Tag Archives: 2 Peter 1-3

Daily Bible Study

December 23, 2023 Bible Study — Do Not Allow Ourselves to be Exploited by False Teachers

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.

Daily Bible Study

December 23, 2022 Bible Study — God Spoke Through The Prophets In Scripture

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.

Daily Bible Study

December 23, 2021 Bible Study — Building Ourselves To Live A Holy And Godly Life

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

Peter starts off this, his second letter, by writing that God has given us everything we need to live a godly life.  If we make use of what God has given us we will escape the corruption created by evil desires.  Then at the end of his letter, he writes that the day of the Lord will come like a thief and everything will be destroyed by fire.  Therefore we should live holy and godly lives.  In between Peter warns us not to be deceived by false teachers who despise authority and follow the corrupt desires of the flesh.  All of this becomes possible by building ourselves up with the things which God gave us.  God gave us faith.  As we exercise that faith, and it does need exercise, we begin to practice goodness.  As we practice goodness, as we do good to those around us, we must seek and study to gain knowledge.  As we gain more knowledge, we must begin to exercise self-control.  As all of the above come together we need to care for those around us.  As we begin to care about those around us, we will start to treat them with love.  And as we move on to each stage, the ones that came before will increase, which should lead us to increase the stages which follow.

As I was writing about the building up which Peter described, I was reminded of the process of becoming a better fencer.  If you are going to be a fencer, you need to start out with a few basic drills that allow you to understand how to place your feet and hold the sword.  However, there is only so far that drills can take you.  At some point you need to start facing opponents on the list field, you need to start fencing others.  As you spend time fencing others, you will realize that you need other drills, more drills.  But eventually, you will need to learn why one thing works better than another, you to need to acquire knowledge.  From there you need to develop the self-discipline to practice regularly and the self-control to hit the target you have chosen with the precise force you need.  Then you need to find more and different opponents to fence against.  You need to start to care about the community of fencers, because if you do not, those other fencers whom you need to polish your skills against will not see any reason to work with you.  This will lead you to recruit others, because you will discover that you need to teach to truly develop your skills beyond a certain point.  This illustration is less than a perfect fit.  However, I hope that it helps you see how each level of what Peter describes is not a once and done thing.  When you reach a certain point, you need to add what comes next, but as you improve upon what comes next, you also build up and improve/increase that which came before.

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

Daily Bible Study

December 23, 2019 Bible Study — God Has Given Us Everything We Need to Live a Godly Life

I am using 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

Peter writes here that God has given us everything we need to live a holy life.  He then goes on to instruct us in how to go about doing so.  I really like the way he gives us a step by step basis for living such a holy life.  Each step is necessary for the next one to build upon, but is incomplete without those which follow.  We cannot have real moral excellence without faith, and faith without moral excellence has no value.  The same thing goes all of the way up the chain.  You will not truly love others if you do not feel brotherly affection for them, and none of these things have any real value if you do not love others.  As Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 13, love is the capstone of all other gifts we receive from God, the gifts which Peter tells us that God has given us so that we can live a holy life.  And while love is the necessary capstone to make them all function, we also need knowledge and self control and endurance.

 

Peter goes on from writing about how God has given us what we need to be holy to contrasting the Gospel story with the stories told by false teachers.  The account of Jesus’ life upon which all of Peter’s teaching, and the teaching recorded in the New Testament, is based actually happened.  It was not a story cleverly composed to support the things they wished to teach.  On the other hand,, false teachers make up stories and cleverly retell stories to support whatever will allow them to exploit their listeners.  Peter even gives us guidance which helps us recognize these false stories.  These false teachers will will seek to become wealthy from their teachings and/or will lead sexually immoral lives.  Frequently, sexual immorality will be a key part of their teaching.  They will either use their supposed position of authority to gain sexual favors, or will use sexually immoral teachings to attract people to their system.

Daily Bible Study

December 23, 2018 Bible Study

I am using 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.

Peter gives us a short and easy guide for how we should live our lives in chapter 1 verses 5 to 9. I use the NIV for this because it seems slightly more concise.  Peter reiterates what James and Paul have said elsewhere; having faith is not enough.  Our faith must inspire us to action.  In particular, Peter tells us that our faith should lead us to be good.  Or, as he puts it,  we need to add goodness to our faith.   However,  over time we will realize, or, at least, we should, that seeking to do good is not enough.  We need to actually know that our actions have good results.  At that point we need to seek knowledge.  As we come to know more about God’s will, we will learn that we need to exercise self-control.  A natural consequence of self-control is perseverance.  As we persevere   our actions will become not just good, but godly.  As we exercise godliness we will come to have an affection for others.  Here the NLT provides an insight, it translates this as “brotherly affection”.  Which tells me that it is like the feelings a brother has for his siblings, slightly protective and desiring the best for them assuming that they will feel likewise, but not dependent on them doing so.  Perhaps you have seen the families where one sibling demonstrates that affection for their sibling, only to be repeatedly hurt when the other sibling fails to reciprocate?  Well, that is what we will experience from time to time.  Which leads us to actual godly love.  We no longer assume that others will return our good feelings about them and act for their benefit anyway.  

I wrote the above as if it “just happens”, that each step automatically follows the one before.  But Peter makes it clear that we must actively choose to add knowledge to goodness, self-control to knowledge, perseverance to  self-control, godliness to perseverance, brotherly affection to godliness, and love to brotherly affection.   The fact of the matte is that if we fail to take the next step we will fall back to the previous one until even our faith is lost.  I had intended to write something about what Peter says about false teachers and the Second Coming, but this is already too long.  Please read that part for yourself.

 

Daily Bible Study

December 23, 2017 Bible Study

I am using 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.

    Peter starts off by reminding us that God has freely given us everything we need to please Him. There is nothing we can do to earn our salvation. However, he immediately follows this by telling us that because of God’s free gift we need to make an effort. I really like the way Peter puts this. Everything starts with faith. From there we add goodness. We can try to be good, but without faith in God, and the help that He will give us, it will be nothing but empty posturing. Once we follow up on our faith with attempts at doing good, we soon realize that we do not really know what is good. So, we need to seek knowledge and ask God’s Spirit to teach us what we need to know. As we learn God’s will for us we need to develop self-control in order to do both the good which God wants from us and to not do the evil which He wants us to leave behind. Self-control is not a once and done thing, we need to work day after day to improve our self-control, we need to learn to persevere. As we persevere in doing good we discover that there is a holiness, a godliness, beyond doing good which allows us to change lives (or, allows the Holy Spirit to work through us to change lives). However, if we stop there we will quickly fall back. That godliness cannot be sustained unless we genuinely care for others, and allow them to care for us. Finally, we must love others, not just those who care for us but all of God’s creatures. If we ever think we have enough of any of these (faith, goodness, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, mutual affection, and love) and no longer need to work to have more we will become ineffective in serving the Lord. Making this effort provides confirmation of our salvation. If we have received salvation from God by His grace through faith that salvation will result in our working to do the above things, thus confirming that we have indeed been saved.

Daily Bible Study

December 23, 2016 Bible Study — Following The Process

I am using 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.

    God has given us all we need to live the holy life to which He has called us. Further, He has promised us the ability to partake of the divine nature, the ability to be free from the corruption caused by sinful desires. There is a process which follows if we want to accept that promise and receive what was promised. The process, in order, is: faith, goodness (or moral excellence), knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, mutual affection, love for everyone. It is worth noting that goodness, or moral excellence, is not the same thing as godliness. I am not going to go into what that difference is at the moment. In many ways that would be a blog post all of its own.

    A simplistic reading of this process might lead one to think it was a step by step process, with one moving on from one step to the next. However, I believe it is more a kind of positive feedback loop: as you add goodness to your faith, you get more faith, as you add knowledge to goodness, you get more goodness (and thus even more faith), this continues on with each step. Each step up the ladder calls on us to increase the level of the step which proceeded it. I am going to give two examples of how this works. As we do good the faith which motivated us to do good becomes stronger because we see the truth of that faith in the results of our good actions. As we become more knowledgeable, we see that some places where we thought we were doing good, we can do better, which hopefully results in us doing more good. Which in turn results in our faith growing stronger. This process continues through every step of this process.

    Peter goes on to write about false teachers. He warns us that they will use deception and guile to introduce heretical teachings. Their hallmarks are arrogance and greed. They scoff at what they do not understand. I could go on and write more about what Peter says about them, but you can read the passage for yourself. I want to rather look at some manifestations of the sorts of false teachers which Peter describes. There are those who introduce heretical teachings, often in order to allow themselves to satisfy their greed and/or their immoral sexual desires (failing to realize that neither of those will ever be satisfied). We see these in those who preach prosperity gospel, that following Christ is a formula for gaining wealth (it is interesting how often part of that formula is sending them money). We, also, see this in those who want to weaken or destroy the Church’s teachings against sexually immoral conduct. We see another aspect of this among those who teach that they have a special knowledge or ability necessary for battling against evil spiritual powers. All of these teachers have one thing in common, they promise us greater freedom, but all that they deliver is further enslavement to sin.