Lesson 4 – Only 32 questions – Part 3 – God’s purpose

2 Peter 2:14-16 Revised Standard Version

14 They have eyes full of adultery, insatiable for sin. They entice unsteady souls. They have hearts trained in greed. Accursed children! 15 Forsaking the right way they have gone astray; they have followed the way of Balaam, the son of Be′or, who loved gain from wrongdoing, 16 but was rebuked for his own transgression; a dumb ass spoke with human voice and restrained the prophet’s madness.

9.  53 questions is too many, but the numerous examples of depravity has its purpose. Insatiable sin, entice souls, and hearts of greed. Why does Peter go into such detail?

We started with a bunch of blank stares. No one seemed to understand the question, much less the point I was trying to convey. The topic is still false teachers, false prophets, destructive heresies, and the unrighteous bound for destruction. Peter is reminding us that they see the world differently than we do. To them adultery is ok, sinning is not a thing, they actively want people to be like them and not “do gooders”, and they are fine wanting more and more of whatever makes them feel better for the moment. They do not have our goals nor do they have the desire to be holy. Peter wants to warn us that not only do we need to watch for false teachers, false prophets, and destructive heresies, we actually have to know that everyone who is not a Christian is running full speed into destruction, and we have to ensure we do not get drug along with them. Being holy is not a one time decision, it is a series of ever continuing decisions on what to be set apart from.

10.  Gone astray. (Have Allen tell you about Balaam and Bo’er.) God uses people for His own purposes. Would you expect God to speak to truth to someone and them later turn away from Him and be punished?

I probably should not have singled out Allen, but since I was out that one week, I figured he needed the poke. Unless one has very recently read about them, Balaam and Bo’er are not highly memorable characters. They were out done by a talking donkey and an angel with a flaming sword. I also misread the question, so no one knew what was going on. The idea was how could someone have a unmistakable, supernatural connection to God and still turn from Him? Balaam was a prophet of God who eventually turned away from that relationship for the gifts presented by the enemies of Israel. His story is like that of the Israelites as they followed God in the desert and still turned away from Him at every opportunity. The sad thing is that it happens to people every day. It happens in the lives of everyone every day. We know God, He lives in us, and yet we still sin. We follow what we think, and it is not holy. We must recognize our sinful nature and learn to discern the will of God as revealed to us by the Holy Spirit.

11.  A prophet of God gone mad and rebuked by a human voice coming from a dumb ass. If I had not read it in the Bible, I might think there was a pun in there somewhere. Is God using an animal to speak to the prophet have any special significance?

We obviously got sidetracked by the language used in this version of the Bible. I always assumed donkeys were stupid based on this phrase and how it was used negatively towards people. I know the verse was referencing the “smartness” of the donkey, but for the older folks in the country, dumb used to mean that you could not speak, and the other term was not a cuss word and simply referred to a particular kind of animal, i.e., donkeys can’t speak, and Peter was just saying God spoke through an animal and animals cannot speak. The conclusion is that this was a miracle like any other and the significance was that God can do anything.

12. Many others doubted when God spoke to them. Why was this prophet punished so?

 In my thoughts and discussion, I was referencing the general who the prophet Deborah had to prod to get to lead God’s army. The general was reluctant and asked for sign after sign to get it done. The question is “Why was the general’s disbelief different from that of the prophet Balaam”. (Note I used prophet loosely here as Balaam passed on the words of God, but He was not the same as the prophet Deborah or Samuel, etc.) The biggest issue for me was that Balaam knew he had heard from God, he knew what God wanted, and he went against it anyway, and God had no further use for him. Jonah ran from his duty to God as well, but God used him anyway. In the end, God had a purpose for each of these, and only when his purpose was accomplished, did He implement punishment. Jonah believed in God, but he sinned. His belief might be slightly different than ours, but only one punishment matters. Will we be eternally punished for rejecting Christ or will we be saved by His sacrifice? Earthly punishment has many forms, but God’s purpose can be served by them all.