2 Peter 2: Balaam the Mountebank

As surprising as it might be for you and I to hear a donkey speak, Balaam seems to have taken it in his stride, for he answered his donkey, as though this were a perfectly ordinary part of his day. It is actually more astonishing that Balaam should have answered in the way he did!

2 Peter 2: Balaam the Seer

Jesus said, Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. But Balaamโ€™s pride was in his way, his confidence that he could manipulate Almighty God into cooperating with Balaamโ€™s greed. Balaam could not see God.

2 Peter 2: When Corruption Completely Corrupts

These were newish Christians, still in the early stages of having their faith anchored in truth. What a precarious time it was for the first century church.

2 Peter 2: Righteous? Really?

It complicates things, does it not? When scripture specifically describes Lot and Noah as righteous, then carefully records their drunkenness and sexual deviance.

2 Peter 2: Lot and His Wife

All of us are shaped by the culture we grow up in, and Lotโ€™s wife and family were no different. Though Lot knew God, it seems he had little influence on his family or the society he kept.

2 Peter 2: Sodom and Gomorrah

Now, Peter would present his second and third examples, Godโ€™s cleansing the whole earth of abject wickedness, yet rescuing the tiny remnant of righteous ones.

2 Peter 2: Fallen Angels

There would be a time of corruption and villainy, but then would come Godโ€™s decisive judgment in ways that would summarily dispense with the wicked and would rescue the innocent.

2 Peter 2: Counterfeit Prophets

the wolves will not be sheep. They will only seem to be sheep, that is the fundamental underlying truth of what Jesus was saying. They will be wolves -appearing as- sheep.

2 Peter 1: Morning Star

What is fascinating about this particular code word is that it originally queued Satan, as depicted by the prophet Isaiah.

2 Peter 1: Prophetic Word

Prophetsโ€”and notably Peterโ€”did not write their private opinions, they wrote what they were given by the Spirit of God.