If that's not a Word for Today's Church, I don't know what is...


From Today's Daily Office Reading:
2 Peter 2:1-10a (NRSV)

1But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive opinions. They will even deny the Master who bought them-bringing swift destruction on themselves. 2Even so, many will follow their licentious ways, and because of these teachers the way of truth will be maligned.

3And in their greed they will exploit you with deceptive words. Their condemnation, pronounced against them long ago, has not been idle, and their destruction is not asleep. 4For if God did not spare the angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of deepest darkness to be kept until the judgment; 5and if he did not spare the ancient world, even though he saved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood on a world of the ungodly; 6and if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction and made them an example of what is coming to the ungodly;

7and if he rescued Lot, a righteous man greatly distressed by the licentiousness of the lawles. 8(for that righteous man, living among them day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by their lawless deeds that he saw and heard). 9then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trial, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment

10-especially those who indulge their flesh in depraved lust, and who despise authority. Bold and willful, they are not afraid to slander the glorious ones.

The Word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

Comments

Tim Fountain said…
You gotta wonder how clueless or hardened some folks are to read that and not hear the rebuke.
12/19/2012 12:16 PM
The Archer of the Forest said…
I was surprised the Daily Office lectionary didn't try to redact it. They usually do on the particularly juicy parts of scripture.
12/19/2012 12:17 PM
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