DISTORTIONS

Speaking of the Apostle Paul and his letters to the early church, Peter wrote the following:

15 Bear in mind that our Lord's patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him.

16 He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.

17 Therefore, dear friends, since you have been forewarned, be on your guard so that you may not be carried away by the error of the lawless and fall from your secure position.

18 But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever! Amen. (2 Peter 3)

The misinterpretation and distortion of Scripture is a perennial challenge for believers.

You can't believe every Bible teacher you hear. 

It is striking that the first misinterpretations of Paul's words got kicked off while he and Peter were still alive and writing!

Peter points out that neither promoting nor accepting distorted teaching is a matter of intelligence.

According to Peter, for those distorting Scripture, the problem is either ignorance or instability. (And ignorance is not the same as stupidity.)

And the problem on the receiving end is a lack of vigilance, leading to the familiar phenomenon of "being carried away" by an idea. (Again, neither is tied directly to intelligence.)

I did a search for "false teachers" and related terms in the Bible. At least two-thirds of the books of the New Testament address the issue. That points to a significant problem, doesn't it? 

Our response must be vigilance, as Peter taught. And that should include openness to the possibility that some theological "truth" we are holding to or promoting is a distortion of God's word. 

We are not immune, no matter how smart we think we are.