Daily Scripture Reading 2Peter 2:1-22

Most evangelical churches today use music, sound, light, video, so-called sermons, and other visuals in their so-called worship services to create an experience that is appealing to people. These so-called experiences are designed to give church attenders an emotional boost.

We are going to see in today’s passage that gratification of the senses is portrayed as a negative thing in the Bible. In fact, gratification of the senses is a tool used by false teachers.

Peter wrote in chapter one that he and his fellow apostles were eyewitnesses of Jesus. They did not make up their statements about Jesus, they wrote about what they saw and heard with their own eyes and ears. He ended chapter one by stating that all Scripture was generated by the Holy Spirit.

2Pet. 2:1 ¶ But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will also be false teachers among you, who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves.

The term “people” refers to the Old Testament Israelites. Just as there were false prophets in the Old Testament time period, so too there are false teachers in the church age.

Look at the word “secretly”. False teachers are secretive about their efforts to introduce heresy into the church.

Many Christians like to be optimistic and give church leaders the benefit of the doubt. They are very slow to suspect and accuse a church leader or Bible teacher of being a false teacher. If a teacher of leader says things that sound good, many church members assume the teacher or leader is sound.

However, if false teachers are secretive, that means false teachers will say things that sound good, and it will not be apparent who is actually a false teacher. Therefore, in order to avoid falling prey to false teachers, we need to be intentionally discerning about every person who claims to teach the Word of God.

2Pet. 2:2 And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of the truth will be maligned.

Ponder the word “sensuality”. It is clear that sensuality is wrong. The Greek word that is used there is the word “aselgeia”. That word appears 10 times in the New Testament, but the verses that use that word do not help us understand the definition of aselgeia. Based on how that word is used in non-biblical greek writings, the translators of the Legacy Standard Bible believe “sensuality” captures the meaning of the word “aselgeia”.

Merriam-Webster defines sensuality as “relating to or consisting in the gratification of the senses or the indulgence of appetite”.

Many church services today are designed to use light, sound, and other visuals to gratify the senses. In other words, many modern churches pursue sensuality. However, it is clear in this verse that sensuality is wrong, and it is a tactic of false teachers. Therefore, all Christians need to ponder if many churches today are actually led by false teachers.

2Pet. 2:3 And in their greed they will exploit you with false words, their judgment from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.

2Pet. 2:4 ¶ For if God did not spare angels who sinned, but cast them into the pit and delivered them to chains of darkness, being kept for judgment;

2Pet. 2:5 and did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, with seven others, when He brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly;

2Pet. 2:6 and if He condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction by reducing them to ashes, having made them an example to those who would live ungodly lives thereafter;

2Pet. 2:7 and if He rescued righteous Lot, oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men

The word “sensual” is a translation of the Greek word “aselgeia”, the same word that was translated “sensuality” in verse 2. In this verse sensual conduct is assumed to be a bad thing. Again, Merriam-Webster defines sensuality as “relating to or consisting in the gratification of the senses or the indulgence of appetite”. Most modern church services are designed to gratify the senses, which means most modern church services are bad.

2Pet. 2:8 (for by what he saw and heard that righteous man, while living among them, felt his righteous soul tormented day after day by their lawless deeds),

2Pet. 2:9 then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trial, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment,

Look at the word “then”. Verses 4-10 is a long if…then statement.

If God cast out sinning angels, destroyed the world with a flood, and condemned Sodom and Gomorrah, then God can also punish the unrighteous people who live in our world today.

If God preserved Noah and Lot from sin, then He can also preserve righteous people today from the sensuality of our culture and churches.

2Pet. 2:10 and especially those who go after the flesh in its corrupt lust and despise authority. ¶ Daring, self-willed, they do not tremble when they blaspheme glorious ones,

2Pet. 2:11 whereas angels who are greater in strength and power do not bring a reviling judgment against them before the Lord.

2Pet. 2:12 But these, like unreasoning animals, born as creatures of instinct to be captured and killed, blaspheming where they have no knowledge, will in the destruction of those creatures also be destroyed,

2Pet. 2:13 suffering unrighteousness as the wages of their unrighteousness, considering it a pleasure to revel in the daytime—they are stains and blemishes, reveling in their deceptions, as they feast with you,

2Pet. 2:14 having eyes full of adultery and unceasing sin, enticing unstable souls, having a heart trained in greed—they are accursed children.

2Pet. 2:15 Forsaking the right way, they have gone astray, having followed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness,

2Pet. 2:16 but he received a rebuke for his own lawlessness, for a mute donkey, speaking out with a voice of a man, restrained the madness of the prophet.

2Pet. 2:17 ¶ These are springs without water and mists driven by a storm, for whom the black darkness has been kept.

2Pet. 2:18 For speaking out arrogant words of vanity, they entice by sensual lusts of the flesh, those who barely escape from the ones who conducted themselves in error,

In verse 18 we see the word “sensual” again. This is the third time the Greek word “aselgeia” appears in this chapter. The pronoun “they” refers to false teachers. False teachers use the gratification of the senses to entice people to their false teachings.

2Pet. 2:19 promising them freedom while they themselves are slaves of corruption; for by what a man is overcome, by this he is enslaved.

2Pet. 2:20 For if they are overcome, having both escaped the defilements of the world by the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and having again been entangled in them, then the last state has become worse for them than the first.

False teachers in the church escaped the defilement of the world, but then they returned to it. That is worse than having never escaped the world.

2Pet. 2:21 For it would be better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn away from the holy commandment handed on to them.

2Pet. 2:22 The message of the true proverb has happened to them, “A DOG RETURNS TO ITS OWN VOMIT,” and, “A sow, after washing, returns to wallowing in the mire.”

Most evangelical churches today use music, sound, light, video, so-called sermons, and other visuals in their so-called worship services to create an experience that is appealing to people. These so-called experiences are designed to give church attenders an emotional boost. However, gratification of the senses is portrayed as a negative thing in the Bible. In fact, gratification of the senses is a tool used by false teachers.

Does your church engage in sensuality?

If so, have you considered the possibility that your church is being led by false teachers?

How might the sensuality of your church deceive you into missing evidence of false teaching?

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“Scripture quotations taken from the (LSB®) Legacy Standard Bible®, Copyright © 2021 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Managed in partnership with Three Sixteen Publishing Inc. LSBible.org and 316publishing.com.”