2 Peter 2:21: For It Would Have Been Better For Them Never To Have Known The Way Of Righteousness

2 Peter 2:21

[21] For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them. (ESV)

Knowledge is powerful. If it is used rightly great things can be accomplished. If it is ignored or abused, quite the opposite result can be expected. These false teachers had been around the truth. They had heard the truth. There is no way that any of them could stand before God and suggest that they were innocent because they never heard the truth.

The problem was that these false teachers heard the truth and refused to follow it. The Apostle Peter tells us that the false teachers, even though they had heard the truth, turned back from the holy commandment delivered to them. It is not enough to hear the truth. There is a necessity to obey the truth. This is an important biblical principle.

The Apostle James tells us in James1:22: "But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves." Notice, that the false teachers were those who heard the word, but they were not doers of the word. As a result, they did exactly what James said. They deceived themselves. Those who would deceive others begin by deceiving themselves.

It would have been better for the false teachers if they would have never heard the truth. If they had not heard the truth, they would not have distorted the truth. The most dangerous people in the church today are not the people who are outside the church, never hearing the truth. The most dangerous ones are those who have heard the truth and willfully refuse to obey it. They are deceived people who deceive others.

What is your response to the truth of the word of God? Are you walking in obedience to it? James warns us that to hear the word, and not live in obedience to it, is to walk in deception. Don't be deceived. Don't be a deceiver.