Texts in Conversation
In 2 Peter, people who know Jesus and return to the world's corruption end worse than before. In the Shepherd of Hermas, the Shepherd similarly says that those who know God and still do evil are punished twice as heavily as those who never knew him.
Share:
2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Shepherd of Hermas 95:2
Early Christian
1 “How, Sir,” I said, “did they become worse once they had fully known God?” “Whoever does not know God,” he said, “and commits wickedness, is punished for his wrongdoing. But whoever fully knows God ought not to commit wickedness any longer, but to do good. 2 So if the one who should do good commits evil, does he not seem to do more wickedness than the person who does not know God? That is why those who have not known God and commit wickedness are condemned to death; but those who have known God and have seen His mighty works, yet still do evil, will receive double punishment and will die eternally. In this way the Church of God will be purified. 3 Just as you saw the stones removed from the tower and handed over to evil spirits, these too will be thrown out; then there will be one body of those who are purified, just as the tower, after being cleansed, was as though of a single stone. So it will be with the Church of God too, after she is purified and the wicked and hypocrites and blasphemers and double-minded and those who commit various sins are cast out.
2 Peter 2:20
New Testament
17 These men are waterless springs and mists driven by a storm, for whom the utter depths of darkness have been reserved. 18 For by speaking high-sounding but empty words they are able to entice, with fleshly desires and with debauchery, people who have just escaped from those who reside in error. 19 Although these false teachers promise such people freedom, they themselves are enslaved to immorality. For whatever a person succumbs to, to that he is enslaved. 20 For if after they have escaped the filthy things of the world through the rich knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they again get entangled in them and succumb to them, their last state has become worse for them than their first. 21 For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than, having known it, to turn back from the holy commandment that had been delivered to them. 22 They are illustrations of this true proverb: “A dog returns to its own vomit,” and “A sow, after washing herself, wallows in the mire.”
Search:
Notes and References
“... These verses continue the problem of the lapsed. Those with ignorance of the truth are less culpable than those who know. By the final rejection of baptized offenders, the church will be cleansed. Though there has been throughout a concern for purification of the church, here there is a hardening of position that begins in v. 2 and continues in the next chapters, with the threat of eschatological death to those who finally cannot conform and so fit into the tower. [...] See 2 Pet 2:20-22; cited by Brox, 443. ...”
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
Your Feedback:
Leave a Comment
Anonymous comments are welcome. All comments are subject to moderation.
User Comments
,