What is the definition for the word peddler? Why do people peddle God’s word?
Peddler is a person who goes from place-to-place selling things. Why would someone sell the word of God as it were?
People are in need of spirituality and are willing to pay for what they do not have. A peddler of God’s word takes advantage of people who are in need. This is a form of commercialism, the exchanging of spiritual information for money.
2 Corinthians 2:17… We are not peddlers of the word of God as many men are, but as out of sincerity, yes, as sent from God, under God’s view, in company with Christ, we are speaking.
Some Bibles use the wording in this passage of Scripture like; to make personal profit on God’s word, or to act like merchants adulterating God’s message.
If we have truly been sent forth by God with Christ, then are asking for money in exchange for what we have received freely than is truly a dishonor to both God and Christ.
Matthew 10:7-8… As YOU go, preach, saying, ‘The kingdom of the heavens has drawn near.’ Cure sick people, raise up dead persons, make lepers clean, expel demons. YOU received free, give free.
Christ made it real clear they were to give freely of what they had received from the spirit, not that they should receive monetarily for what they were doing. There was an occasion that a man thought he could pay to receive the gifts that come from God. As we look at the account ask yourself; how did that turn out?
Acts 8:18-21… Now when Simon saw that through the laying on of the hands of the apostles the spirit was given, he offered them money, saying: “Give me also this authority, that anyone upon whom I lay my hands may receive holy spirit.” But Peter said to him: “May your silver perish with you, because you thought through money to get possession of the free gift of God. You have neither part nor lot in this matter, for your heart is not straight in the sight of God.
Anyone who’s been asking for money for doing the work of God does not have their heart straight with God! They should repent for having such thoughts within their heart and of their taking advantage of people in need.
Acts 8:22… Repent, therefore, of this wickedness of yours, and pray to the Lord that, if possible, the forgiveness begiven you because of this evil thought in your heart.
We know that these days are hard to deal with; but the taking advantage of others by asking for money under the employment of God, are being called out by God. They are showing themselves as being a lover of self, lovers of money and even being judged as God’s word says of them. As the following Scripture bears out:
2 Timothy 3:1-7… But know this, that in the last days critical times hard to deal with will be here. For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, self-assuming, haughty, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, disloyal, having no natural affection, not open to any agreement, slanderers, without self-control, fierce, without love of goodness, betrayers, headstrong, puffed up [with pride], lovers of pleasures rather than lovers of God, having a form of godly devotion but proving false to its power, and from these turn away. For from these arise those men who slyly work their way into households and lead as their captives weak women loaded down with sins, led by various desires, always learning and yet never able to come to an accurate knowledge of truth.
Who are these men, or what kind of men are they? Men who worm their way into homes to gain control as spiritual guides over the household of others!
What works or fruits will these kinds of men produce according to God’s word?
Matthew 7:15-23…Be on the watch for the false prophets that come to YOU in sheep’s covering, but inside they are ravenous wolves. By their fruits YOU will recognize them. Never do people gather grapes from thorns or figs from thistles, do they? Likewise every good tree produces fine fruit, but every rotten tree produces worthless fruit; a good tree cannot bear worthless fruit, neither can a rotten tree produce fine fruit. Every tree not producing fine fruit gets cut down and thrown into the fire. Really, then, by their fruits YOU will recognize them. “Not everyone saying to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter into the kingdom of the heavens, but the one doing the will of my Father who is in the heavens will. Many will say to me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and expel demons in your name, and perform many powerful works in your name?’ And yet then I will confess to them: I never knew YOU! Get away from me, YOU workers of lawlessness.
What about tithing to God they might ask. This was a law given to the nation of Israel to help sustain the Levite priesthood and maintain the house of God in Jerusalem. But also, to help the alien resident and the fatherless boy and the widow.
Deuteronomy 26:12-13… When you finish with tithing the entire tenth of your produce in the third year, the year of the tenth, you must also give it to the Levite, the alien resident, the fatherless boy and the widow, and they must eat it within your gates and satisfy themselves. And you must say before Jehovah your God, ‘I have cleared away what is holy from the house, and I have also given it to the Levite and the alien resident, the fatherless boy and the widow.
Is this what they’re doing with your money, your tithes? We were told by the disciples many years ago about the last days, with respect to these men who slip into the congregation. Both the apostle Peter and the disciple Jude spoke about these things.
Jude 1:3-4… Beloved ones, though I was making every effort to write YOU about the salvation we hold in common, I found it necessary to write YOU to exhort YOU to put up a hard fight for the faith that was once for all time delivered to the holy ones. My reason is that certain men have slipped in who have long ago been appointed by the Scriptures to this judgment, ungodly men, turning the undeserved kindness of our God into an excuse for loose conduct and proving false to our only Owner and Lord, Jesus Christ.
Can you believe that certain men have slipped into the congregation and proving false to our only owner the Lord Jesus Christ?
Jude 1:5-8… I desire to remind YOU, despite YOUR knowing all things once for all time, that Jehovah, although he saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterwards destroyed those not showing faith. And the angels that did not keep their original position but forsook their own proper dwelling place he has reserved with eternal bonds under dense darkness for the judgment of the great day. So too Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities about them, after they in the same manner as the foregoing ones had committed fornication excessively and gone out after flesh for unnatural use, are placed before [us] as a [warning] example by undergoing the judicial punishment of everlasting fire. In like manner, notwithstanding, these men, too, indulging in dreams, are defiling the flesh and disregarding lordship and speaking abusively of glorious ones.
God is bringing a judicial punishment against those men who are not showing faith, they are disregarding lordship’s and speaking abusively of the holy ones of God this Anointed Ones.
Jude 1:10-13… Yet these [men] are speaking abusively of all the things they really do not know; but all the things that they do understand naturally like the unreasoning animals, in these things they go on corrupting themselves. Too bad for them, because they have gone in the path of Cain, and have rushed into the erroneous course of Balaam for reward and have perished in the rebellious talk of Korah! These are the rocks hidden below water in YOUR love feasts while they feast with YOU, shepherds that feed themselves without fear; waterless clouds carried this way and that by winds; trees in late autumn, [but] fruitless, having died twice, having been uprooted; wild waves of the sea that foam up their own causes for shame; stars with no set course, for which the blackness of darkness stands reserved forever.
These men are shepherds that feed themselves first, they have no true fear of God, they are rocks hidden below water, that will rip a hole in your faith and sink your ship.
Jude 1:14-19… Yes, the seventh one [in line] from Adam, Enoch, prophesied also regarding them, when he said: “Look! Jehovah came with his holy myriads, to execute judgment against all, and to convict all the ungodly concerning all their ungodly deeds that they did in an ungodly way and concerning all the shocking things that ungodly sinners spoke against him.” These men are murmurers, complainers about their lot in life, proceeding according to their own desires, and their mouths speak swelling things, while they are admiring personalities for the sake of [their own] benefit. As for YOU, beloved ones, call to mind the sayings that have been previously spoken by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, how they used to say to YOU: “In the last time there will be ridiculers, proceeding according to their own desires for ungodly things.” These are the ones that make separations, animalistic [men], not having spirituality.
These men have no spirituality, they admire personalities giving praise to men and yet complaining about their own lot in life.
2 Peter 2:9-15… God knows how to deliver people of godly devotion out of trial, but to reserve unrighteous people for the day of judgment to be cut off, especially, however, those who go on after flesh with the desire to defile [it] and who look down on lordship. Daring, self-willed, they do not tremble at glorious ones but speak abusively, whereas angels, although they are greater in strength and power, do not bring against them an accusation in abusive terms, [not doing so] out of respect for Jehovah. But these [men], like unreasoning animals born naturally to be caught and destroyed, will, in the things of which they are ignorant and speak abusively, even suffer destruction in their own [course of] destruction, wronging themselves as a reward for wrongdoing. They consider luxurious living in the daytime a pleasure. They are spots and blemishes, indulging with unrestrained delight in their deceptive teachings while feasting together with YOU. They have eyes full of adultery and unable to desist from sin, and they entice unsteady souls. They have a heart trained in covetousness. They are accursed children. Abandoning the straight path, they have been misled.
2 Peter 2:17-19… These are fountains without water, and mists driven by a violent storm, and for them the blackness of darkness has been reserved. For they utter swelling expressions of no profit, and by the desires of the flesh and by loose habits they entice those who are just escaping from people who conduct themselves in error. While they are promising them freedom, they themselves are existing as slaves of corruption. For whoever is overcome by another is enslaved by this one.
Even though we have a freedom of worship and a free approach before our God by means of Jesus Christ. They want to enslave us, and by their control over us, we have now become overtaken by their aggressive actions, fearful of their actions against us.
2 Peter 2:20-22… Certainly if, after having escaped from the defilements of the world by an accurate knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they get involved again with these very things and are overcome, the final conditions have become worse for them than the first. For it would have been better for them not to have accurately known the path of righteousness than after knowing it accurately to turn away from the holy commandment delivered to them. The saying of the true proverb has happened to them: “The dog has returned to its own vomit, and the sow that was bathed to rolling in the mire.”
They have turn away from the holy commandment delivered to us by Jesus Christ, this good news that frees us from this world and its corruption. Woe to these shepherds, wolves, they are the very enemies of Jesus Christ.
Come Lord Jesus Christ and do away with these men of lawlessness by the word of your mouth and the manifestation of your presence.
Writingwithlogos.com – Last Updated 10/9/22