Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you, as also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction. You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, be on your guard so that you are not carried away by the error of unprincipled men and fall from your steadfastness." 2 Peter 3:15-17

It’s funny how people are. Seems as though we always think the status quo is normal and anything that may be different is weird. I observe the seventh day Sabbath and the Holy Day Festivals commanded in the Bible, but to many Christians this seems weird. But if you do a little research into the practices of the apostolic Church it’s easy to see that it would not be strange to them at all. Jesus and the Apostles all observed the Sabbath and the Holy Day Feasts. In the Book of Acts we see that Paul even planned his missionary journeys around these Festivals.

If you fast-forward a few hundred years after the Church was established you might be surprised to learn that what was normal orthodoxy had changed dramatically. By orthodoxy I mean the practice of the original faith as delivered by Jesus’ Apostles.

By this time the Church at Rome had gained pre-eminence and had been empowered by the Roman Empire. The Church required every knee to bow to it’s authority and individual convictions were not tolerated. The Church called itself "Catholic" which simply means "worldwide" or "universal." By this time the Pope, the "Vicar of Christ" ruled with the authority of Jesus.

The Church taught that the mother of Jesus was immaculately conceived and the Priests commanded prayers for forgiveness be offered to Mary. No one was allowed to read the Scriptures and the Church refused to allow them to be translated into any other language other than Latin. In some places it was certain death if you were caught with a Bible.

If you are not Catholic you are probably thinking -"that was really weird!" But there’s more to the story. It was the Church at Rome which moved the day of worship from Sabbath to Sunday, even making it illegal in the Empire for anyone to assemble for services on the Sabbath. (Council of Laodicea)

The Roman Church introduced the observances of Christmas and Easter, borrowing the customs of worship from the Roman Saturnalia and the Egyptian spring fertility rites. They also introduced Valentine’s Day which comes from the ancient Lupercalia, and Halloween which comes from ancient Druid sacrifices of children.

 

Our text warns us to beware the "error" of "unprincipled men" who can cause you to fall from your steadfastness to the apostolic faith. "Error" here is from the Gr. "plane" which means "straying from orthodoxy." "Unprincipled" is from the Gr. "athesmos" meaning "lawless." We are to beware of those who through their lawlessness teach others to stray from the original faith. Jude pleaded for the Church to earnestly contend for the faith once and for all delivered to the saints by the apostles.