2Pe 2 | TNotes | STEP | Summary for 2Pet 2:1-3: 2:1-3 Alongside authentic prophets (1:20-21 ), there have always been false prophets who receive God’s judgment. 2:1 They will: Peter’s use of the future tense in 2:1-3 does not imply that false prophets had not yet come, but it alludes to Jesus’ prediction that false teachers would arise (Matt 24:11 , 24 ; Mark 13:22 ; cp. Acts 20:29-31 ; 2 Tim 3:1-6 ). The false teachers who had arisen fulfilled that prediction. • deny the Master who bought them: The false teachers might have been overtly renouncing Christ, but it is more likely that their immoral conduct constituted a denial of Christ (cp. Titus 1:16 ).

Summary for 2Pet 2:1-3: 2:1-3 ^a Alongside authentic prophets (1:20-21 ^b), there have always been false prophets who receive God’s judgment. 2:1 ^c They will: Peter’s use of the future tense in 2:1-3 ^d does not imply that false prophets had not yet come, but it alludes to Jesus’ prediction that false teachers would arise (Matt 24:11 ^e, 24 ^f; Mark 13:22 ^g; cp. Acts 20:29-31 ^h; 2 Tim 3:1-6 ⁱ). The false teachers who had arisen fulfilled that prediction.

• deny the Master who bought them: The false teachers might have been overtly renouncing Christ, but it is more likely that their immoral conduct constituted a denial of Christ (cp. Titus 1:16 ^j).
2:2 ^k One of the saddest effects of false teaching is that the way of truth will be slandered by a watching world. By their immoral and greedy conduct, false teachers bring shame on Christ.
Summary for 2Pet 2:4-10: 2:4-10 ^l Three Old Testament examples of judgment show that God will vindicate those who remain faithful to him and will condemn those who deny him, including the false teachers (see 2:3 ^m). 2:4 ⁿ The first example of judgment is the angels who sinned: The widespread Jewish tradition was that “the sons of God” in Gen 6:1-5 ^o (understood as angels) had intercourse with women and were therefore judged by God at that time (see 1 Enoch 6–10; cp. 1 Pet 3:19-20 ^p; Jude 1:6 ^q).

• in gloomy pits of darkness: This description of the underworld was popular in the ancient world and is probably metaphorical.
2:5 ^r The second example of judgment is that God did not spare the ancient world at the time of Noah. In the flood, God destroyed all human life apart from Noah and his family (see Gen 6–8 ^s).
2:6 ^t The third example of judgment is that God condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. The people of these cities were so immoral that God rained down sulfur from heaven to destroy them (Gen 19:24 ^u). Peter focuses on the result of this action: The cities were turned into heaps of ashes.
Summary for 2Pet 2:7-8: 2:7-8 ^v Even though the Old Testament does not portray Lot as a particularly righteous man (see profile for Lot at end of chapter), he remained basically faithful to the Lord; Jewish tradition also portrays him as righteous (see Wisdom of Solomon 10:6; 19:17).
2:9 ^w the Lord knows how to rescue godly people from their trials: As illustrated by Noah’s family (2:5 ^x) and Lot (2:7 ^y), the Lord is faithful to his own people. Peter’s readers needed assurance that their struggles to live godly lives in the face of false teaching and the world’s scorn would be rewarded.
2:10a ^z twisted sexual desire: The reference is to illicit sexual desire generally and possibly to homosexuality in particular (cp. reference to Sodom and Gomorrah, 2:6 ^aa).

• The false teachers were so arrogant that they refused to listen to any authority but their own.
Summary for 2Pet 2:10-16: 2:10b-16 ^ab This profile of the false teachers focuses more on how they were living than on what they were teaching. 2:10b ^ac supernatural beings: Probably evil angels, in contrast to the angels of 2:11 ^ad. It is wrong to scoff even at evil angels, because they bear the mark of their glorious origin—they have real power and pose a real threat to humans.
2:11 ^ae Even angels ... do not dare to charge evil supernatural beings with blasphemy, but the false teachers were so arrogant that they did not hesitate to do so.
2:13 ^af They delight in deception even as they eat with you in your fellowship meals: Cp. Jude 1:12 ^ag. Christians often ate fellowship meals together in celebration of the Lord (see Acts 2:46 ^ah; 6:1 ^ai). The false teachers were using these mealtimes as opportunities to deceive true believers. Some manuscripts read They delight (or revel, or carouse) in their fellowship meals as they eat with you. If this reading is correct, they were using the fellowship meals for self-indulgence (cp. 1 Cor 11:20-22 ^aj).
2:15 ^ak who loved to earn money by doing wrong: Despite consulting with God about what he should do, Balaam was determined to go his own way in hopes of receiving Balak’s money (see Num 22–24 ^al). The Old Testament account hints at Balaam’s greed, and Jewish tradition developed this theme (see Numbers Rabbah 20:10; Mishnah Avot 5:22; Philo, Moses 1:266-268).
Summary for 2Pet 2:17-22: 2:17-22 ^am Peter continues his description of the false teachers by explaining their effect on other people.
2:18 ^an those who have barely escaped: The false teachers cleverly targeted new converts, people who had only recently committed themselves to Christ.
2:19 ^ao One of the great lures of false teaching through the centuries has been the promise of freedom from authority, but such freedom is illusory (Rom 6:16 ^ap). The false teachers, while reveling in their freedom from authority (see 2 Pet 2:10 ^aq), were in fact slaves to sin and corruption.
2:20 ^ar they are worse off than before: The false teachers or their followers had known the truth, but their deliberate rejection of that truth put them in a far worse situation than when they ignorantly lived in sin.
2:22 ^as “A dog returns to its vomit”: Dogs were not seen as friendly family pets but as wild and filthy beasts.

• “A washed pig returns to the mud”: This proverb might go back to a popular book of sayings called Ahiqar from around 500 BC, which reads, “My son, you have been to me like the pig who went into the hot bath with people of quality, and when it came out of the hot bath, it saw a filthy hole and went down and wallowed in it” (Ahiqar 8:18).

Profile: Lot
Lot was Abraham’s nephew and the ancestor of the Moabites and Ammonites. Like Abraham, Lot was born in Ur and accompanied Terah to Haran (Gen 11:27-32 ^at). After Terah’s death, he joined Abraham in journeying to Canaan and Egypt.
When Lot and Abraham returned from Egypt to Canaan, their flocks and herds grew too numerous for them to live together, so Abraham gave Lot his choice of land on which to settle. Lot chose the fertile plain of the Jordan that was like “the garden of the Lord” (Gen 13:10 ^au), and eventually he took up residence in Sodom. Lot’s increasing involvement with the completely corrupt cities of the plain compromised him.
While Lot lived in Sodom, four Mesopotamian kings defeated the kings of five towns in the area; in the subsequent plundering, they carried off Lot, his family, and his possessions (Gen 14:1-12 ^av). When word of this reached Abraham, he launched a rearguard action against the invaders and recovered the prisoners and property (14:13-16 ^aw).
Because of the wickedness of Sodom and the neighboring city of Gomorrah, God decided to destroy these towns. He sent two angelic visitors to Lot in Sodom to encourage his departure from the doomed city (Gen 19:1-15 ^ax). The city’s depravity became even more evident in an attempted homosexual attack on the visitors. Lot’s willingness to sacrifice his daughters, along with his reluctance to leave Sodom, shows how corrupt and compromised he had become. No one but his immediate family accompanied him, and his wife was destroyed when she turned back in disobedience. Soon after the destruction of Sodom, Lot’s daughters, despairing of having no husbands, got Lot drunk enough to have sexual relations with them. Their two sons, Moab and Ben-ammi, were ancestors of the Moabites and Ammonites (Gen 19:30-38 ^ay), two nations that became inveterate enemies of Israel (see Deut 23:3-6 ^az). Despite Lot’s waywardness, Peter declares that Lot was a “righteous man who was tormented in his soul by the wickedness he saw and heard day after day” (see 2 Pet 2:6-9 ^ba). This analysis of Lot may stem from Jewish interpretive tradition, as it is difficult to see in the Genesis account.

Passages for Further Study
Gen 11:27 ^bb, 31 ^bc; 12:4-5 ^bd; 13:1-14 ^be; 14:12-16 ^bf; 19:1-38 ^bg; Deut 2:9 ^bh, 17-19 ^bi; Ps 83:4-8 ^bj; Luke 17:28-33 ^bk; 2 Pet 2:6-9 ^bl