Morning Musings-Slanderous Slander

   Morning Musings with the boys at breakfast...




Slander.  Slander.  Slander.  Peter is talking about slander again!  He sees slander as a very serious matter.  He's mentioned it in 1 Peter 2:1-2, telling one and all to "be rid" of it.  I've dealt with this in The Dangerous Duo blog entry.  Peter comes at it again in 1 Peter 2:13-17,  teaching his readers to show proper respect and that this type of ignorant talk be silenced.  In 1 Peter 3:15-16 he says the people who engage in slander should be ashamed of it.  So you can see this issue was very much a problem a way back then as it is today.

Here in 2 Peter 2:11-22, the subject pops up again and he does not have good things to say about the type of people who engage in slander; who make "slanderous accusations".  He says that even angels, or rather "celestial beings" don't even dare to slander other celestial beings in the presence of the Lord, yet these human beings have no problem whatsoever rolling it off their tongues wherever they are.  These people "follow corrupt ways and lustful desires of human nature" (vs18). 

The description Peter gives us of those who bring "slanderous accusation" is rather ugly.  It includes:  they "carouse in broad daylight"; they are "blots, blemishes (not on them but they themselves are the blemishes); they are "full of adultery";  they "never stop sinning"; they "seduce unstable people"; they are "experts in greed"; they "love wages for wickedness"; are "springs without water"; "their mouths are empty and have boastful words"; they "entice people who live in error" and are "slaves to depravity".  

This is an abominable list.  But, do we ourselves engage in slander?  We cannot point our fingers at others in this matter.  We must examine ourselves.  If we do find ourselves slandering others, we'd best get right with God over it.  Be ashamed of it and repent.  Confess to God and He will forgive and cleanse us of it when we are sincerely sorry and repentant (1 John 1:9).  

Verse 19 says, "A man is a slave to whatever has mastered him."  If we feel we have been mastered by slander, there is a way out; that is the repentance and confession to God mentioned above.  We may even need to ask forgiveness of those we have slandered.  Maybe the person (s) will or will not forgive you but you have at least done your part in seeking their forgiveness.  "A brother wronged is harder to win back than a fortified city." (Proverbs 18:19).  

You may have a life-long habit of slandering and criticizing others and so may need  others to help you be accountable to break the habit.  The seeking forgiveness for your actions could be a start.  Seek God's help too.  By God's grace you can.  If you don't break the habit, you may well go back into it and it'll be worse than ever.  "Don't be entangled and overcome" (vs20) or you will be "worse off at the end than at the beginning".

This is true of any and all the above mentioned vices, not just the slander.  Addiction of any kind:  substance abuse; slander; sexual immorality; negative thinking; bitterness and others.  Ask for God's help and the Holy Spirit's to overcome them and to live victoriously in Christ.  Be mastered only by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Let Him alone be your God.

Who were the people doing these awful things?  Peter mentions that they were the false teachers that had secretly come among the people of God.  They were masquerading as teachers of God's Word but they were false!  How horrendous is this!? We are responsible for obeying what we know of God's Word.  

Otherwise, the people following the awful practices, teaching them and alluring others into them, who are the false teachers, may well be just that!  Peter gives the examples of the dog returning to its vomit and the sow to its mud puddle.  People may learn much about God's Word and His righteous ways but turn away from them.  They know it in their heads but have not truly accepted it in their hearts for themselves.  They are not true followers of Jesus Christ.  

In the Old Testament the Israelite people were taught that the dog and the sow (pigs) were unclean animals.  The use of these two particular animals' names here cannot be brushed aside as picking the names out of a hat.  They are not random choice.  The impact is that the false teachers are not children of God; they are unclean.  Thus, after having learned much about God and His ways, they did not accept it for themselves, they were only in it for the money and/or the power or for some other nefarious reason such as being used by Satan to cause division and to turn many away from the Lord. 

Let us all examine ourselves and pray for God's intervention in our lives, that we will be sincere teachers of the truth and abhor any teeny tiny iota of slander.  May God so help us all by His unlimited grace working freely in our lives.

                                                         ~ERC  2016~

Morning Musings-Beware of False Teachers

   Morning Musings with the boys at breakfast...




As was established in Eyewitness, Peter argues that because he and others were eyewitnesses of Jesus's life on earth, along with the prophets' prophecies from the Old Testament which were fulfilled with the coming of Jesus, and with God validating His Son Jesus, that the recipients of this second epistle from Peter must accept what Peter has to say as the truth.  They must also remember it and acknowledge it and experience it and teach this truth.  The truth of who Jesus is and how to live with Him in their life.  Jesus once said, "know the truth and the truth will set you free" (John 8:32).

When we know the truth thoroughly we will also be able to detect falsehood.  Peter is now giving warning here in 2 Peter 2:1-10 about the false prophets and teachers who introduce destructive heresy.  False teachers most often work subtly; secretly bringing people around to their way of thinking and/or living and agenda.  Many do so out of their own interests to gain money and/or power for themselves.  What Peter fears more is the division and turning away from the truth itself.

We can see some of the false ways that were described as being "destructive":  greed (vs 3); slander (vs 11) and adultery (vs 14).  These are turning away from that righteous life in Christ.  Perhaps some were saying, never mind, "everybody" does it; thus living according to society's standard.  This has crept in and made inroads into congregations of God's people to the point that they often don't know what is God's standard and what is the world or Satan's standard.  The line between black and white is gray and the gray is getting darker in color.    And these happen gradually to the point of not realizing when we have deviated due to not being alert with the armor of God and prayer and sticking to the truth; and  if we have not been steadfast in living according to God's righteousness.  Sticking to the truth and sticking up for the truth will be our protection.  As people begin to reject truth they will most certainly believe a lie.

The greed may have overtaken a person when they were "collecting for mission work".  The amount of money became too tempting and there were no checks and balances and so some of that mission money lined the accountant's pockets.  After all, he used a lot of his time to collect and tally and keep the books straight.  Shouldn't he get some remuneration?   "Don't muzzle the ox that treads out the corn" (Deuteronomy 25:4; 1 Corinthians 9:9), he may philosophize. And so the small amounts become bigger "small amounts"....

Or 'slander,' that is a 'biggy' in God's books.  Unforgiveness, bitterness, anger often activates slander and sides get taken slowly but surely as the canker festers.  Division occurs.  This is very destructive to the person and the "unity" we Christians were entrusted with.  We are suppose to "make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace" (Ephesians 4:3).  Where is grace?  Why is it not being exercised?  God's grace is abundant so why aren't we, His children, dipping into it and forgiving and speaking words in love and kindness instead?   We have forgotten God's truth.

Adultery!  How awful and devastating for a spouse to have to deal with this.  Yet in society it is rampant and even expected.  It will happen eventually, they say.  But where is God's integrity in our lives?  I always like to think of Job who made a vow with his eyes not to look at a girl lustfully (Job 31:1).  Job was a righteous man who kept to his vow.  What about the rest of us?  Sons, remember this.  This is important.  Guard against it.  Submit to God.  Submit to God!  Resist the devil.  Satan is the one who wants to break up families especially Christian ones.  This in turn affects those in the church.  Do not say "everyone does it".  No, not everyone.  The one who is submitted to God, will not.  

"The fruit of the Spirit is...self-control" (Galatians 5:23).  Exercise the fruit of the Spirit.  Do not forget Him and His truth and walking with God in righteous Christian living.  Be holy as God is holy.  When we follow God's truth in its many facets, we will be pleasing to Him and not bring destructiveness to our families nor to the family of God.  This is what Peter is so adamantly warning against.

Peter gives the examples of Noah and of Lot.  Noah lived in a promiscuous world and God regretted making man but He found Noah to be righteous (Genesis 6-9).  Noah lived for truth and God.  God gave him a 'ministry' and that was the means of saving many people, if the people so chose.  We know that no one chose.  Only eight people were on board Noah's ark and those due to Noah's righteousness.  

Lot lived barely above the gray area yet God still found him righteous (Genesis 13, 14, 18, 19 ).  Lot got out of Sodom and Gomorrah by "the skin of his teeth" so to speak.  His righteousness saved his wife and two daughters.  Of course we know that his wife still longed for the unrighteous city and turned into a pillar of salt when she disobeyed orders and turned to look back at the city.  

Lot should have been the spiritual leader of his family but lost his wife and we know that his two daughters committed incest with him.  There must have been a slow erosion in Lot.  As he had selfishly chosen that lush area for his 'inheritance' and then ended up in Sodom and Gomorrah, his daughters engaged to the unrighteous men of the place and his wife to the 'comforts' and likely friends.    

This reminds me of the Arabic story of the camel and the Bedouin.   The Bedouin beds down for the night in his tent in the desert.  The camel is tied up outside.  The camel sticks his nose in through the tent door and begs to come inside because he said it was cold outside and he wanted to keep his nose warm.  The Bedouin finally said okay.  Next thing he knew, the camel had half of his body inside the tent.  When the Bedouin complained, the camel said it was cold out, couldn't he have some pity and  just let him slip in a bit?  Finally the Bedouin acquiesced.   The next time the Bedouin woke up, he was outside the tent shivering while the camel was comfy, making himself at home all the way inside the tent.  

We need to be wise and alert to the "destructive heresy" that can come among God's people.  Normally we think of heresy as being some contrary doctrine.  But what Peter seems to be saying, alludes to greed, slander and adultery as mentioned above.  We do well to guard ourselves, our families and our church family from these.  How?

 Knowing what IS the truth.  Knowing and remembering the truth.  Obeying the truth. Establishing yourself in the truth.   Teaching the truth to your own and the next generation of God's people.  

 Beware of false teachers.  Know the truth and stick to it.

                                                             ~ERC  2016~

Morning Musings-Eyewitness

   Morning Musings with the boys at breakfast...




Peter is telling his readers that they need to have God's truth "firmly established" within their minds and memories and they need to remember it and to pass it on to the next generation.  As they do so God's truth will be even more a part of their Jesus-life DNA.  

The emphasis is on the word "truth" here.  Peter is saying in 2 Peter 1:16-21 that this "truth" is not some "cleverly" made-up story.  He and the other apostles were "eyewitnesses".  They had seen, heard, touched Jesus with their own eyes, ears and hands.  They'd experienced the life of Christ walking from village to village to city with Him for at least three years or more.

It was also true that Jesus is the Son of God.  Peter, James and John heard Jesus being validated by His Father, God, speaking from Heaven.  They had gone up "the high mountain" which many also call "the Mount of Transfiguration" (Matthew 17), with Jesus.  While there God's voice spoke from the cloud saying, "This is my Son, whom I love; with Him I am well-pleased.  Listen to Him." (Matthew 17:5). 

They were eyewitnesses to this.  They confirm it is the truth.  God speaks from Heaven giving further confirmation of Jesus being God's Son.  That He is the Son He loves.  That He is well-pleased with Jesus.  What son would not want to hear this!?  God is a wonderful Father, is He not?  What joy and gratitude Jesus must have gotten from this.  But I go off on a tangent from the topic.

The disciples and God vouch for Jesus.  Further to them were all the Old Testament prophesies, Peter says, who foretold of Jesus coming and of His sufferings and who did not speak out of their own accord but only what the Holy Spirit taught them to say.  None of them were simply making up this story.  Peter and the other apostles saw and heard the actual fulfilling of many of those prophesies.  They were eyewitnesses!

Pay attention!!

None of the above were making any of the story up nor were any angels doing so either.  These are words that can be trusted!!  The men could only speak what God had given them to say and they "were carried along by the Holy Spirit" (vs 21).  Right from God Himself.  What more could anyone say against what Peter had to say?  

This is good to take note of though as over so great periods of time from the early Bible times up to Peter's day, all fit together nicely; a miracle in and of itself.  So any other 'gospel' that is preached that goes counter to the gospel that Peter and Paul and the other apostles preached would NOT be the Word of God and could NOT be trusted as it would NOT be the truth.  And this even if it came from an angel from heaven!

Peter is setting up his "argument" as he will next address the problem of false prophets and teachers and what they teach.  We must always seek the truth and establish what is the truth by so many checks and balances.  In the Hebrew culture they had to have two or three witnesses to confirm truth and what is said (Deuteronomy 19:15; Matthew 18:16; 2 Corinthians 13:1).  So here we have named:  the Old Testament prophets; Peter and the other apostles as eyewitnesses; and God Himself speaking from Heaven, telling us of the truth about Jesus.  Count the number of witnesses.  May each of you join the number of 'eyewitnesses' as you make a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, accepting Him as "the Way, the Truth and the Life" (John 14:6).

                                                            ~ERC  2016~

Ah-h-h-CHO-O-O-O-O!

My grandfather was noted for his sneezes; not only were they earth-shattering but there was always more than just one or two at a time.  We grandchildren liked to keep tally--I believe the record in one go was seven.

One time Grandpa was along when we took some Sunday School children to a local museum.  Among its many dimly-lit rooms, was a room with stuffed bears, foxes, and other such Nova Scotian wildlife behind glass enclosures.


 

Some of the more eager children had run ahead, my father in tow, and were viewing this wildlife when Grandfather erupted with one of his sneezing sessions from an adjoining room.  

One of these, now, not-so-eager children, looked fearfully about at the animals and asked in a trembling voice, "Which one was that?!"

                        ~ERC  06 September 1991~ but blog entry 2016~

Morning Musings-Firmly Established But Still Remember

Morning Musings with the boys at breakfast...





Peter knew he was coming to the end of his journey on earth.  (He was martyred by being crucified upside down, so history relates.)  He was still concerned about his 'sheep'; wanting  to be sure the believers in Christ remembered all those things he and the other apostles had taught.  In 1 Peter 1:12-15 we can see he was refreshing their memories and also strongly encouraging them to do whatever it took; "make every effort" he said, to do them.

Note this is not just to remember them in their heads, but to do them.  This is experience as we talked about in To Really KNOW Him.  This is what would truly help them to remember.  Peter said they were already "firmly established in the truth" yet still the injunction to "make every effort to remember them."

Nowadays we do well to do so too.  

Number 1, mature in your faith and Christian living; participate in God's divine nature by adding to your faith, goodness and knowledge, etc (1 Peter 1:5-9).  These will help a believer in Jesus Christ to be established in God's truth and to be able to remember it.

Further to this is passing this faith on to the next generation; to your children and others.  This is what Peter had been so faithfully doing, ingraining it into their minds so they would not forget.  So that they could live by it.  The knowledge of God must be made known to one and all.  In so doing you will continually refresh your own memories and continue to be established in your own faith which in turn would help you to continue to be ever increasing in maturity of your own faith.  

  Mature and maturing.  Firmly established.   Remembering.

Elephants never forget; so they say.

                                                                   ~ERC  2016~

Morning Musings-To Really KNOW Him

   Morning Musings with the boys at breakfast...





We've got everything.  Everything we need for life and godliness, that is, and our God's given it to us by His divine power.  How did He accomplish this?  Through our knowledge of Him given through our calling.

Have you gotten 'the call'?  God calls us to be His through Jesus Christ.  Then we begin on the journey of knowledge.  More knowledge of God and His will and ways, and of Jesus Christ and His work on the cross He has accomplished for us out of love.  

This is a special kind of knowledge.  It is not simply head knowledge, although that is the portal through much of it will come, but the knowing God through our daily experiences with Him.  Through our dependence upon Him.  Learning of His wisdom, grace, mercy, faithfulness and more.  The more we know the more good life and godliness we'll have in Him spiritually and perhaps even in our physical life.

I believe that Peter experienced this himself.  You can follow his growth from that impetuous fisherman following Jesus around the country, impulsively blurted his mind out, to his denial that he even knew who Jesus was, along to his 'restoration' of relationship with Jesus on the beach eating a breakfast picnic of grilled-by-Jesus fish, and Jesus telling Him to feed His lambs and sheep, and then on to this humble and meek Peter we see in his epistles.  Tamed by his knowledge and experience with Jesus.

Through these we, too, have a chance and the privilege to participate in His "divine nature"; so we learn in 1 Peter 1:3-11.  What is the nature of that diving nature we can participate in?  In which we must "make every effort" to participate?   It is the adding to faith>goodness, and to goodness>knowledge>self-control>perseverance>godliness>brotherly kindness>love; a chain reaction or cycle of divine nature which can flow through us as much as ever we wish.

Instead of what is called a vicious cycle, this is a divine nature cycle as when we participate in these in ever increasing measure we will increase our knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ thus strengthening our relationship with Him.  It is God's divine power that set it all in motion when we accepted His call to a relationship with Him.  

God is so good.  He invites us to know Him.  He wants us to know Him.  He wants us to participate with Him, in His knowledge of goodness and the rest but also, and most importantly, of HE, Himself.  By making the effort to do so we participate and establish that relationship with Him.  Get to really know Him.

This all helps us to escape the world's corruption caused by evil desires.  (Changes our desires to be His desires:  good, clean and righteous.)  He helps us to be effective and productive in our knowledge of Him.  This too is His "giving-ness".  This too helps us to make our calling and election sure so we do not fail Him.  A rich welcome into His eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ awaits.

                                                                   ~ERC  2016~

Morning Musings-Equalizing

   Morning Musings with the boys at breakfast...




As I rewrite here from my notebook, I get a sense of Peter's humility.  If you recall back to some of the other posts that remark on this very topic, where Peter didn't pull rank; where he addressed the elders as "fellow elders" and gives credit where credit is due to Silas, his 'secretary' you can get that picture.  Here again in 2 Peter 1:1-2, his humility is in evidence.

He says, "Simon Peter, a servant..."  He sees himself as a lowly servant first before be mentions the apostle status.  So yes, he shows the servanthood but also his authority of being able to have license to say what he does to those to whom he writes.  

To whom is he a servant and apostle?  To Jesus Christ.  Jesus Himself, our supreme example, "humbled Himself and came in the form of a servant" (Philippians 2:8) Peter is still following in Jesus's footprints.  We too need to be such followers of Jesus Christ.  In humility, let us follow Him and serve Him with our life.

Peter equates himself with all the believers (vs 1).  The equalizing measure is that he, as well as those to whom he writes this letter, are on equal footing for receiving faith and the righteousness of God; "just as precious as his".  Actually, Peter says, "ours".  In one of the other blog entries, we figured he meant "the group of the apostles" when he says "ours".  They had all received this precious faith not through anything they've achieved but through the righteousness of their God and Savior Jesus Christ.

Every single last one of them needed this righteousness from Jesus; no one could boast of their own earnings.  The only recourse left is to praise and thank God for the work He accomplished  through Jesus Christ and HIS work done on the cross and through His resurrection.

The more knowledge we have of this and of God and of Jesus our Lord, the greater will be our grace, peace and humility.  We can have these in abundance.  God's supply is limitless.  We are the ones who limit the measure we receive by the amount of knowledge, or lack thereof, of God and Jesus our Lord.  We each have to choose to have more of Him. 

Pray, "Fill my cup, O Lord".  Pray with that willing and open heart on your knees, humbly bowed before Him in submission.  Open your mind and your heart.  Let Him fill you with equalizing grace, peace and humility. You can have them in "abundance".  

                                                               ~ERC  2016~