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Reading 2 Peter 1:1-2 and providing some of the history behind this letter as well as key themes we will see as we study. Visit wwutt.com for all of our videos!
It is by the grace of God that we have become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. It is to God belongs all the glory for our faith when we understand the text.
Many of the Bible stories and verses we think we know, we don't. When we understand the text, as an online ministry committed to teaching sound doctrine and exposing the faulty, visit our website at www .utt .com.
Now here's our host, Pastor Gabe Hughes. Thank you, Becky.
And Happy New Year, everyone. From all of us at When We Understand the Text, my wife, Becky, and I, and our church family, First Southern Baptist Church of Junction City, Kansas. We thank you for listening to this program and for telling somebody else about the Bible teaching that we offer here five days a week.
At the start of a brand new year, we're beginning a brand new study in the book of 2 Peter. Open up your Bible to 2 Peter 1, as we're going to be reading verses 1 through 15. But as far as talking about what we're reading today, we're only going to get through the first couple of verses.
So 2 Peter 1, beginning in verse 1, Simeon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours by the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ.
May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.
For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love.
For if these qualities are yours and increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins.
Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election. For if you practice these qualities, you will never fall. For in this way, there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Therefore, I intend always to remind you of these qualities, though you know them and are established in the truth that you have. I think it right, as long as I am in this body, to stir you up by way of reminder, since I know that the putting off of my body will be soon, as our Lord Jesus Christ made clear to me.
And I will make every effort so that after my departure, you may be able at any time to recall these things.". This is a great letter. As Peter presents in the first chapter, an apologetic argument, which we haven't even really gotten to yet, but an apologetic argument for the truthfulness of the gospel, the truth claims of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
In chapter two, he directly confronts false teaching. And then in chapter three, he talks about how in these last days, there will be scoffers who will make fun of you because of the truth that you believe in.
But be careful with the way that you handle that truth, that you don't twist the scriptures for your own purposes and to your own destruction. Peter wrote this letter sometime between 64 and 67 AD. Of course, the date and the time and even the location of where this letter was written from is often debated.
Peter doesn't give any indication as to where he was when he wrote this, but we have some clues based on what he wrote at the end of 1 Peter. In 1 Peter 5, verses 12 through 14, Peter says, By Silvanus, a faithful brother, as I regard him, I have written briefly to you, exhorting and declaring that this is the true grace of God.
Stand firm in it. So even here, he presents an argument for the truthfulness of his witness in Jesus Christ. She who is at Babylon, he says, that's verse 13, who is likewise chosen, sends you greetings.
So that's a reference to the church of Babylon, where Peter is now. That's that's a reference that's debated. And there are several Babylons. There was a Babylon in the east. There was a Babylon around Egypt.
But Peter is most likely referring to Rome. He's calling Rome Babylon. Babylon was the evil, wicked empire city in the Old Testament. And Peter is just making that correlation between Rome and Babylon.
Now, those who try to distance themselves from that explanation to say, no, no, no, Peter wasn't in Rome. He had to have been in other one of these other Babylonian cities for which there actually is no historical evidence.
They're probably trying to go ultra Protestant as if to say, hey, if we can get Peter out of Rome, then that's less of a claim that the Roman Catholics have to be able to say that Peter was the first pope.
But there are other ways that we can contend with the arguments regarding the papacy or the apostolic see. We don't have to do something as radical as saying that Peter was not in Rome. It's accepted across church history that Peter was there in Rome and had likely been imprisoned there where he was awaiting his execution.
And so that is the most likely explanation for what Peter is referring to when he says that he is at Babylon among the church that is there. We know the apostle Paul went there first in the 50s A .D. and then Peter would have gone sometime shortly after that.
And that's likely where he was also arrested, imprisoned and put to death. Now, we have indications here in 2nd Peter that this is a farewell letter. It's his farewell greeting to those whom he is writing.
As he mentions in verses 13 and 14 that we read, I think it right as long as I am in this body to stir you up by way of reminder, since I know that the putting off of my body will be soon as our Lord Jesus Christ made clear to me.
That's a pretty similar statement to something that Paul wrote to Timothy. And we know that 2nd Timothy was Paul's final letter. And so Peter means to say farewell to those whom he has been ministering to as an apostle of Jesus Christ, continuing to exhort these things so that after his departure, verse 15, you may be able at any time to recall my instructions to you as an apostle of Christ.
Now, Nero's persecution of Christians had increased at this particular time. When Peter wrote his first letter, there still was some persecution of Christians going on. It was mostly ridicule. It wasn't a widespread persecution.
Those who lived in Rome were in the most danger. But those who lived outside of Rome, not as much. So here, Peter is feeling the pressure of this increased persecution. And there's a little bit of a difference in tone between his first letter and his second letter.
Now, because of the inflection in the writing style and things of that nature, how different it is between the first and second letters, there are some scholars that have doubted that Peter was actually the writer of 2nd Peter.
But it's simply an unfounded claim. My understanding is that Peter really wasn't that great of a writer. We've already seen at the end of his first letter how he gives credit to Silvanus, who was likely Peter's scribe, who wrote down what Peter told him to write.
And then Silvanus, you know, Peter dictated the letter and Silvanus wrote it down. Peter also mentions John Mark. He says in chapter 5, verse 13, she who is at Babylon, who is likewise chosen, sends you greetings.
And so does Mark, my son. Now, Mark is the writer of the gospel of Mark, John Mark. And what Mark was writing in his gospel is likely the gospel just the way that Peter preached it. So if you've ever wondered, you know, what did Peter, the apostle, when he preached, what did his gospel sound like?
It sounded like the gospel of Mark. Mark wrote down what Peter preached. When the apostle Paul preached the gospel, what did Paul's gospel sound like? Sounded like the gospel of Luke, Luke being one of Paul's missionary brothers.
And so and so that's that's how Peter's letters were written as well. Paul was great at writing. You know, the Corinthians talk about how the things that he says are so weighty in his letters. But Peter was not as much of the writer.
And so he had somebody who would write for him. We know Silvanus may have been the one that was writing first, Peter, and then another person was writing second Peter, although that person is not named.
Peter doesn't give his his scribe credit in his second letter. So we don't know who that could have been. It may have been John Mark, but that would account for the differences in the two letters, the two different styles.
I've written down some key themes that we will see over the course of second Peter as we continue a study of this letter. By God's grace, we are partakers of the divine nature. And that's what Peter has talked about here in this section that we have read today.
And because we're partakers in the divine, this includes the pursuit of godliness. As Peter talked about, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, virtue with knowledge, knowledge with self-control.
So in other words, as you grow and increase in knowledge, you're not becoming somebody that is whapping everybody over the head with the things that you know, or becoming puffed up with conceit by this knowledge that you have.
But all the glory goes to God. This faith that we have comes from Jesus Christ. There is no boasting on our part. As Paul says at the end of first Corinthians chapter one, let he who boasts, boast in the Lord, self-control supplement with steadfastness, steadfastness with godliness and godliness with brotherly affection and brotherly affection with love.
So as we are partakers of the divine nature, these are the things that should be reflected in the life of a believer, of a follower of Jesus Christ. Second theme, second of five themes that we see in second Peter, by God's grace, we are sure of his truth.
Now here's the apologetic argument as Peter presents it at the end of the first chapter. He talks about how we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.
So Peter saying, we're not just somebody that heard stories or we just made stuff up. We saw it. And this has particular weight to it, considering that Peter had just said that the Lord has told him that he is about to be with Christ soon.
He knows that he's going to be putting off his body soon and joining the Lord in heaven. So Peter is saying, we're dying for something that we saw. We're not going to die and lay our lives down for something that we just made up.
What benefit would that be to us? So that's part of the weight of this apologetic argument that he's making here about the reliability and the truthfulness of the gospel that is shared by the apostles and among the churches.
In the second chapter, Peter directly confronts false teaching. So since we are partakers of the divine nature and we are sure of his truth, the third theme here is that by God's grace, we are not walking in falsehood.
It is God who has saved us. It is God who keeps us saved. So it is by his Holy Spirit that we are kept away from falling into false teaching. We must understand all of the instructions that are given to us about keeping our feet sure on the path of God, as it says in Psalm 119, a verse that I had mentioned on Friday's podcast too.
Your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. How is it that we know the right way to go and to discern the truth from the lie? It is by studying and knowing the word of God. First John 4, 1 says that we should not accept every spirit as being from God for there are, but we need to test the spirits because there are many false prophets that have gone out into the world.
And so it is by God's grace that we are partakers in the divine nature. It's by God's grace that we are sure of his truth. And it's by his grace that we are not walking in falsehood. Here's the fourth theme that we see in 2 Peter.
It is by God's grace that we are aware of the last days. And Peter talks about that in 2 Peter 3, where he says that in these last times, we will be mocked for the Lord Christ whom we worship. And it is because of the spirit of God that is with us that we are reminded that these are the last days.
Now there are some that will read this claim of Peter in 2 Peter 3 and will say, see Peter was expecting Christ to return in his lifetime. You simply cannot make that argument when you would have just read in chapter 1 verses 13 and 14 that Peter knows he's about to die.
So he's not going to see the Lord Christ come and reveal himself in glory to all of the earth while Peter is still inhabiting the flesh. He knows that because the Lord has told him he's about to shed this body and die.
But it's still the last days just because Peter was not going to see that happen in his lifetime does not make it any less the last days than it was during Peter's lifetime. John refers to it being the last hour.
So we are in the last days. These are the days following Christ's crucifixion, resurrection from the grave, his ascension into heaven and his giving of the helper, the Holy Spirit. So this is the final age and these are the last days that we are in.
It is by God's grace that we are aware of them and the need and the urgency to share the gospel of Jesus Christ and to also know that we are continuing in the faith steadfastly by making every effort to supplement our faith with that which produces godliness.
The last theme, fifth theme that we see here in 2 Peter, by God's grace, we are rescued. We are not going to be among those who scoffed and mocked and derided the word of God all the way to their last breath, all the way to the day of the Lord.
We are those who will stand victorious with Christ on his day of glory. We have been rescued from his wrath, delivered into his marvelous light and have become fellow heirs of the kingdom of God. So it is by God's grace that we know we have been rescued from the wages of sin, which is death.
We are not among those who are the enemies of God. Rather, we are among those whom Christ has called friend, whom God our father calls his children because we've been adopted into his family through Jesus Christ our Lord.
So once again, these five themes in 2 Peter, by God's grace, we are partakers of the divine nature. We are sure of his truth. We are not walking in falsehood. We are aware of the last days, and by God's grace, we are rescued.
So let's come again to these first couple of verses that we've looked at here, and that's how we'll conclude by summarizing these things at the start of 2 Peter 1. He introduces himself as Simeon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ.
Simeon Peter, not Simon Peter. Simeon is the Hebrew spelling. Simon is the Greek spelling. So it's same name, just two different spellings. You know, this is I can't remember if we've talked about this or not.
I know I've talked about it with my congregation when we started in on 1 Corinthians. This is also the difference between Saul and Paul. Why is it that the apostle Paul went from calling himself Saul to calling himself Paul?
Well, you see him doing that when he first ministers to the Gentiles. Paul was his Gentile name. Saul was his Hebrew name. So once he became a minister to the Gentiles, just as God told Ananias he would be in Acts chapter 9, Paul took on a name that was going to be more acceptable to the Gentiles.
If he had identified himself as Saul, he may have been dismissed outright because he was speaking as a Hebrew. That's the way they would have considered. Well, you're a Hebrew, you're teaching us the Hebrew God.
We're Greeks, we believe in the Greek gods. But rather by his name, it was it was a little bit more likely for him to be heard and accepted in these Gentile cities that he was going to to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ.
So that's the difference between Saul and Paul. And here in 2 Peter, he simply gives the Hebrew spelling of Simon Peter rather than his Gentile name, Simeon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ to those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ.
So Peter introduces himself and his authority as an apostle, an apostle of Jesus Christ. But he says to those who have received the faith of Christ that we're all in equal standing. OK, this is not about me boasting in the status that I have as an appointed apostle of Jesus Christ.
We're rejoicing together in this faith that we've been given in Christ. It is to him that belongs all the glory. None of us are going to take any credit for this work that is being done, but giving all the glory to God.
You are of equal standing with us. Your share in the kingdom of God is the same as our share in the kingdom of God. And and same with me, by the grace that God has given to me, I have been called to be a teacher of the word of God.
So I am going to be a faithful steward of that which God has entrusted me to do. But I'm not better than you. I have not somehow done something better than you have, or I did it first. And so, therefore, I deserve more credit than you get or any of these things.
I have an obligation to the calling that God has called me to. And there is something in particular that God has for you as well that you need to be faithful to, that you need to be a good steward of that which the Lord has given to you.
This is not about who deserves more credit or who's bigger or better in the kingdom of God. Peter, as an apostle, had quite a claim to say, hey, I bummed around with Christ. All right. I knew the guy.
I'm the one that denied him. And then and then he reinstated me by saying, Peter, go feed my sheep. OK, so you look at how important I am. That was not Peter's approach at all. He was saying to those who were receiving his letter that we are the same.
We have obtained a faith of equal standing. This faith that I have, this faith that you have, and the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ, may grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus, our Lord.
So Peter means as he is writing this letter to grow his readers more in the knowledge of God and makes that point when we get to the end of this section that we've been looking at, verse 15, where he says, I will make every effort so that after my departure, you may be able at any time to recall these things.
You may come back to the things that I have preached, the things that I have written to you so that you may see them. You may study them and know this gospel that has been proclaimed through all the earth and grow in the knowledge of these things.
All the more may have been Peter's intention also to make sure that his gospel, as he had preached it, had been written down, and you have the gospel of Mark, which was Mark's account of Peter's gospel.
So that's what we see here at the beginning of Peter's letter, and we will study these things all the more as we continue on into 2 Peter 1 tomorrow. Let us conclude with prayer. Dear God, we thank you so much that we can call ourselves the children of God, that we have become partakers of the divine nature.
Because of your grace, you have called us to these things in Christ. We are sure of your truth because of what was written down for us in the scriptures. We do not have to fear anything of falsehood because we know what we can test lies with, and that's the word of God.
When the enemy comes along and tries to whisper to us, did God really say? We know how we can test those claims according to the word of God. We are aware that we are living in the last days, and all the more urgent and important for us to share the gospel to the whole world so that those who will be saved will turn from their sins and worship Christ the Lord.
We have been rescued from the wrath of God and the judgment that is coming upon this world and have become fellow heirs in your eternal kingdom. God, it's because of these things that you are worthy of praise, and we lift praise to your name and thanksgiving to you for the salvation that we have in Christ our Lord.
Embolden us to preach this all the more in the places where we live, to the people that we know, and even the strangers around us. We pray and ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen.