The idols and false teachings we encounter, that can ultimately lead us down a path towards destruction, usually look harmless or even good when we first encounter them. They make promises to fulfill desires, give significance, right wrongs and soothe hurts. Our enemy uses these tools to exploit whatever weak spots we might have in our defenses and to gain access to our hearts. Peter warns us of these things and of the destruction they can work in us. We need God's truth to always be before us, in our ears, on our minds and on our lips, to help us discern when the false "good" and "truth" we are chasing are not what they seem.
ABOUT THIS SERIES: The Apostle Peter wrote the epistle (letter), we know as Second Peter, to an unspecified group of believers or churches, in the last years of his life. He is an older, wiser man at this point and speaks with an air of humility, much in contrast to the brash Peter we see in the Gospels. He has seen over the course of his lifetime how his own strength and wisdom have routinely come up short and he has learned that he has nothing to claim or to give, apart from Jesus. As he prepares for the horrific death that Jesus himself prophesied years earlier, he writes this letter as an exhortation to the church, reminding them (and us) to turn our back on all that is false, in and around us, and to pursue a true, deep, lasting knowledge of Jesus with all that we have.
