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2 Peter 2:12<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n But these men blaspheme in matters they do not understand. They are like brute beasts, creatures of instinct, born only to be caught and destroyed, and like beasts they too will perish.<\/span><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n Truth to Learn<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Those who do not respect God\u2019s word will perish.<\/p>\n Behind the Words<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n The expression \u201cbrute beasts<\/span>\u201d comes from the Greek aloga z\u014da<\/span><\/em>. Aloga<\/span><\/em> means \u201cone who does not reason\u201d or \u201cirrational\u201d and z\u014da <\/span><\/em>(from which we get our English word zoo) refers to \u201ca living creature or \u201can animal.\u201d Hence they are irrational animals.<\/p>\n \u201cCreatures of instinct<\/span>\u201d is translated from phusikos<\/span><\/em>, meaning \u201cnatural, yielding only to animal instincts.\u201d<\/p>\n The words \u201cdestroyed<\/span>\u201d and \u201cperish<\/span>\u201d are both from the root phthora<\/span><\/em>, meaning \u201ccorruption, destruction, ruin, or decay.\u201d It is a picture of a piece of rotting fruit sitting out in the hot sun; in fact, Peter uses words from this root three times in this verse. A literal translation of the end of this verse is \u201cthey shall utterly perish in their corruption.\u201d In other words, \u201cin their rottenness, they shall completely rot away.\u201d<\/p>\n Meaning Explained<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Peter now gives a very graphic description of these false teachers, what drives them, and what will ultimately happen to them. He says that they are \u201clike brute beasts, creatures of instinct<\/span>\u201d In other words, Peter says that they are irrational animals who are totally controlled by physical impulses and desires without intellectual reasoning of any kind. And, like animals, they were born only to be caught and destroyed, which is precisely what God will do to them at the end of their lives.<\/p>\n He also says \u201cthese men blaspheme in matters they do not understand<\/span>.\u201d These teachers are not at all shy about condemning and speaking evil of others, even though they have no real understanding of the things about which they speak so disrespectfully.<\/p>\n Peter is not very kind at all in his description of these false teachers. He says they take the precious message of hope and peace from a loving God and turn it into a watered down, warm and fuzzy, feel-good-about-yourself message that is designed simply to provide for their own physical desires. These foolish people are totally missing the spiritual implications of what they are supposed to be doing. Peter says that they will rot like spoiled fruit.<\/p>\n We all have jobs to provide income to feed and clothe us and our families. These false teachers saw their ministry as simply a job, and they were just making a living. So what\u2019s wrong with that? Anyone who teaches or preaches the Word of God should not be doing what they do because it is a job or to earn a living. They need to recognize that it is a ministry that they are entrusted with by God, the Creator of heaven and earth. It is a sacred responsibility with eternal consequences both for the minister and those being ministered to.<\/p>\n Application<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n How do you view the Word of God? Do you look at the Bible with respect and awe; a message for mankind from God Himself?<\/p>\n Keep in mind that God will not treat with kindness those who treat His message as anything but precious and sacred!<\/p>\n In God\u2019s service, for His glory,<\/strong><\/p>\n Copyright \u00a9 2009 Will Krause. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –<\/p>\n <\/span>If this message or this link was forwarded to you by a friend and you wish to receive future verses directly to your inbox, you can call the church phone <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 2 Peter 2:12 But these men blaspheme in matters they do not understand. They are like brute beasts, creatures of instinct, born only to be caught and destroyed, and like beasts they too will perish. Truth to Learn Those who do not respect God\u2019s word will perish. Behind the Words The expression \u201cbrute beasts\u201d comes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[298,299,144,300,301],"class_list":["post-950","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-animals","tag-beasts","tag-blaspheme","tag-precious-word","tag-rotten"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pd5geA-fk","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/950","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=950"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/950\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"signature\"](\"\/signature.gif\")
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