Living With Troublemakers
2 Peter 2:1-3, 12-14; Jude 16-25
Every church has its dissenters, and that can be good when their ideas help a church stay on track and accomplish its purpose. Every church also has some dissenters who are troublemakers. These two truths call for adults to learn how to respond to, and even live with, them. Such is not easy when they launch false ideas that disrupt and cause problems in a church. We dare not ignore them, however, hoping they’ll go away or expecting others – the pastor, staff, and/or lay leaders – to deal with them. Instead, we need to react in ways that will be of most benefit to our church.
The troublemakers in Peter’s day, much like our day, were first found in the church. In 2:1, Peter stresses that there were false teachers (counterfeits) during Israel’s sojourn to the promised land. Even though the times may be different, the message of false teachers is the same – heresy.
Certainly there is nothing wrong with believers having constructive conversation about debatable issues, but the nonnegotiables such as the lordship of Jesus Christ should not be tolerated and need to be dealt with quickly.
Many times, the motivation of false teachers is greed (2:3), in order to draw a crowd for themselves. False teachers have always been among God’s people, so we must be diligent and on guard against them.
One of the easiest ways to identify false teachers is by evaluating their lifestyle. As Jesus emphasized in Matthew 7:15-16, you will know troublemakers by the fruit of their lives.
False teachers who have succumbed to a spirit of greed will often exhibit uncontrolled lust in other areas of their lives. This is Peter’s point in 2:14, describing the false teachers as having eyes full of adultery and an insatiable appetite for sin. Jude concluded that these false teachers were actually imposters, not genuinely saved at all.
In response to this, Jude writes that believers are to build themselves up in the faith, providing a clear contrast to the false teachers (Jude 20). They are to maintain their relationship with God through prayer and remain committed to growing spiritually. They are also called to help those who may be struggling with their faith (Jude 22).
Lastly, as believers we can rest assured of God’s power to protect and save us from falling to the schemes of troublemakers. We are called to depend on the Lord for His help (Jude 24-25).
Sands– Lessons in the ETB series for the fall quarter are being written by Alex Sands, pastor of Kingdom Life Christian Center, Mauldin.