Tickle Me: 2 Peter 2:10b-16

Are your ears ticklish? I don’t think mine are. If you want to torture me it’s my underarms that are most ticklish. Some people crumble when you squeeze their knees. Others have ticklish necks (my grandkids).

False teachers know how to tickle our ears. They know how to say what we want to hear. Peter is still helping us to recognize false teachers and prepare ourselves to deal with them.

[The Lord knows how…to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment,] and especially those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority.

Bold and willful, they do not tremble as they blaspheme the glorious ones, whereas angels, though greater in might and power, do not pronounce a blasphemous judgment against them before the Lord. But these, like irrational animals, creatures of instinct, born to be caught and destroyed, blaspheming about matters of which they are ignorant, will also be destroyed in their destruction, suffering wrong as the wage for their wrongdoing. They count it pleasure to revel in the daytime. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their deceptions, while they feast with you. They have eyes full of adultery, insatiable for sin. They entice unsteady souls. They have hearts trained in greed. Accursed children! Forsaking the right way, they have gone astray. They have followed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved gain from wrongdoing, but was rebuked for his own transgression; a speechless donkey spoke with human voice and restrained the prophet’s madness. (2 Peter 2:10b-16, ESV)

Peter is elaborating on the characteristics of false teachers in general. He wants his readers to recognize them, resist them and reject them. The very souls of believers are in danger from these teachers. They may generally be characterized by lust (“defiling passion”) and rebelliousness (“despise authority”).

Peter gives as examples the way the teachers his flock were listening to were foolishly bold and willful when it came to speaking of or to demonic angels, as if the power they had against them was their own. Even the elect angels of God, who have greater might and power than we do, would not blaspheme evil angels, respecting their power, and, we should suppose, trusting God’s power above their own to deal with these fallen but glorious ones. But false teachers want to make a show of their supposed spiritual power. That awes people.

Further, these false teachers act like irrational animals who follow instinct rather than reason, bringing blasphemous teaching without real knowledge (despising authority, rebellious) and looking for opportunities to indulge their sexual desires in the midst of the church, seemingly insatiable in their lust.  And they are seeking personal financial gain, so they often have ways of raising money for their cause.

They pretend to be believers in order to entice “unsteady souls.” This is exactly what Balaam did. He wanted the money king Balak offered him to curse Israel but when he couldn’t do that he encouraged the king to use his people’s women to entice Israelite men and it worked (see Numbers 22-24, 31). These teachers are after gain from wrongdoing and have a madness like Balaam for money, deserving to be spoken to only by a donkey, like the one Yahweh used to warn Balaam of the danger of judgment in front of him.

Are we unsteady or steady souls? Are we susceptible to sexual enticement and, acknowledging that, do we guard against it? Or do we too readily follow our desires? Do we blame others for our failures in this regard? Do we think we can handle spiritual forces against us in our own strength? Peter is trying to teach us a different path to follow.

People follow false teaching because it “tickles their ears” (2 Timothy 4:2-4), that is, it allows them to do sinful things the true teaching denies them. Of course, if they are true believers God will make them miserable about doing this and they will return to the truth. But it will be a miserable experience, nonetheless, and one they will have wished they had avoided. Be on guard!