Week 50 2 Peter 2
All the books of the NT have some pretty weighty content. For instance Peter: when people escape from the wicked ways of the world by learning about our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and then get tangled up with sin and become its slave again, they are worse off than before.
According to Peter if a guy breaks free from his old life but then goes back he’s not as-bad-off…he’s worse off: it would be better if he had never known the right way to live than to know it and reject it.
Let’s say that the numbers 1-25 are listed left-to-right across a page. The guy starts at #1 and follows the Lord – moving left-to-right and up the numbers…1-2-3-4-5-6. He gets to #6. For some reason he quits following the Lord. Back he goes: 6-5-4-3-2-1. Right back to where he started…right? Wrong says Peter.
It’s like the guy gets to #6. He decides to quit following the Lord so…back to #1. But he doesn’t stop at Square One. He keeps moving right-to-left past #1 to zero…maybe even farther into the negative numbers.
What’s his terminal point? No idea…but Peter says that #1 isn’t where he stops. It’s like any temporary progress he made contributes to making the regress even worse.
This is really seriously hard to figure…that a guy would potentially be better off and farther ahead by not following the Lord to begin with. It’s a hard pill-to-swallow and especially hard if it’s factually accurate.
Note: quote from 2 Peter 2:20 21 (NLT)