Yellow Alert

I once sat through a seminar on personal and home safety. The man leading the class, a former law enforcement officer, urged us all to remain on a “yellow” alertness setting. He explained that to live on “green” is to walk through the world naive to potential threats around you—like the person absorbed in his or her phone while walking through a city parking garage late at night. On the other hand, the person who lives on a “red” setting is so gripped by fear that he or she can’t live a normal life. “Yellow” means that you still go about your business, but you remain aware of your surroundings, knowing that not everyone out there is a “good guy.”

We could describe this second chapter of 2 Peter as a call to live on spiritual yellow-alert. We are not to live in paranoid obsession about false teaching; you will never be able to grow positively that way. But Peter also does not want us to be spiritually naïve, as if everyone out there is a good guy. These false teachers (2:1) are subtle enough in their approach that they blend in with the followers of Jesus when they share meals together (2:13). They look just like every Christian at the gathering, and even quote Scripture (though they mis-apply it, 3:17). But the alert and discerning believer can spot three characteristics that expose them as untrustworthy guides:

These teachers may belong to the “gnostic” school. Gnostics taught that once you gained their secret knowledge, or spiritual enlightenment, you became free to do whatever you wanted with your body. It is a highly convenient message for anyone seeking an excuse to indulge the flesh, but it also turns Peter’s vision of the Christian life upside-down (you can review for yourself in 1:3–11). Instead of promoting virtue, these teachers “indulge in the lust of defiling passions (2:10).” Instead of pursuing godliness, they are “like creatures of instinct, irrational animals (2:12).” Instead of exercising self-control, they “count it pleasure to revel in the daytime (2:13).” Instead of practicing holy love, “They have eyes full of adultery, insatiable for sin (2:14).” Do the influences in your life push you toward holiness in light of Jesus’ return?

Perhaps the strongest appeal of these teachers is their confidence. They convince others to follow them by the sheer boldness and authority of their speech. But Peter helps us see through it as simple arrogance, They despise the authority of the apostles (2:11). They speak in a blasphemous, irreverent way about spiritual realities they don’t understand (2:11)—it seems that they sneer at the idea of the devil and demons, and they laugh off Christ’s personal return. But they present their views so forcefully that they sweep the unstable away. They’re nothing like Peter, a humble servant of Jesus (1:1). What about the influences in your life? Do they model godly humility? Do they move you to place yourself under God’s authoritative Word?

Peter’s great motive is to get us safely home to Jesus (1:3–15). These teachers want to acquire earthly riches, with “hearts trained in greed (2:14),” like Balaam, the Old Testament prophet-for-hire. They live for this world only, never lifting their gaze to eternity. Their message says little about knowing and glorifying God, and a lot about indulging my own wants. They find an echo in many pseudo-Christian teachers today. Do your influences make you want to walk with God? Or do they leave you as self-absorbed and materialistic as the rest of the world, with a few Bible verses attached?

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Article by Eric Smith
Senior Pastor, Sharon Baptist Church