False
Teachers
Stephen
Terry
Commentary
for the June 10, 2017 Sabbath School Lesson
“They
are the kind who worm their way into homes and gain control over gullible
women, who are loaded down with sins and are swayed by all kinds of evil
desires, always learning but never able to come to a knowledge of the truth. Just
as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so also these teachers oppose the truth.
They are men of depraved minds, who, as far as the faith is concerned, are
rejected.” 2 Timothy 3:6-8, NIV
The world is full of promises. So many in fact that it
seems like a magical cornucopia filled with endless delights when we are young.
However as we experience betrayals and broken promises our view of the global
glamour becomes somewhat jaded. We learn that there are far too many who are
willing to tell us what we want to hear in order to pursue their agenda, an
agenda that may not have anything to do with what we actually desire. In fact,
it may run completely contrary to the direction we were headed.
This has a very deep history. Per the biblical account,
it goes back to the very beginning when the serpent deceived the first woman
into enjoying a very poisonous meal.[i] It didn’t matter that the
table set before her was vegan or paleo. It was not going to take her in the direction
she needed to go. She was promised more abundant life, a life filled with
knowledge enough to make her god-like. But instead she found only death and
despair. Then as the serpent had enticed her to serve its own ends, she, in
turn, enticed the man to join her in her ruin. The man, faced with the dilemma
of going his own way or following his wife, chose the latter. Perhaps he did it
for love. Perhaps he did it for fear of being alone. He may have even done it because
he succumbed to the same argument from the woman that the serpent used on her.
The Bible really doesn’t say. However, based on their responses to God later,
they both felt a sense of betrayal and sought to blame someone else for their
choices, even God, who gave the woman to the man. It seems that the special
knowledge they gained from their unnatural meal was blame, selfishness, deceit,
and avoidance of responsibility.
Humanity has been around for a very long time and the
honing of these traits has developed a razor sharp edge to these nefarious
skills. Some, especially politicians and demagogues have managed to develop
huge followings by appealing to the basest and most selfish desires of people,
and when their promises turn out to be empty, they show their skill at blaming.
The church has long listed some of the worst of these desires they manipulate and
called them the Seven Deadly Sins: Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy,
and Pride. The list has been immortalized as levels in Dante’s “Purgatorio,”
one of the volumes of his “Divine Comedy.” An appeal to any of these desires
should be immediately suspect as being a poisoned fruit of the same ilk as that
original deception in the legendary Garden of Eden with its seductive tree.
Many years ago, during the era of the Vietnam War, I was
in the Army and undergoing training at Fort Sam Houston, outside of San
Antonio, Texas to become a combat medic. I was there because I preferred to
save lives rather than take them. Since many Seventh-day Adventist young men
were also training there due to the church’s position on non-combatancy, a position
almost completely repudiated today by the practicing church, the church then operated
a servicemen’s center as a retreat for those soldiers. On my very first visit from
the fort to the center, I had to transfer busses in the downtown area. While
waiting for the next bus, I was approached by a man who offered me a great deal
of money to come and help him get his car started. I told him I couldn’t help
him because I would miss my bus. He begged and pleaded for me to go with him, showing
me the wad of money he had. I got on my bus and left for the center. The next
day, I saw in the paper that the same man had been arrested for luring people
into allies and robbing them. Apparently someone had resisted, and he had
stabbed his victim. This man was obviously appealing to the human tendency
toward greed. Perhaps under different circumstances, I might have succumbed to
his offer and become his victim. I would like to say that I never gave into
appeals to my greed, but my tarnished halo would give me away. In fact, on different
occasions, I have likely given in to every one of those deadly temptations. But
it is not a checklist of accomplishments. Rather they are signposts on the way
to perdition, warnings of danger ahead that we should learn to heed.
We need those warnings because those failings are common
to us all.[ii] Even church leaders, both
lay leaders and clerics, fall into these sins. Almost everyone can name a
pastor or elder who succumbed to lust with a woman, destroying existing
relationships and tearing children away from one parent or another. Gluttony is
also common as evidenced by expansive waistlines and potluck plates heaped to
the sky with humongous servings. At a potluck I attended many years ago in Alaska,
one man brought his own cafeteria tray, because a plate could not hold all the
food he wished to eat. But many others, even with only a plate, willingly vie
to outdo him. Sloth is seen in those who would rather live off of the largesse of
others rather than labor for their support. This has tainted most of the poor
with a perhaps undeserved reputation of not wanting to work because they are
lazy. While some people certainly may deserve that label, it was not my
experience for the majority seeking services from me when I was employed by the
Department of Social and Health Services for the State of Washington. Most would
do whatever they could to avoid the dole.
Wrath is manifest in many different ways. It can be seen
in the attitude of those who have toward those who have not, working to limit
the opportunities for any have not to become a have, especially if it takes
money out of the pocket of the haves. It can also be seen in racism which directs
subtle and overt wrath toward those not of one’s own race. Sadly, even the
churches, which some might expect to be repositories of grace are afflicted
with this sin as much as any.
Envy and pride can be seen in the jostling and striving for position and
control all the way from local church boards up to the international offices of
the church. Demands for submission to the authority of the church as though it were
the authority of God, in spite of the obvious failings of humanity on so many
levels, ring hollow as the manipulation for control and power become all too
apparent. It is so discernible because we are all seeking it to some degree or
another. Denying it only makes the denier look like a hypocrite. Even in the
church, we have learned that if we want to pursue an agenda, we can appeal to
the baser desires of those we wish to manipulate.
So where is the brightness in this gloomy picture? That
light shone two thousand years ago in Galilee and those who would rather keep
the darkness I just described thought they would put it out on a rude cross
outside the walls of the Roman provincial town of Jerusalem. Corrupted by their
lust for power, the priesthood in that place readily condemned Jesus to die
because he challenged the very basis their power was built upon – the manipulation
of those sinful desires for personal gain. Unfortunately for them and
fortunately for us, he didn’t stay dead. Through his ongoing intervention,
whether direct or indirect through the actions of those who choose to belong to
him, he continues to speak truth and light to power to this day. That truth,
perhaps expressed most profoundly in the Sermon on the Mount,[iii] tells us we do not need
to treat others as our adversary in a struggle for power. Without that
struggle, there is enough for everyone’s needs. The enlightened business owner
will not seek to make an insane income by depriving their employees or gouging
their customers. The employees will not ask for remuneration that the business
cannot possibly sustain. The customer will accept a fair price and be happy to
pay for a useful, convenient and quality product.
How can this happen? Simply by choosing to abandon the agenda of selfishness
and surrendering to the leading of Jesus. We recognize that we have had self on
the throne in our hearts for our entire lives, and now we wish to dethrone that
tyrant and replace him with Jesus in the form of the Holy Spirit. He will give
us a heart of love for others that will help us to grow a more heavenly
character that will one day, when Jesus returns to make it so, pass over from this
troubled world to one made new and heavenly. I can hardly wait.
