Today, I am reading and commenting on 2 Peter 1-3.

The first thing which struck me was a comment which Peter made about Scripture.  He writes that no prophecy of Scripture came from the prophet’s own interpretation of things.  My understanding is that when Peter wrote that he considered ALL of Scripture to be prophecy (as used in Scripture, prophecy is not necessarily a prediction of future events).  Further, he writes that no prophecy was produced by human will.  Rather the prophets spoke from God as the Holy Spirit guided them.  The prophets were still human and we see that in the way they gave us God’s message, but it is still God’s message.

Peter tells us that alongside the prophets who gave us Scripture there were false prophets and today there are false teachers alongside those truly preaching God’s word.  The false teachers introduce destructive heresies.  They don’t do it openly.  Instead they pretend to believe Scripture.  They make claims that the writers of Scripture didn’t mean what we think they meant.  What they don’t say out loud, at least usually, is that they don’t think the writers of Scripture were speaking God’s words.  They will claim to love the Lord, but deny that Jesus rose from the dead.  Some of them think they have great faith, but that they have to keep secret what they truly believe because people “don’t understand.”  They are bold and arrogant, blaspheming about things which they do not understand.  They promise freedom, but are slaves of depravity and encourage others to surrender to the desires of the flesh.  If you need to hide what you believe from other believers, you are probably not following the Gospel.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on 1 Peter 1-5.

I pulled out some quotes from today’s passage which struck me.  Now I am going to attempt to use them to create a coherent lesson from the passage.  Peter writes that we should desire pure spiritual milk now that we have tasted that the Lord is good.  In other words, now that we have experienced God’s goodness, the goodness of obeying God’s will, we should seek more of it.  Once we were alone in this world, isolated from others, but now God has made us His people so that we can and do love one another, and are in turn loved by our fellow believers.  Therefore we should abstain from evil desires because they only serve to tear us apart, damaging both ourselves and our relationship with others.  Giving  in  to those sinful desires is what isolated us, and will continue to isolate us from others.  Let us live such lives among those who are not believers that they will praise God, even as they accuse us of wrongdoing.  Peter writes that we should silence the accusations of the fools who do not accept God’s will by doing good.  We should strive to not treat badly those who treat us badly, nor insult those who insult us.  Instead, when people do us wrong, let us strive bless them.  Study Scripture so that we are prepared to answer those who challenge our faith and belief.  However, our answers should be respectful and gentle.  Thus those who claim we are stupid and naive, or evil and selfish will  be ashamed when their accusations are compared to our words and our deeds.

Intermixed with the above theme, Peter tells us to be alert and sober minded.  Then, towards the end, he tells us that we should do so in order to pray.  In a way, as we go back through the passage we realize that each time he writes about being sober minded, about avoiding debauchery and wild living, he is also telling us to pray.  So, let us keep our minds clear and pray.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on 2 Peter 1-3.

Every year when I read this, my first thought is to write about verses five to nine in chapter one:

For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love.  For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But whoever does not have them is nearsighted and blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their past sins.

However, as I read today, I came to where Peter writes “For we did not tell you cleverly devised stories…”  then he goes on to tell them that false prophets and false teachers who will use fabricated stories to gain followers and exploit people.  To me, what Peter writes here is both a warning against falling for such false prophets and false teachers and a warning against becoming one of them.  Peter describes them as bold and arrogant.  He also tells us that they despise authority and follow corrupt desire.  In their arrogance they heap abuse on spiritual beings, beings which even angels delivering a message from God do not abuse.  So, while Christ gives us power over such beings, we must remember that it is His power, not our own, and use it with humility and only in such a manner as brings glory to Christ.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on 1 Peter 1-5.

The first thing which struck me in this passage was when Peter wrote, “Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.” This reminded me of Psalm 34:8, “Taste and see that the Lord is good;” which is my favorite explanation of how faith works.  By writing that, Peter tells us that, having experienced God’s goodness, we should crave more of God, more holiness.  We experience that holiness we crave by abstaining from sinful desires and doing good.  Peter gives us a partial list of things to avoid: malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander.  We should live such good lives that even though they accuse us of doing wrong they will find themselves glorifying God for what we have done.  We should eagerly seek to do good, so that those who wish to harm us for our faith will be able to find no excuse for doing so and will have to admit to themselves that their hostility is based on their unwillingness to obey God.  At all times we should be prepared to explain why we act as we do and hold to our faith.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  2 Peter 1-3.

Usually when I read today’s passage I focus on the “virtue escalator” which Peter describes: virtues which build upon each other.  Those virtues are faith, goodness, knowledge, self control, perseverance, godliness, mutual affection, and love.  However, today I want to focus on what Peter says about false teachers.  Before getting into talking about false prophets and false teachers, Peter writes that those who wrote Scripture spoke from God, not from human interpretation.  Then he tells us that false teachers will attempt to exploit people with fabricated stories, some of which deny the sovereignty of Christ.  They will try to hide the ways in which their teachings contradict Scripture by various means.  He writes that we can identify them by their depraved conduct and rejection of all other authority.  They will claim to offer freedom, but will actually enslave themselves to depravity.  Which brings me back to that “virtue escalator” which I mentioned at the beginning.  If we build up our faith with goodness, add knowledge to our goodness, exercise self control in our knowledge, persevere with our self control so that it produces godliness, which will lead us to mutual affection and love, we will not be fooled by false teachers.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  1 Peter 1-5.

Twice in this letter Peter tells us to be alert and sober.  I think by this he means “straightforward and serious; not exaggerated, emotional, or silly.”  I do not believe that Peter means by that that we can never exaggerate, or be emotional, or even never be silly.  I believe he means that when we exaggerate, we make sure that people understand that we are exaggerating, when we are emotional it is controlled and appropriate, and when we are silly, we do so consciously and with boundaries.  We should remain alert in order that we may observe the things for which we should pray.   Additionally, Peter tells us that we should remain alert and sober since we were redeemed from an empty way of life by Christ’s sacrifice on our behalf.

Therefore, we should allow ourselves to be purified by obeying the Truth which God has given us.  The result of doing so will be love for one another.  In order to be purified we must rid ourselves of all malice and deceit.  Of course that makes sense because we cannot love others if our interactions with them involve malice and/or deceit.  Peter goes on to warn us that evil desires wage war against our souls, we damage ourselves when we give in to evil desires and commit sins.  For this reason, Peter tells us to abstain from evil desires.  We should live such good lives that, even though they will accuse us of wrongdoing for not supporting and behaving according to their depraved ideals, the nonbelievers around us will glorify God.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  2 Peter 1-3.

I really like the progression which Peter points out at the beginning of this letter: that we should add goodness to our faith, and then add knowledge to goodness, then self-control to knowledge, perseverance to self-control, godliness to perseverance, mutual affection to godliness, and finally love to mutual affection.  However, I want to focus today on what Peter writes about prophetic Scripture (which is this context is ALL Scripture) and false teachers.  First, he writes that Scripture did not come about through the interpretation of those who wrote it.  Even though those who wrote the Scripture were human, their writings which have become Scripture were God speaking through them.  And there are prophets among us today through whom God speaks.  However, we must be careful because there are also false prophets.  Peter gives us two clues to identify which prophets are false.  First, he warns us that they will exercise and encourage depraved conduct which will bring the Gospel into disrepute.  Second, he tells us that they will support their teaching with made up stories.  Further Peter warns us that God will bring destruction up such prophets and the people whom they deceive, just as He brought the flood and destruction upon Sodom and Gomorrah.  However, those who resist their deception and remain faithful will be saved just as God saved Noah and Lot.  Let us live holy and godly lives as we continue to look forward to the Day of God.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  1 Peter 1-5.

Peter repeatedly writes that we should live such good lives that those who hate us because of our faith will have nothing with which to accuse us except lies.  As part of that we should submit to government authorities and do good so as to silence those who claim that Christianity is evil.  When others do us wrong, seek ways to repay them by doing good to them, when they insult us, let us seek to speak good about them.  Let us live lives so that when we suffer at the hands of others, those who witness it will see it as unjustified.  If we do the good to which God calls us, we need not fear attack.  And if someone does attack us, we can rejoice in being counted worthy to suffer as Christ suffered.  We live among those who live lives of reckless, wild living, who will make fun of us for not joining them in such behavior.

I find myself continuing to write more because I cannot get the words to express the thoughts I am having, so I am going to stop here.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.