ἐμπαίκτης

Empaiktēs names a mocker or scoffer. The governed local evidence is limited to about two noun uses, both plural and both in apostolic warnings about the last days. Second Peter 3:3 says that scoffers will come scoffing and following their own evil desires; the surrounding paragraph identifies the Lord's promised coming as the object of their challenge. Jude 18 recalls an apostolic warning that scoffers in the last time would follow their own ungodly desires.

These uses connect scoffing with desire-shaped contempt, but the noun does not authorize teachers to label every doubter, critic, wounded believer, or person asking hard questions. Nor does it carry a complete doctrine of the last days, judgment, apostasy, or church discipline. Its pastoral weight is focused: the church should expect contemptuous resistance, refuse to imitate it, remember the apostolic warning, and remain faithful.

Honest questions require patient listening and truthful care. Scoffing should be answered without mockery, coercion, or speculative claims beyond the two governed contexts.

G1703 is a low-occurrence word in the New Testament, and its force is concentrated in two closely related warning contexts. In 2 Peter 3:3, the scoffers appear in the last days and are described as walking according to their own desires. Their mockery is focused on the promise of the Lord’s coming. They interpret apparent delay as denial, and they use the continuity of the present world to dismiss future accountability. The word therefore functions as part of Peter’s pastoral defense against contemptuous unbelief and moral carelessness.

Jude 18 places the same kind of figure inside the church’s remembered apostolic warning. The congregation is not to be naïve when scoffing voices arise. Jude connects these mockers with ungodly desires and then moves into a pastoral contrast: believers are to build themselves up in the most holy faith, pray in the Holy Spirit, keep themselves in God’s love, and wait for the mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. The presence of scoffers does not authorize panic or imitation. It calls the church to steady, merciful, holy perseverance.

The broader canonical pattern is thematic rather than a claim of lexical identity across every passage about scorners. Scripture consistently warns that mockery hardens the heart against wisdom, correction, repentance, and the fear of the Lord. But this entry should not be expanded into a full doctrine of foolishness or rebellion by itself. G1703 serves the apostolic warning that the church will face contemptuous resistance, especially against the promise of Christ’s appearing and the moral claims of God. The faithful response is not arrogance, fear, or name-calling, but remembrance, holiness, mercy, and confidence in the Lord.