Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“These people, however, are like irrational animals, mere creatures of instinct, born to be caught and killed. They slander what they do not understand, and when those creatures are destroyed, they also will be destroyed, suffering the penalty for doing wrong.”
NL Daily Devotion for Wednesday, July 12, 2023
by R. M. Fergus, Clergy Stuff
Yikes! More grim words from 2 Peter. Culturally-embedded questionable attitudes toward animals aside, I get the feeling that nothing is more evil in the writer’s eyes than being a false prophet. And while I don’t hold to the harsh punishment language, I think I might agree with the general sentiment.
The fact is that God speaks to us and through us and when we share God’s words we are, all of us, prophets to one another. So if we deliberately twist God’s words in order to build ourselves up at the expense of others, if we wield God’s words as weapons of oppression rather than tools of liberation, then we are false prophets, and, well I can’t imagine God would be pleased, to put it mildly.
But rather than go looking for all those out there who seem to be so clearly engaged in this kind of false prophecy, we’d do best to start looking in our own back yard. Are there times and places where we are tempted to use God’s words to release us from accountability to our neighbors rather than hold us to it? Do we ever go looking for passages in scripture to justify some action or failure to act that might harm someone else? Not that we ought to beat ourselves up in the way that the writer describes the punishment for false prophets in 2 Peter. But we ought to be completely honest with ourselves about our motives any time we share with another person what we think God might be saying to and through us.
How do I make sure I am speaking from a place of honesty when I share my understanding of God’s words?
