Sermon Tone Analysis

How do you detect a counterfeit?

How do you detect something that is fake or false?

Do you study the counterfeit?

Or do you study the genuine article?

When the banks or government officials want to train people in the art of spotting counterfeit money guess what they have them study?

They have them study the real thing.

And they give them specific steps on how to do so.

The approach to distinguishing a genuine bill is summarized with the phrase, “touch, tilt, look at, look through.”

Touch- does it feel like the real thing?

Tilt- does it have the specific marks that reveal it to be the real thing?

Then look at, and look through- all in an effort to analyze each bill for the real thing.

How do you detect counterfeit doctrine?

How do you detect when a teaching is something that is fake or false?

Do you study the false teaching?

Or do you study the genuine article?

How carefully should we be studying the Word of God so that we can confidently know the truth?

How accurately should we be able to discern truth from error?

When we hear a teaching, or when we see a trend, or when we see our friends or family making spiritual changes in their lives do we touch, tilt, look at, or look through that doctrinal teaching all in an effort to analyze each teaching for the real thing?

This is exactly how Peter closes his letter to the believers in Central Asia.

Peter commands these local church believers to make sure that the teachings they are following are the real thing.

Every believer is responsible to make sure that the teaching/the doctrine they are following is the real thing.

How do we do that?

How do we become experts at identifying and living out the real thing, that is, how do we become experts at following the real teachings of the Word of God?

Peter gives us three imperative to follow in vv.

15-18

I.

We must carefully consider the original/authorial intent of the Scripture (vv.

15-16)

What is the issue Peter is dealing with in this letter?

And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation;

15 καὶ τὴν τοῦ κυρίου ⸀ἡμῶν μακροθυμίαν σωτηρίαν ἡγεῖσθε,*

And consider/reckon (IMPERATIVE) the patience (longsuffering) of our Lord as salvation.

Why is it so important to Peter that these believers reckon or consider to be true that the patience or longsuffering of the Lord as salvation?

Has this issue come up previously in Peter’s letter?

What is the argument of the false teachers in v. 4? What specifically are they calling into question?

Why are they calling this into question?

What evidence do they offer to support their teaching?

How does Peter combat this argument?

What does it mean that the Lord is not slack?

What is God not slow about?

What promise specifically is in mind here?

How would some men characterize God’s slowness?

How should we think about God’s “slowness”?

What is the difference between thinking of God as slow verses thinking of God as longsuffering?

What is the purpose of God’s longsuffering?

So coming back to v. 15 what is the issue?

What is the reason Peter gives that we should interpret Scripture this way, and not the way the false teachers want us to interpret it?

The false teachers want the believers to think that God is never going to keep His promise of coming back or returning so as a result you can follow any desire of your lusts that you want because if God does not come back then there is no accountability.

Peter says- no!

That is false, that is counterfeit doctrine.

Don’t believe them, instead consider the longsuffering of the Lord as salvation.

Why should we?

What is the thing that will help us determine which teaching to believe?

Peter’s answer is very interesting.

Listen to what Peter says,

How does Peter answer the question of why?

Why should we discredit the false teacher’s doctrine and instead accept his own doctrine?

How do we tell the counterfeit?

What does Peter say?

Any idea?

Why does Peter start talking about the Apostle Paul?

Isn’t that weird?

What in the world does that have to do with what you are talking about Peter?

At first glace this doesn’t seem like relevant information.

But look more closely.

Peter says this, “even as our beloved brother Paul … has written unto you...” What has Paul written unto the churches in Asia Minor?

Look at v. 16

What epistles are Peter talking about?

What are the “these things” that Paul is writing about in these epistles?

How many things are hard to be understood?

Not a lot, not all- for the most part Scripture is easy to understand.

But the Bible does have easy things to understand- the milk of the Word.

And it does have hard things to understand- the meat of the Word.

How much of Paul’s Epistles is Meat?

Some things.

When the false teachers try to interpret the hard things of Paul’s epistles what do they end up doing to them?

They wrest them.

What does it mean to wrest something?

Twist, make taut’ of cables, then in various senses of wrenching dislocated limbs for the purpose of setting them, and of the use of tortuous devices in the course of inquiries.

1). to cause inward pain, torture, torment (Diod S 16, 61, 3 tortured by anxiety) 2). to distort a statement so that a false mng.

results, twist, distort

Why do the false teachers twist the teachings of Paul?

They are unlearned/ignorant and they are unstable/weak

What can we assume is required to understand the hard things of Scripture?

Do these false teachers only twist Paul’s letters?

No they twist the rest of Scripture.

Do you think it is significant that Apostle Peter recognizes the Apostle Paul’s Epistles to be on par with the rest of Scripture?

Why?

This is important- who’s opinion matters the most when determining the proper interpretation of the Scriptures?

Did the false teachers interpretation matter in defining meaning?

Or did the Apostle Paul’s interpretation matter in defining meaning?

What about the rest of Scripture?

If these false teachers are twisting the rest of Scripture, then who’s interpretation matters in defining meaning?

The author’s interpretation in what matters.

It is the original intent or the authorial intent of Scripture that matters when determining meaning.

Why does this matter so much?

Why is this an important principle or hermeneutic to apply when trying to determine a counterfeit doctrine?

Imagine if truth was determined by the reader.

Imagine if Paul wrote his epistles to mean one thing, but then these false teachers came along and interpreted it to mean whatever they wanted it to mean and that became the new truth.

Would that cause problems?

Imagine that I created a new line of hair dye.

Let’s say I made a hair dye that was made primarily from the juice of a beet.

What color would that dye most likely change someone’s hair into?