Despising authority

…then the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptations and to reserve the unjust under punishment for the day of judgment, and especially those who walk according to the flesh in the lust of uncleanness and despise authority. They are presumptuous, self-willed. They are not afraid to speak evil of dignitaries, - 2 Peter 2.9-10

2 Peter, like Jude, talks a lot about false teachers and the things that characterise them. In this section we read some descriptions of those who are ‘reserved for judgement.’ 

To me it just makes sense that we ought to avoid anything that makes us look like we are amongst those ‘reserved for judgement.’ For most of these believers don’t have a hard time acknowledging that we should avoid them. 

But there are a couple of things here where we may not be quite so careful. Here we read that these false teachers ‘despise authorities’ and ‘speak evil of dignitaries.’ 

It would be nice if we could make this apply only to spiritual authorities and dignitaries and we may make a case for the ‘dignitaries’ being angels and heavenly beings, but we are stuck even then with comment about despising authorities. 

When I compare this with verse that tell us to ‘speak evil of no man’ and ‘honour the king’ it makes me wonder why we, as God’s people, get involved in anything that even looks like we reject authority and speak evil of dignitaries. It makes me wonder what good it actually does and how it affects our testimony. 

Sure, in our free countries we have the right to be critical of and disagree with laws and polices and all that, but does that really mean that we need to look like  the lost who reject authority? 

Since it really does no good for eternity, and very little good for the temporal, why do we do it?