1 ¶ But there were false prophets also among the
people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall
bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring
upon themselves swift destruction. 2 And
many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth
shall be evil spoken of.
After stating emphatically that no prophecy of scripture is
of private interpretation Peter goes on to give a stern warning about false
teachers. Paul warned about those already corrupting the word of God in his
time.
2Corinthians 2:17 For we are not as many, which corrupt the
word of God: but as of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God speak we
in Christ. [the word for corrupt
in Greek, from a word meaning a huckster, which refers to a wineseller watering
down wine for dishonest sale, has been mistranslated in modern versions to peddle as if to condemn all Christian
Bible sellers who make a profit.]
There is no private revelation under the New Testament, as
in God gave you a special knowledge accessible to no one else. That is how
great and terrible cults are started.
God’s wisdom and understanding for us is here in His Bible and is
available to any man or woman who cares to hear from God. Someone might see
something in a way that others may have missed but it is unlikely that you will
discover a great truth not seen by anyone else in history.
A prophet is a preacher in that prophets preach.
Nehemiah 6:7a And thou hast also appointed prophets to preach
of thee at Jerusalem…
To prophesy is to foretell something that is to happen or to
tell forth something that God has spoken. As Peter pointed out in the last
chapter holy men of God spake as they
were moved by the Holy Ghost. We don’t refer to preachers today as prophets
because they do not have the special verbal connection to God where they speak
of things that will happen, unless what they are saying is straight from the
Bible. We have the Bible today and that is our final authority in all matters
of faith, practice, and doctrine. We have a calling to preach from the Bible
and not from our imaginations of a mountaintop experience with God giving us
special instructions for the people. Everything we are told must be judged by
the Scriptures.
Acts 17:10 ¶ And the brethren immediately sent away Paul
and Silas by night unto Berea: who coming thither went into the synagogue of
the Jews. 11 These were more noble than
those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of
mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.
There are two types of meanings for any text. There is the
literal, what it says in context. That is its first meaning. Then, there is its
significance to you or some other application. There are two types of
interpretation, one good and one bad. In
the one, the teacher or preacher relies on the context and the literal meaning
of a passage to explain it and apply it to a more immediate situation. For
instance, Joseph’s faithfulness or Job’s self-righteousness as applied to a
Christian’s faith and daily walk with God. The other kind simply rips a concept
or word or phrase out of context to make it apply to something totally not in
keeping with what was originally meant but to brace a point the preacher or
teacher wants to make.
As an example, in the following passage the reference is to
a preacher or teacher being faithful to God’s word, to the mysteries of God. It is dishonest to apply the word faithful here to your church attendance.
1Corinthians 4:1
¶ Let a man so account of us, as of the
ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God. 2 Moreover it is required in stewards, that a
man be found faithful.
An example of twisting the Bible, this time out of
ignorance, would be a preacher declaring that Christ paid a ransom to the Devil
for our souls. The Bible clearly says;
Exodus 30:12 When thou takest the sum of the children of
Israel after their number, then shall they give every man a ransom for his soul
unto the LORD, when thou numberest them; that there be no plague among them,
when thou numberest them.
More examples of twisting the Bible include going back to a
Greek or Hebrew word, mistranslating it, and then misapplying the
mistranslation like the fundamentalist preacher who placed an inordinate
distinction on the word agape and
then preached that women weren’t capable of loving that way. That preacher
later turned out to be a criminal who committed crimes against women and
committed suicide in prison. It was not only wicked what this wicked man
preached but tragic that people in the congregation didn’t know their Bible
well enough to dismiss what he was saying as rubbish. I don’t care if your man o’ God sweats honey and rose petals come out of his
mouth when he preaches if he distorts the word of God he has a spiritual
problem.
In this passage false prophets and false teachers are linked,
uniting the Old and New Testament offices as synonymous in a way. These false
teachers will bring in heresies and even deny Christ’s divinity and His
resurrection and thereby destroy, in the believer’s mind who hears them, the
grounds for salvation or make them question whether they are saved.
In World history, Mohammed is a classic example of this as
is Madame Blavatsky. A false prophet is noted in Revelation as instrumental in
getting people to worship the beast and his image. In American history we have
false prophets/teachers like Joseph Smith, Alexander Campbell, William Miller,
Mary Baker Eddy, Charles Taze Russell, and Joseph Franklin Rutherford, among
others, who have led many would-be Christians far astray due to Biblical
ignorance, a secret agenda, or self-aggrandizement.
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