are problematic are actually true—either through proof or confession. (Like in the case of Ravi Zacharias, in which an investigation was concluded, and assessed that these things are true.)
That’s the first reason why what Peter says here is useful. The second reason is simpler. He’s not telling us all this to help us identify these teachers—because we can’t see what’s going on in another person’s heart. But even if we can’t see their hearts, we can see our own. The trap into which the false teachers fall into is a trap for us as well. And because most of us are not teachers, we’re not necessarily on our guard—we won’t easily think we can fall into the same trap.
But the sinful appetites at work in the false teacher can well sink their roots in all of us, if we give them room.
How easy would it be for us to fall into the same patterns of behavior we see here? Think of it for a moment: is there any sin in your life which overcomes you? Any sin which you feel unable to resist? That thing which, given the right set of circumstances—the right “triggers”—you find yourself falling into over and over again?
Whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved.
There is a reason why Peter moves from the specific (speaking about these specific teachers) in this whole passage, to the general in v. 19. He wants us to remember that this holds true, not just for false teachers, but for anyone. Whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved.
We sometimes speak of the doctrine of total depravity. Total depravity simply states that on our own, we are all—without exception—completely inclined toward sin, in every part of ourselves. There is not a single corner of our hearts or souls that is not bent towards sin. This is what the apostle Paul meant when he said that before Christ, we were dead in our trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2.1). Total depravity doesn’t mean that we’re all as bad as we could be, but that every part of us is touched by sin, and not a single part of us has a natural inclination towards God and his glory.
The defining characteristic of a sinner is that he can’t stop himself from sinning. He loves sin too much. He doesn’t pursue the glory of God, because he doesn’t love the glory of God. Sinners love the idea of freedom—the idea that they are the masters of their own hearts, they are the commanders of their souls. And yet they can’t stop themselves from following their own sinful desires—they can’t bring themselves to live for the glory of God, because they don’t want to.
So left to ourselves—if God does nothing for us—we’re not free at all. We are slaves to our desires. Whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved.
So this is a solemn warning for those of us who are Christians, who have been set free from sin by the grace of Christ, who are no longer slaves to sin but who now freely follow Christ: don’t fall back into those habits which defined your slavery before. Or as Peter (and Solomon before him) so graphically put it, Don’t go back to your vomit once it’s out. Don’t go back to the mire once you’ve been cleaned.
Be aware of those sins which you have a hard time letting go of, and fight those sins with everything you have. Sin is no longer your master—so if sin is no longer your master, do not let it overcome you. Do not fall into the same trap as these false teachers, who promise people freedom and claim freedom for themselves, but who in fact as in chains to their own corruption.
Conclusion
Now, this can seem awfully dire, I know. Peter has exposed for us the lives of these false teachers, reminding us to not just look at their words, but at their lives, as a way of identifying them. And he has exposed their hearts to us as well, presenting us with a solemn warning that we must not let ourselves fall into the same trap.
It can be frightening to read these things, because we can look at our lives and think, Good grief, I can’t even stop myself from eating an entire bag of Doritos when they’re open in front of me. How on earth am I going to not let myself be overcome by something even more tempting?
So we need to remember at this point that we’re not reading a book, really, but a letter. The chapter numbers didn’t come from Peter; they were added on later to help us navigate these things more easily. Peter meant for this letter to be read in one sitting. You don’t read a third of the letter, then put it down for a week, then come back to it, and so on. What he says here is dire, absolutely—but he gets to the hope that we have just after.
So to not leave you with only the bad news, I’d like to read two verses with you, which we’ll see next week. This is what Peter says immediately after chapter 2. Chapter 3, verse 1:
This is now the second letter that I am writing to you, beloved. In both of them I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder…
So again, Peter is telling us these things not to frighten us, but to stir us up to live for Christ. He’s writing to give us hope that as serious as the situation is, we actually CAN live for Jesus. As we saw on our very first week in this letter, we have everything we need. We have a glorious hope before us (which we’ll see next time). And on the basis of that hope (v. 14):
Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace.
We can do it, because we know our God, and in him we have everything we need.
