Unit 1, Choice 2

Choice 2: 2 Peter 2. Teaching

1.    Read 2 Peter 2:1–19. Record the characteristics of false teachers described by Peter. Explain in writing how your list helps you recognize false teachers today. 

- “privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.”

- “And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of.”

-”covetousness”

• “feigned words” 
• “make merchandise of you”
• “walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness” 
• “despise government” 
• “Presumptuous” 
• “selfwilled” 
• “not afraid to speak evil of dignities.”

- “railing accusation” 

- “speak evil of the things that they understand not”

 - “count it pleasure to riot in the day time” 

- “sporting themselves with their own deceivings while they feast with you;”

• “ eyes full of adultery” 
• “cannot cease from sin” 
• “beguiling unstable souls”
• “exercised with covetous practices”
• “cursed children”
• “forsaken the right way”
• “gone astray, following the way of Balaam the son of Bosor, who loved the ewages of unrighteousness;”
• “speak great swelling words of vanity”
• “callure through the lusts of the flesh, through much wantonness”

-“While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the bervants of corruption”

I really didn’t expect a list this long but it all makes sense. I think that the common thread and the things that are most helpful in recognizing false teachers today is that they are prideful, they take the glory for themselves instead of giving it to God. Also, they have not bridled their tongues. The tongue is a powerful tool that false teachers use to entice. The Lord invites while the devil entices. 

2.    Read 2 Peter 2:20–22; Doctrine and Covenants 82:3, 7. In your own words, write a few sentences describing the dangers of returning to the “pollutions of the world.” 

When we have the truth and the light and turn away from it we commit a greater sin then if we had not been given the truth. When we return to the “pollutions of the world” the sins that we repented of before are are returned to us. When we have the truth we are responsible for it. And when we sin against the truth that we have, we “receive the greater condemnation.”