But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them—bringing swift destruction on themselves. Many will follow their depraved conduct and will bring the way of truth into disrepute.
2 Peter 2:1-2 (NIV)
The Many Who Follow
The laundromat at the end of the strip mall stays lit after every other door on the row goes dark. Eleven machines along one wall, four of them with handwritten signs taped to the lids, a folding table worn pale down the middle, and a television bolted near the ceiling with the sound off. A single sock has been on the windowsill for weeks.
The churches reading this were told to expect teachers among them, the way Israel had prophets who lied to it. They would bring destructive heresies in secretly, and nothing would arrive with a label on it. Whoever it turned out to be would already be inside and already trusted. A teacher nobody trusted could not have done any of this.
The marks Peter gives are few. They deny the sovereign Lord who bought them, and in their greed they exploit people with fabricated stories. That leaves out most of what we argue about.
Many will follow, and they are the larger group in his sentence. The woman who comes in on Thursday nights with two bags and a paperback never set out to join it. She has had the same man in her earbuds for a year and a half, and the friend who used to ask her careful questions stopped getting called back somewhere in there. She could not name the week any of it was decided.
The way of truth gets a bad name out of this, and it costs most the people who never sat in the room. The man folding shirts two machines down walked away from all of it fifteen years ago. He will tell you about one man, and then, without meaning to, about the road that man stood on.
Being wrong about a teacher costs too. Peter is not handing out warrants, and once we start sorting a room for frauds we find them whether they are in it or not.
He puts two things in one sentence, the denying and the buying. The Lord those teachers deny is the Lord who bought them, and he does not soften either half of that.
A Prayer to Remember
Steady the people I love who are listening to someone I cannot talk them out of, and put a patient friend in their week. Slow me down where I am quick to suspect the wrong man. Hold on to them while I go back to work.
In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.
