In 2 Peter 3:15-16, the inspired apostle wrote: “our beloved brother 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.”
Observe a few things here. First, Peter had a collection of Paul’s writings. It obviously did not take long for the original documents to be recognized as authoritative nor to be collected together and distributed throughout the churches. Second, relative to those Scriptures, some people are “untaught and unstable.” Third, these untaught and unstable people distort them. So, fourth, some things Paul wrote are, indeed, hard to understand yet, fifth, distorting the Scriptures can result in our own destruction. Which means we will be judged by our interpretations of the Scriptures!
I have written before about an Orthodox priest in Romania who (accidentally, to be sure) killed a young girl. This happened while he was trying to exorcise a demon out of her. It happened while a rag was stuck in her mouth. He was untaught and unstable in the Scriptures and it led, directly and physically, to the destruction of a young girl.
The Roman Catholic Church has been charged repeatedly with sexual abuse among their priests, practically since they began. Most recently in this country, the church has paid out, according to press reports, over $3 billion in settlements, therapy for victims, and child protection as well as attorneys’ fees. Consider the thoughts of the executive director of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), David Clohessy: “The ‘cost’ of wasted and stolen human potential is of course incalculable” (World, June 13, 2015, pg. 88).
Statistics (apparently only between 2004 and 2014 and only in the U. S.), priests have abused over 100,000 boys and girls! Consider the depression, loneliness, substance abuse, and other troubles that have resulted in the lives of these young, innocent, and impressionable young people. Suicide also happens far too frequently.
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In fact, Paul says in the very next verse: “But because of immoralities, each man is to have his own wife, and each woman is to have her own husband.”
God created sexual urges within both males and females. But then He also stipulated that these urges be fulfilled within the marriage relationship. The Roman Catholic Church has long tried to suppress these urges in its clergy, with devastating results.
In the wake of these scandals, encourage your Catholic friends not to “return home,” but to go back to Jesus Christ and His book and see how He wants us to live, worship, and serve.
–Paul Holland
