2 Peter Chapter 2, March 30th, 2012

In the first chapter, the thrust of Peter's message was in support of the truth of the Gospel accounts. Here in the second chapter, he addresses the nature of the adversaries of that Gospel.

II 1 Now there were also false prophets among the people, as even among you there shall be false teachers who shall introduce destructive systems of philosophy, even denying the Master who has bought them, bringing upon themselves quick destruction, 2 and many shall follow in their licentiousness, because of whom the way of truth shall be blasphemed, 3 and with greediness they shall make profit from you with fictitious words, for whom from of old their judgment is not idle and their destruction does not sleep!

This statement of Peter's may seem on the surface to be oriented towards a universalist type of thinking, where it can be imagined that Peter is saying that Christ purchased the false prophets with His blood, and therefore the false prophets also may be redeemed. But that is not the case which Peter is making. Rather Peter states, “from of old their judgment is not idle”, as the destruction of the ungodly had been ordained long beforetime. Peter is discussing the body of the people as a whole, who have always had false prophets among them. The false prophets and wolves in sheep’s' clothing are apparently Israel, they claim to be Israel, but they are not truly Israel and therefore their judgement is ordained from of old. Denying the Master, they must be tares, and not wheat. Peter is talking in terms of what was apparent in his day, and not in terms of genetics. The books of genealogy were long lost.

An examination of the Old Testament shows that because the children of Israel did not remove all of the Canaanites as they were commanded, that those Canaanites were to be “pricks in their eyes and thorns in their sides”. That these pricks were always able in one way or another to infiltrate and to corrupt the people of the nation is also quite evident in scripture, and especially in the prophets such as Jeremiah and Ezekiel. Peter is recognizing that it is the Gospel which must separate the wheat from the tares, and at one time it certainly did. It still should do that today. Likewise, as long ago as the time of Daniel, upon finding out the two priests who attempted to use their positions of authority to corrupt a young woman, the prophet exclaimed at Susanna, 56: “... O thou seed of Chanaan, and not of Juda, beauty hath deceived thee, and lust hath perverted thine heart.” Peter is telling us how to identify the infiltrators: those who do not acknowledge the Word of God but who teach another gospel are false prophets, and false prophets come as infiltrators from the camp of the enemy. Yet we must be careful to understand that Peter is talking about the deceivers, and not merely the deceived.

William Finck with Sword Brethren

2 Peter Chapters 1 through 3 - Christogenea on Talkshoe 03-23-2012

Here are the comments of Eusebius on 2 Peter, from his Ecclesiastical History, Book 3: Chapter III. The Epistles of the Apostles.

“1 One epistle of Peter, that called the first, is acknowledged as genuine. And this the ancient elders used freely in their own writings as an undisputed work. But we have learned that his extant second Epistle does not belong to the canon; yet, as it has appeared profitable to many, it has been used with the other Scriptures. 2 The so-called Acts of Peter, however, and the Gospel which bears his name, and the Preaching and the Apocalypse, as they are called, we know have not been universally accepted, because no ecclesiastical writer, ancient or modern, has made use of testimonies drawn from them. 3 But in the course of my history I shall be careful to show, in addition to the official succession, what ecclesiastical writers have from time to time made use of any of the disputed works, and what they have said in regard to the canonical and accepted writings, as well as in regard to those which are not of this class.” From a footnote (20): “Although disputed by many, as already remarked, and consequently not looked upon as certainly canonical until the end of the fourth century, the epistle was yet used, as Eusebius says, quite widely from the time of Origen on, e.g. by Origen, Firmilian, Cyprian, Hippolytus, Methodius, etc. The same is true, however, of other writings, which the Church afterward placed among the Apocrypha.”

From the Oxford Dictionary of Politics: freedom of association

The freedom of individuals to associate as an end in itself or with a view to pursuing common projects, e.g. through churches, trade unions, political parties, and sporting clubs. Freedom of association is widely seen by liberal political philosophers as a core personal liberty, warranting strict protection by the state, though the exact contours of the freedom, and how it is appropriately balanced against other values, are a matter of considerable and continuing dispute. John Stuart Mill, in On Liberty, argues that citizens should have ‘freedom to unite for any purpose not involving harm to others’, a formulation which leaves open the question of what counts as sufficient harm to others to justify state interference. John Rawls (1921-2002), in Political Liberalism (1993), argues that freedom of association is a ‘basic liberty’ because, and to the extent that, it is an extension of liberty of conscience. [An excellent assessment, and conscience must include religious conscience. – WRF]

The Color of Crime: New Century Foundation's report on differences in crime rates by race, bias in the justice system, and interracial crime. First published as a monograph in 1999, the new 2005 edition of The Color of Crime is now available on-line as a free PDF download.

Poverty is not an excuse for high Negro or Hispanic crime rates. Click here for a report from the U.S. Census Bureau, Table 695. Money Income of Families—Number and Distribution by Race and Hispanic Origin: 2009, from Income, Expenditures, Poverty, and Wealth, U.S. Census Bureau, Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2012. This report clearly shows that there are many more White families living in poverty than all minority groups combined.

Click here for an Open Office-formatted spreadsheet of some crime statistics  from http://fbi.gov which were collected and cited for this program. The statistics are publicly available at the FBI website.

Click here for the December, 2011 U.S. Department of Justice report, Correctional Population in the United States, 2010, in PDF format.

Finally, click here for a collection of items posted at the Saxon Messenger website, entitled The Beasts that Dwell Among Us, several of the reports which were cited for this program.