SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 11/28/2025 3:16
PM
My
Worship Time
Focus: “Their Stigma”
Bible
Reading & Meditation
Focus: 2 Peter 2:2c
Message of the verse: “and because of them the way of the truth
will be maligned;”
The Way of the truth refers to right doctrine and the
accurate proclamation of the gospel (Acts 9:2; 19:9, 23; 22:4; 14, 22; cf.
Matt. 7:14; John 14:6; Acts 16:17; 18:25-26).
But because of false teachers, and the spiritual wreckage they
leave behind, the biblical message has often been reproached in the eyes of the
world. As Lenski wrote:
“True Christianity
is blasphemed, reviled, cursed, condemned by outsiders who see professed
Christians running to all manner of excesses.
‘If that is Christianity,’ they will say, ‘curse it!’ When many follow such excesses, outsiders are
unable to distinguish and so blaspheme the whole ‘way.’ These false exponents
seem true products of the way to them. (R. C. H. Lenski, The Interpretation of
the Epistles of St. Peter, St. John, and St. Jude [reprint, Minneapolis: Augsburg,
1966], 307).”
By their
deceptive teaching and immoral behavior, false teachers have maligned (literally
“blasphemed,” or “defamed”) the gospel.
Of course, their mode of operation is consistent with Satan’s
mission. On the one hand, he seeks to
undermine the church from the inside, by introducing deceptive heresies and
false doctrines. On the other hand, he
seeks to tarnish the church’s reputation from the outside, by periodically
unmasking false teachers before a watching world. When unbelievers associate
the conduct of false teachers with the practice of the true church, the name of
Christ is inevitably defamed.
To counter these relentless, satanic
efforts, the church must be doctrinally pure, and Christians must live the kind
of righteous lives that make the transforming power of Christ believable. With this in mind, the apostle Paul exhorted
the Philippians, Prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of
God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among
whom you appear as lights in the world” (Phil. 2:15; cf Matt. 5:16; Eph. 2:10;
5:8; 1 Thess. 2:12; Titus 2:5, 7, 14; 1 Peter 2:9-12).
11/28/2025
3:39 PM
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