Back to false teachers, because Peter has a LOT to say about them.
17 These people I’m talking about are nothing but dried-up springs, mists driven by fierce winds; the deepest darkness has been set aside for them. 18 They speak in loud voices empty and arrogant. They exploit the desires of the flesh, take advantage of sensual natures, to entangle people who have just escaped from those who live by deception. 19 They claim to offer them freedom, but they themselves are enslaved by corruption because whatever a person gives in to soon becomes his master.
20 Those who have been pulled out of the cesspool of worldly desires through the knowledge (epigenosis) of our Lord and Savior Jesus, the Anointed One, yet have found themselves mired in it again are worse off than they were before. 21 They would have been better off never knowing the way of righteousness than to have known it and then abandoned the sacred commandment they had previously received and dived back into the muck! 22 In their cases, the words from Proverbs hold true: “The dog goes back to his own vomit, and as the Greeks say, “The sow is washed to wallow in the mud.”
Rather than spend time walking through all the specific words and imagery, I would like to offer a version that simply includes the associations the first readers would have made as they were reading this text:
These people I’m talking about are nothing but dried-up springs, wells that looks promising to the parched traveler but contain only sand. They are like rain clouds driven away by fierce winds from the lands that desperately need water. They look like they are bringing life, but they are not. The deepest darkness (outer darkness of Matthew 8:12?) has been set aside for them.
They speak in loud voices, empty and arrogant. They exploit the desires of the flesh and take advantage of sensual natures to entangle people who have just escaped from those who live by deception. They claim to offer them freedom from being controlled by their passions[1]; they think they are their own masters, but they are actually slaves who have lost the battle with their passions, not won it. They have been conquered by the corruption and sin they believe they are controlling. In their indulgence they are being controlled, and as you know, whatever a person gives in to soon becomes his master.[2]
The world is a cesspool of worldly desires. It’s like a dead body or stagnant lake spreading sickness that infects and destroys us.[3] Fortunately, through the transformative knowledge (epigenosis[4]) of our Lord and Savior Jesus that enables us to begin participating in the divine nature, many have been pulled away from that rotting corpse of moral death in the world, pulled out of that putrid water of sin and corruption.
Unfortunately, they go back and find themselves entangled in it again, like rabbits impaled on thorns, or sheep whose wool is so intertwined in thorns they can’t move.[5] When that happens, they are worse off than they were before. They would have been better off never knowing (epigisosko) the way of righteousness than to have known it and then abandoned the life-giving moral law they had previously received and dived back into the muck! Ignorance of God is bad, but apostasy is worse.[6]
In their case, the words from Proverbs hold true: “The dog goes back to his own vomit,”[e] and as the Greeks say, “The sow is washed to wallow in the mud.” Remember the teaching of the rabbis: “Orphah, the bestial soul, is returned to her mire, Ruth persevered in spirit.” [7] - (Anthony’s Contextual Translation)
Peter wasn't calling people dogs and pigs. And don’t get distracted by the reasons dogs and pigs actually do that. In reality, pigs like water and mud because they don’t sweat and those things cool them off (pigs actually prefer water); dogs eat their vomit because regurgitated food is still food, and sometimes regurgitation is actually their body’s way of processing food that’s not going down easy the first time. These sayings weren’t observations about the science of animal husbandry. These were understood as images of unclean things enjoying more unclean things.
Here we see a disheartening narrative: once people were in the muck or were surrounded by the vomit of their own lives; they were pulled out and cleaned up thanks to Jesus; they had epigenosis of God; then they returned to their life of sin. WHY??
That's my question. WHY? Why would they go back?
I suppose it’s for the same reason we are tempted to go back. I have three reasons, though I’m sure there are more. The first is a rebuke; the second a warning or caution; the third an encouragement.
* * * * *
First, God doesn’t seem good.
How could this be? I think in our culture right now the primary reason God doesn’t look good is that God’s people live like rebels against God rather than servants of God, which means being part of God’s community isn’t a good experience, which suggests that maybe the King of this kingdom might not be what we hoped.
We talked last week about how we are image bearers. Someone introduced the idea in Message Plus that we are icons, like a Word icon on a computer screen. That icon is only an image of the program it represents, but when you click on it you go to the program. But what happens when someone clicks on the icon and it takes them somewhere else? You wanted Word but you got Adobe – or a virus.
What happens when someone is drawn to Jesus and into church, “clicks” on us, and we take them somewhere other than to God?
When this happens – when it appears that the church itself is a source of vomit and mud rather than a place to be cleaned up from it – is it any wonder that some people go back ? I read a story this past week of yet another Christian celebrity for whom the celebrity spotlight was disastrous. In this case, he was seducing women in a way that may have even been criminal. Two of them walked away from the faith.
We can say all we want that they should keep their eyes focused on Jesus (and that’s true); we can say that it’s not fair to judge the character of God by the character of His people (and that’s true), but the Bible itself is clear that ‘deconversions’ happen a lot because God’s people do not live as God’s people should:
Peter says that bad ‘icons’ in the church – specifically teachers or leaders who are disastrously wrong in their teaching and/or corrupt in their lives - are the reason others people go back to their former lives.
Paul writes in 2 Timothy 2 of teaching that spreads like cancer and destroys the faith of some.
Acts 20 warns of ‘savage wolves’ from among the church who will draw disciples away from following Jesus to following them.
Jesus told the Pharisees they were actually making disciples of hell.
In other words, if we keep placing the blame on “deconverts” being illogical or unfair or immature, we are ignoring the very real problem of people in the church who are a primary cause of people leaving the faith. The Bible not only allows for this, it warns us of this.
I’ve lost track of how many stories I’ve heard in person or online in the past several years of people who have walked away from at least church and often the faith because of what they have seen in the ‘icons’ and ‘temples’ of God:
deep and abiding hypocrisy (not just the standard deviation of imperfection, but the blatant, purposeful embrace of a double standard);
significant unaddressed sin (not just the standard deviation – the sin of the rebellious, not the weak)
the unfiltered support of morally troubling celebrities, politicians, political parties, or social issues that are really confusing in light of the Bible or in light of previous stances on the same issues
the screaming about the sliver in someone else’s eye when all the world can see the mote in the eye of the screamer
Zondervan (the publisher) notes:
“Several years ago a poll was taken that showed that the lifestyle activities of Christians were statistically the same as those of people claiming not to be Christians when it came to the following list: gambling, visiting pornographic websites, taking something that didn’t belong to them, saying mean things behind someone’s back, consulting a medium or a psychic, having a physical fight or abusing someone, using illegal or nonprescription drugs, saying something to someone that’s not true, getting back at someone for something they did, and consuming enough alcohol to be considered legally drunk[8]…the only activity that was less common for Christians... was recycling.”[9]
I read a number of articles this week on “deconversion” stories. Most of them seemed critical of those who have left Christianity: these people were illogical; they were unfair; they are lazy; they were immature or naïve.
That may be true, but I can’t control them or fix them. What I can do is look at myself. What we can do is look at the church. Where does judgment begin? In the house of God (1 Peter 4:17). If the temple’s dirty – not just normally dusty but has trash piling up in the corners – should it surprise us if people begin to have some questions?
There was a time when the cutting-edge apologetic movement in our culture involved philosophy. Now, I think it involves integrity.
I don‘t think the solution to stopping ‘deconversions’ is as much an intellectual one as it used to be, because I think deconversion beings with experiential and relational problems. God has chosen to embody himself in the world through His people. God knows that image bearers will influence how people think of the one whose image we bear. We must be duolos who become children, and in that process become transformed into our Father’s image through our surrender and worship. The clearer our representation, the fewer stumbling blocks we put in the way of others.
Second, people go back because they begin to think that the vomit and mud might not actually be as bad as they remember.
This is one of the greatest deceptions of sin. Rarely does temptation work when something is obviously going to be lousy. Really effective temptation begins by convincing us that little compromises are okay, and when that feels good or gets us something we want, why not keep going?
Do you want to be a pickpocket or an embezzler? No, I do not. What about keeping the extra change the store gave you? Well…
Would you call some one a ##$#&*%^*&^$ ? Of course not. What about a libtard or an orange Cheetoh? Oh, well, that’s just funny, and I get lots of “likes.”
Human trafficking and prostitution? Terrible! Porn? Well, no one’s being hurt, right? At least not at this site…
The problem is, of course, “whatever a person gives into soon becomes his master.” When we put one foot in front of the other, it takes us the direction our feet are pointing.
In addition, I think we sometimes buy the lie because we want it to be true.
We want indulging in our lust to be okay. We want the porn and the hook-ups to bring us the good life. It looks so glossy and exciting in movies. Please, let that be true. Real world relationships? They are so hard and messy. No-string-attached indulgence – I really want that to be the way to go. This “dying to self” and serving others and valuing agape love and actually treating people as image bearers? Hard. Really hard. Perhaps God misunderstood how we are wired….
I want to love money and not have it be the root of all kinds of evil. I really want to surround myself with things and prioritize my wealth and comfort. That vacation and that car and that house and that hobby and that other thing….. surely then I will find peace, or have a happier marriage, or my kids will like me, or my life will finally have value…. This “taking up a cross” and tithing and taking care of the poor around me and meeting the needs of others in the church like the early church did in Acts, I don’t know. This is MY money.
This bitterness and unforgiveness? I don’t know. I think it’s my sense of justice. I love justice, and justice wasn’t done for me. It’s not gossip when I tell you about how that person hurt me. It’s truth. People should know so they don’t get hurt. I’m actually protecting people around me when I tell them.
We buy the lie. It lets us avoid ourselves.
Third, we think we deserve a life of vomit and mud.
This one breaks my heart, and I think it breaks God’s heart too. Sometimes we go back because we just assume we are too broken, too ugly, to covered in vomit and mud for God to love us. Wallowing feels like home; this idea that there is a life where shame is lifted, and addictions are healed, and brokenness is mended, and bitterness turns to forgiveness, and our history does not dictate our destiny or our worth…it’s too good to be true. There’s no way that Jesus wants me in his family. There’s no way I have anything to add to the church. I was born in sin and sin is my home; my native language is foul and cruel; this shrine to sin can never be a temple of the Holy Spirit.
Even if you actually are “the least of these,” Jesus gave his life so that you might live. Jesus took upon himself the wages of your sin, the vomit of your decisions, the mud of all that has been done to you.
Jesus reaches to you; he sends his people to the highways and byways and invites even you to come to a spiritual wedding feast (Luke 14), a celebration of a salvation covenant God offers to you through Jesus Christ.
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[1] 2:19 promise them freedom. Greek and Diaspora Jewish thinkers often spoke of freedom from passion (see note on Jn 8:34). slaves. Those defeated in war were often enslaved; ancient thinkers also regarded as slaves those subject to their passion. (Adam Clarke)
[2] Romans 6:16 “ Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?”
[3] Adam Clarke notes that Augustine phrased it this way: "The whole world," says he, "is one great diseased man, lying extended from east to west, and from north to south; and to heal this great sick man, the almighty Physician descended from heaven.”
[4] From the sermon on 2 Peter 1:1-4: “This “epigenosis “is the kind of knowledge that is full, perfect, experiential, and knowable to all. It begins with learning what is true – NT writers constantly refer to the “message they have received” from Jesus and the apostles[4] - and then is expressed in walking in the path of truth. It’s known and it’s lived. Public knowledge moves from the head to the hands. The body cooperates with and moves in the direction of the spirit. It’s knowledge put into practice such that one experiences the reality of the transformative power of truth – and in this case, it’s a transformation such that we begin to participate in the divine nature of God (more on this in a bit).
[5] BDAG's lexicon has a picturesque definition… "to be involuntarily interlaced to the point of immobility" and was used "literally of sheep whose wool is caught in thorns" and of the "hares (rabbits) who are caught in thorns….empleko was used in secular writing meaning "to entwine one's hand in another's clothes, so as to hold him."
[6] Matthew Henry’s and Matthew Poole’s commentary both note this
[7] This proverb is found among the rabbins; so Midrash Ruth, in Sohar Chadash, fol. 62: “Orphah is returned to her mire, Ruth persevered in spirit”; and again, Ibid. fol. 64: "Orphah, which is nephesh habbehemith, the bestial soul, is returned to her mire." (Adam Clarke)
[8] I should add that Protestants and Catholics account for 69% of abortions in the United States. Evangelicals account for 18%.
[9] https://zondervanacademic.com/blog/hypocrisy-is-keeping-people-from-the-church-an-excerpt-from-the-problem-of-god