“But there were also false prophets in Israel, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will cleverly teach destructive heresies and even deny the Master who bought them. In this way, they will bring sudden destruction on themselves. Many will follow their evil teaching and shameful immorality. And because of these teachers, the way of truth will be slandered. In their greed they will make up clever lies to get hold of your money. But God condemned them long ago, and their destruction will not be delayed.“ (2 Peter 2:1-3, NLT)
I ran into this passage this week as I studied John 10:1-10 for Sunday’s sermon. What caught my attention is that phrase “clever lies”…more literally “deceptive words.” The Greek is plastos. It means molded or created or formed. It’s the word from which we get “plastic.”
Plastic words – molded and created to mean whatever we want them to mean. We’ve got plastic truth with no absolutes. We’ve created plastic theology so we feel good about ourselves. We have a plastic morality in which we pick and choose what we want. We’ve even created a plastic Jesus and made him in our own image.
What we need – what the world needs – is something with more substance. Something real, strong, durable. We’re tired of cheap knock-offs. Give us the real thing.
That’s one of the reasons I’m loving this sermon series on Jesus’ “I am” statements: It’s Jesus unplugged…and there’s nothing plastic about him.
