Verse 18
The false teachers appealed to their audiences with boastful (lit. swollen) words, promising more than they could deliver, with vain words empty of anything to back them up. Their appeal was to "the lustful desires of sinful human nature" (NIV).
"Grandiose sophistry is the hook, filthy lust is the bait, with which these men catch those whom the Lord had delivered or was delivering." [Note: Bigg, p. 285.]
Furthermore they appealed to people who were only just escaping from those who live in error. This group probably includes new Christians and or older carnal ones who were still in the process of making a final break with their pagan past. [Note: Kelly, p. 345; Hiebert, Second Peter . . ., p. 126.]
"The average person does not know how to listen to and analyze the kind of propaganda that pours out of the mouths and printing presses of the apostates. Many people cannot tell the difference between a religious huckster and a sincere servant of Jesus Christ." [Note: Wiersbe, 2:458.]
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