2 Peter 3:3 knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires.
By studying God’s word, we will be better prepared for the scoffers who will come in the last days. Just being aware that these people are around is a helpful thing. It seems like many traditional ideas are being challenged under the umbrella of “progressivism” and innovation. The idea we often hear is that we as believers need to step up and conform to culture and be relevant. The church is out of step. This claim is not new but it is being heard more and more. As with many things, there is a bit of truth to this idea. We do need to grow and find new ways of sharing the message. But the message does not change, nor do the ethics that come from this message. The temptation today is to lower the standard of truth and behavior in order to be more relevant to culture. This idea is creeping into many churches. There have generally been two types of responses. One is to retreat to the safety of tradition. What has become tradition was once innovation. We must discern carefully what is valid from tradition. Sometimes tradition has gotten things wrong, and people throughout time just perpetuate the error. They may even refine it with detailed theological reasoning so that it sounds like the truth. But it is really just based on human thinking to solve some long distant problem of a given time in history. The second response is to be so innovative that the truth becomes distorted as it is relativized for a situation. Finding a balance of these two poles is the challenge. Peter has been focusing in this letter especially on those who distort the truth about Jesus. This is the most critical matter. There are many things we can debate about theology, but when it comes to who Christ is, there can be no compromise. The deep issue is that these scoffers are following their own sinful desires. They are doing this for themselves, what they can get out of it for themselves. It could be money, position, power, honor, or many other things. Bad motive leads to bad results. The best answer for determining a lie is to know the truth.
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