Gilbert House Fellowship #145: 2 Peter; Jude

SPIRITUAL WARFARE and the sin of the Watchers are the focus of this week's New Testament study. Peter and Jude were in accord with the letters we read this week, and there is a lot of meat in these four short chapters.Both apostles warned their readers of false prophets who had wormed their way into the church, spreading false doctrine, encouraging the pursuit of physical pleasure, and "blaspheming the glorious ones." Who or what are the glorious ones? We honestly don't know, but the context implies that they might be some kind of high-ranking angelic entities that even the archangels don't dare rebuke!We highlight references to the Book of Enoch and the sin of the Watchers, which we are learning (thanks to our friend Dr. Michael Heiser, whose new book, Reversing Hermon, documents the influence of the Mount Hermon incursion on the New Testament) was a lot more important than we ever thought. Peter and Jude make it explicitly clear that their sin was sexual, and resulted in their imprisonment until the judgment. Links between the angels "who left their proper dwelling" and the Greek myths of the Titans are discussed, and we spend a good deal of time on Peter's list of the attributes of spiritual maturity (and how social media can short-circuit our spiritual growth).Click here for the complete archive of our New Testament Bible studies to date, and click here for the Old Testament studies to date.