This Lord’s Day I will be preaching on 2 Peter 2:12-16 at Midlane Park ARP Church. I found these comments from John Calvin on 2 Peter 2:16 to be especially interesting:
He compares [the false teachers] to Balaam, the son of Bozor, who employed a venal tongue to curse God’s people. And to shew that they were not worthy of a long refutation, he says that Balaam was reproved by an ass, and that thus his madness was condemned. But by this means also he restrains the faithful from associating with them. For it was a dreadful judgment of God, that the angel made himself known to the ass before he did to the prophet, so that the ass, perceiving God displeased, dared not to advance farther, but went back, when the prophet, under the blind impulse of his own avarice, pushed forward against the evident prohibition of the Lord. For what was afterwards answered to him, that he was to proceed, was an evidence of God’s indignation rather than a permission. In short, as the greatest indignity to him, the mouth of the ass was opened, that he who had been unwilling to submit to God’s authority might have that as his teacher. And by this miracle the Lord designed to shew how monstrous a thing it was to change the truth to a lie.
UPDATE: Simon Kistemaker has the following doctrinal consideration about this text:
Critics of the Christian faith discredit the accounts of miracles that are recorded in the Old and New Testaments. They consider these stories to be legends and myths whose content must be discarded in the light of modern science. And they regard anyone who accepts these miracles in faith as someone who fails to use his reasoning powers. They portray the Christian as a gullible person … . The believer, however, looks at all the miracles in the Bible and sees the hand of God. … Among the numerous miracles in Scripture, Balaam’s talking donkey is not an exceptional case. This incident occurred during a moment of crisis in the history of Israel when hostile forces wanted to see Israel cursed. God intervened and not only caused Balaam’s donkey to speak, but also caused Balaam to bless instead of curse God’s people. A miracle, therefore, is an act of God. And because of this act of God, the Christian believes. Is the Christian gullible? For him the greatest miracle God performed is that of Christ’s resurrection. All other miracles are secondary. If we do not believe the physical resurrection of Christ, then the message of the gospel is worthless and our faith is useless (1 Cor. 15:14).
And of course, if you can believe Genesis 1:1, you can believe everything that follows.
Then there is “the great miracle of providence, that no miracles are needed to accomplish its purposes…. The materials… are all of ordinary quality, while their combination displays nothing less than infinite skill.” (Isaac Taylor).