Plastic People Plastic Words

During my younger years there was a saying among my group of mates for anything that was not legitimate; plastic. For the most part we applied this to people. If people did not appear or act in a way we considered genuine, we called them plastic people. In other words they were false, fake, phony.

In a similar way, the Bible calls the message of false teachers plastic, however unless you read it in Greek you might miss it. In 2 Peter chapter 2, Peter is warning about false teachers and their ungodly lifestyles. Lets look at the first few verses:

But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them—bringing swift destruction on themselves. Many will follow their depraved conduct and will bring the way of truth into disrepute. In their greed these teachers will exploit you with fabricated stories. Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sleeping. (2 Peter 2:1-3).

 

 

Now lets dig a little deeper, looking into verse 3 and the words translated here fabricated stories. Other versions might translate it as feigned words, words of deceit or false words. They come for the Greek 'plastois logois' and the Greek word 'plastos' is where we get the word plastic from (plastos means molded). In the New Testament, this word plastos means "being mentally constructed without a basis in fact", fabricated, false (BDAG p.823). Just as an aside, this is the only time this word appears in the New Testament (so it is a NT Hapax). So our word plastos combined with the word 'logos' in the plural gives us plastois logois, or false words.

So beware of plastic people and their plastic words. They will be among you and they will bring the Truth into disrepute and they will exploit you because they are greedy. May The Lord bless you and open your mind to the truth that is in His Scriptures (Luke 24:45).


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