2 Peter

Chapter 1

vs 12

So don't feel bad if someone is always on about the same thing. Preaching's a hell of a lot harder now that it ever has been. In fact, expectations in our culture are higher than perhaps ever before. Even though John Wesley travelled over 250,000 miles in his preaching career, and preached over 40,000 sermons, he only had 44 different ones or so. And in the Methodist church in the beginning, the lay preachers would just re-preach his sermons.

So if all someone does is preach on the same thing, assuming it's an important thing, it's not all bad. Remember the tradition of John who, in his old age had to be carried to the church to participate, and would always tell the congregation "Love one another". And when they eventually grew weary of it and asked him why he said it so often, he replied "This is the most important commandment. If you will fulfil it, then you wil fulfil all of Christ's commandment."

vs 13

When you think of this life like living in a tent, you've got a different perspective.

vs 14

Whether this is through the general revelation of Christ, or some specific words of Jesus to Peter about himself isn't 100% clear - but the personal "to me" makes me think they were words of Christ which Peter particularly treasured.

vs 15

Is Peter talking about flying around as a disembodied spirit doing miracles on behalf of God, so that if we pray to Peter he can come and help us?

Nah. He's saying that he's trying to set things up so that they'll be remembered after he's gone. It's a good idea. He's not doing it so that he will be remembered (thanks to the RC church, there's no fear of Peter being forgotten) but so that Christ and his words will be remembered.

vs 16

This is another statement about Peter's authority as an eyewitness. He's using it in contrast to "cleverly invented stories" which were very likely coming from some of the heretical movements within the church. The gnostics, for example, would make stuff up about Jesus to fulfil their beliefs about him.

vs 17-18

Peter was the one who spoke about building a shelter for the Jesus, Moses and Elijah during the transfiguration. Surely this moment in history changed his life. This reminds us just how precious letters from Peter are - he is one of the inner 3 who saw this take place.

These verses also show us how Peter saw the transfiguration (in giving Jesus honor and glory) and that, in his words, they heard the voice of God on that mountain. That's a big deal.

vs 19

Jesus' recogniton and fulfillment of the OT is of great value to us. I can't wait to do more OT study (hopefully next year) because I am sure that it unlocks great parts of the NT for further study and understanding.

Jesus is the bright morning star, by the way. Some people think it's satan, but some people don't know how to read in context.

vs 20

Here Peter is giving us some foundational lessons in how we read all inspired scripture. There is precious little of such comments about the relationship between God, the authors, and the finished product. Peter's argument here is leaning towards God, but probably has to be understood in context. I think Peter may be defending the scriptures against the firstfruits of the gnostic heresy, which discounted the OT because it's God was a brutish nasty God. And instead they, well, basically made stuff up - just like people do today. "Oh, I think the world works this way, so that must be how Jesus did things, because I think he did!" Go eat your own face, fool! Cognitive relativism is for losers!

Oh, anyway, I think Peter is saying here that, unlike the gnostic hippies, the OT prophets didn't make up what they said or what it meant.

vs 21

So while the origin is not from man (so God starts it off), men do speak. Although some people might use this for the argument of the holy typewriter (that the person doing the speaking/writing was God's pen, as it were) it can also be said that the men did speak - they were guided by the Holy Spirit, not consumed. When you see the personality of Peter in his letters, surely God didn't strike his pen with lightning (or worse yet, his amanuensis!) and make the letters write themselves.