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The General Epistles of Saints James, Peter, John, and Jude, Part 8: II Peter 2 & 3
Talk by Metropolitan Jonah (Paffhausen)
February 13, 2024

Topics include:
(1) On false prophets and teachers: Pretty much a description of our time! A false prophet is known by his conduct and by teaching rebellion against the Lord. The heresies of Peter's time included the Docetists (who said that Jesus Christ only "appeared" to be human, like a Greek deity), the Ebionites and Judaisers (who denied the divinity of Christ), and the Gnostics (who denied the incarnation). The latter thought that human flesh was evil and defiled and only the spirit was good. In doing so they were dualists and thought it therefore acceptable to do whatever they wanted in the body, including orgies and carnal preoccupations. And likewise, today, we see the preoccupation with pornography and the "sensualization of everything". And many hate Christianity, and the Orthodox in particular, for curbing their sexual freedom. Again, Christianity teaches that chastity is critically important; 
(2) On the books of Enoch, a mythology underlying the Old Testament, which Peter, Paul, and Jude quoted; 
(3) On judgement: What happened to Sodom and Gomorrah is an example to the ungodly. God knows how to punish the unrighteous and how to preserve the faithful. The unrighteous choose their own fate: the godly move towards God, the ungodly are moving towards the demons ... a synergy with God or the demons. Note that Lot didn't judge or condemn the unrighteous, but mourned over their unrighteous deeds; 
(4) On despising authority: The false teachers blasphemed God, the Theotokos, the angels, and the righteous. They created (and still create) a personality cult around themselves. They are sensual scoffers, refusing to believe, even though God calls out to all to repent and believe. They espouse a false freedom that includes sexual immorality. We, however, are called to adhere to the Apostolic teachings and live chaste and godly lives, looking for a new heavens and a new earth in which the righteous will dwell; 
(5) On strange interpretations of Scripture: A quote from Augustine about those who avoid godly living by strange interpretations of Pauls' s writings, thinking they are "saved" and so can live however they want. We are exhorted to keep the Apostolic faith, to not lose our faith and stability through false teachers. The emergence of liberal Protestantism at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century was the final straw that led many in America to throw off all sense of accountability to God for their actions. As Richard Niebuhr liked to characterize their teaching: A God without wrath bringing a people without sin into a kingdom without judgment by Christ without a cross.