Subscribe Daily Bible Study Mailing List Receive Daily Bible Studies directly into your email inbox.
Custom Search
You must be in fellowship prior to your Bible study, so that the spiritual information you receive can become a source, of blessing to your soul and produce spiritual growth.
2 Peter 2:3
3 And [kai] through [en] covetousness [pleonexia]
shall they with feigned [plastos] words [logos] make merchandise [emporeuomai] of you [humas]: whose [hos] judgment [krima] now of a
long time [ekpalai] lingereth [argeo] not [ou], and [kai] their [autos] damnation [apoleia] slumbereth [nustazo] not [ou]. KJV-Interlinear
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.NASB
Whenever you stand up
for truth in any way, there will be a line of folks ready and willing to
confront you.
Without any background preparation,
without any basis for their confrontation, without any reasonable purpose,
there are those who will challenge the believer in order to intimidate them
into backing down from their beliefs, or to cause embarrassment against them in
the public eye.
The phrases, feigned
words, or exploit with false words, really says it all.
Feigned means
pretended, insincere, craftily contrived and so forth.And even though their words of challenge are
in fact false, in their own minds they seem very reasonable.
The Bible is a large
volume of many books.It contains
thousands of verses, principles, concepts, and so forth.It would be impossible and unreasonable to
cite every passage every time when you are discussing any given subject.The only way anyone can know what you are
speaking about, is if they have the same access to the same background text,
that you have.
Then, with both parties
speaking from the same page, as it were, your conversation can have merit and
meaning.
However, lets look to
Jesus and the Pharisees.They had a
confrontation.Jesus stated very plainly
that He was the Son of God.He proved it
with many miracles, which no human being could duplicate.
The Pharisees had the
same scriptures that spoke of Him, but they had one more thing that prevented
their understanding.They had arrogance.
They had their own
beliefs as to what they expected from God, and from the expected Messiah.So they chose to reject truth, and they
advanced their own beliefs to their own detriment.
You do not have to be a
celebrity or someone in high office to be anti-God.In fact most of the world is anti-God and most
of those folks have only their own personal views of life which guide them.
They choose to see what
they want to see, and they argue the heck out of anyone they do not agree
with.They will go so far as to
mis-state or distort the words of the one they are disagreeing with.
Peter calls their bias
here, greed, and that is really all that it is.Anyone who rejects truth, has a greed for their own views, which is
nothing more than a bias for their own beliefs.That means simply that they will refuse to be objective, will refuse to
listen, and therefore will be very nearly unteachable.
In general, leaders
have an agenda for their rejection of truth.They want power, money, fame and such things.But the common person gains none of these
things when they argue with truth.They
have only their ego, which is supported by their arrogance of refusal to listen
and be taught.
We live in a day of
political correctness. People get insulted easily, especially when you say something
that they believe in.Take politics for
example, if person A likes a candidate, and person B says something negative
about that candidate, then person A gets mad at B.You can apply this to any topic sports,
movies, music, food, hobbies, anything you can think of.
But in the grand scheme
of things are any of these things really important?No.Not
one of them advances you in your spiritual life.Agree or disagree about things in life, but do
not allow that to interfere with your spiritual growth. Your eternal future is
far more important than any, repeat, than any earthly subject that you can
think of.
Peter reminds you here
and now, that your judgment, your evaluation, your destiny, was established
long ago.Long ago means in eternity
past when God laid out His divine decrees.
No matter what
candidate you like or dislike, no matter what color you like or dislike, no
matter what you like or dislike in this world, your worldly preferences are
irrelevant.
You have but one
objective and that is to advance in your spiritual life.
You were born at least
once, and hopefully born again into Christ.You will also leave this world someday.At that time you will face Jesus and your final evaluation.This you cannot avoid.
Life is not going to
rubber stamp your beliefs so you can have everything your way, but if anything,
will insult your beliefs, which is better for you, so you can get off your ego
and onto a mode of humility so you can advance in your spiritual life.
Anything anti-God has
an agenda of greed and selfishness designed to derail your life.Don t subscribe to it.
Your future evaluation
or judgment, whichever applies to you, is already on the calendar Gods calendar.
He brought you into
this world and He will remove you at His convenience.
The only real question
is, will you use your time for growing up in your spiritual life, or will you
use your time for acting like a baby when your feelings get hurt.Only you can make that choice.And if you make the wrong choices in life,
you have only yourself to blame.
The Bible says that the
word of God is alive and powerful, sharper than any two edged sword.That sword is designed to cut out your
whining and surgically install spiritual toughness.
Now is the time to post a prayer.
End Of Lesson
Study to show thyself approved (mature) unto God, a workman that needs not to be ashamed, rightly dividing (studying/discerning), the Word of truth.
If you enjoy these Bible Studies, please consider making a Donation
Subscribe Daily Bible Study Mailing List Receive Daily Bible Studies directly into your inbox.