Intro questions: How do you know who your parents are? (trust + evidence, and there's a system to let you know for certain)
How do you know your parents love you? (there's no test for that; it's trust plus evidence)
Neither of these questions can be solved purely by logic. You have to trust other people, and trust a system that provides you with information. You need truth. Would it be possible to discover who your parents truly are if you have no idea what truth is, or if you don't care if what people tell you is true or not, or if what you discover is true or not? Truth MUST be a part of the system to discover truth.
Now think about some more complicated questions: how do you know God exists? How do you know Jesus is God? How do you know he loves us? How do you know we are saved through him? You know because of trust, because of evidence, and because of a system that allows us to know for certain. This is what Peter is writing about in 2 Peter, and I want us to look at this and why it's important for us.
Step 1: Read the passage (2 Peter 1:1) What do we know about 2 Peter? Who wrote it? Who is it written to?
Step 2a: Read the passage (2 Peter 1:2-4). Peter describes two processes: one through which we can live a godly life; the other through which we participate in God's divine nature. What are the elements of these processes?
(Christ's divine power -> knowledge of God -> us having everything necessary for a godly life.
God's glory and goodness -> very great and precious promises -> our participation in the divine nature.)
Questions generally?
Today, we will be focusing on one element of these processes that has a lot of overlap: knowledge of God, through which Christ's power equips us with everything we need for a godly life; and knowledge of his very great and precious promises, through which we are able to participate in God's divine nature. It should be noted that when Peter says "knowledge of God" he uses a specific Greek word that doesn't just mean "knowing about something" - it's a deep and genuine. Some translations use the term "true knowledge of God".
Now, remember we were talking about systems of knowledge, how we know things? We said that no system that excludes truth will allow you to discover the truth, right? Now here's a question: how do we know that God exists? I want you to see how complicated a question that is, so let's ask an easier question first.
How do you know your parents existed? (point to yourself; you are proof). The system there is simple, because there are no other options.
But How do we know God exists? Because everything else exists doesn't seem to be as powerful an answer, because there are other options available. When we ask the question "How do we know God exists", it's like we're asking two questions at the same time: "How do you know your parents existed" AND "How do you know who your parents are?" Our existence certainly points to something causing us to exist, but there is a system of trust, evidence and truth that you need to follow. And there's a complication to proving God's existence! God doesn't exist in the same way that your parents exist: God's existence is before all other things. From a human position, if we try to discover God by first assuming he doesn't exist, our system is broken and we're likely to discover God doesn't exist. If we assume that God does exist, then the system suddenly works very differently. God has to be part of the system that reveals him, and that is exactly what we discover Peter talking about here. Without Christ's divine power and Christ's glory and goodness, there is no knowledge of God.
Step 2b: Read the passage (2 Peter 1:12-15). What is Peter's stated reason for writing this letter?
What is his audience like (v12)? So why does an audience that knows and is firmly established in these truths need to be reminded of them?
Step 3: What does Peter know about doubt? (Mark 14:66-72) Read the passage (2 Peter 1:16:18). What is Peter referring to in this passage as being an eyewitness to?
Did Peter deny Jesus before or after the Transfiguration?
So here's the first point: doubt is a part of the Christian life. Peter isn't writing all this to non-Christians, but to those who have received the faith. You remember at the beginning we talked about a system that allows us to know the truth? That's what Peter is outlining for us here. He gives us two parts of that system.
Step 4: Read the passage again (2 Peter 1:16:18). What is the first piece of knowledge about Jesus that Peter is talking about?
And how does that knowledge come to us; what is the system that brings that knowledge to us?
Jesus reveals his nature as God at the Transfiguration. More than his birth, more than his death, more even than his resurrection, the Transfiguration is the one time that shows without doubt that Jesus isn't just a prophet, or a teacher, or a miracle worker - he is God incarnate. And that most important revelation is seen by only three people in the whole of history, because that's how God wanted it. You don't get to see it. Neither do I. Nor did the nine other apostles. But Peter saw it. That's the system God chose - a system where three people get the proof, and everyone else gets to hear about it second-hand.
And that's enough. It's enough to put a stamp of approval on everything Jesus says and does as expressing who God is to us. If we need to know who God is, we have Jesus - God as a human being - doing God for us in a way that we can understand because he's doing God as one of us. We can participate in the divine nature because God participated in what it means to be human. That's the great and precious promise - and we can know it to be true, because Jesus was Transfigured, and Peter saw it. Yes, we have to trust Peter. Peter knew he was going to die soon, so he wrote it down. So yes, we have to trust tradition handing down this story to us as written in the Bible. Yes, we have to trust scholars like Penny who translate it from Greek into English. But God is part of that system - the one who Transfigured Jesus in front of those three apostles is the one who brings us Peter's message.
Here's the second thing that's different about God: when it comes to learning about God, God is the system, and God made the system. There is no system bigger than God we can refer to. Logic, science, reason - these things are all products of God. God is outside them and prior to them. They're not useless, just limited. Who God is can't be verified against something outside himself because not even truth is outside God: God IS Truth. From a God position, God is the one revealing himself, and the truth about himself, and his love for us, both on a grand level but also on an individual level to people.
Step 5: Read the passage (2 Peter 1:19-21). What's "the prophetic message"?
What's the link between the OT and the Transfiguration? (Mark 9:2-4)
So even the Transfiguration, the eyewitness event, speaks to the need for the Old Testament. When we talk about the very great and precious promises of God, what are some of those very great and precious promises that God made to us in the Old Testament?
We learned at the beginning that knowledge of God and his very great and precious promises comes from God. How does Peter make that clear about the Old Testament? (v21)
Peter tells us that God speaks through the writers of the Old Testament by inspiring them through his Holy Spirit. The Old Testament is a story of how over thousands of years God has spoken into individual people's lives, relating to them, transforming them, speaking through them to others - loving them. Sometimes God is a pillar of fire and cloud, sometimes he's a burning bush, sometimes he's a booming voice from the heavens; and sometimes, he's a small voice in the wind, he's in people's dreams, he is convicting people through his written word, and he is sometimes just in their hearts, telling them what to say or write.
That Holy Spirit, who guided the pens that wrote the Old Testament, is inside each of us. It is the key that unlocks God's word to us - it's like the Holy Spirit from back then talks to the Holy Spirit inside us now. When are some times people have had that happen: that the Holy Spirit has brought them to God's word to show them what they need to hear? This is a third element of God's involvement in the system: even the knowledge that God brings to us, he brings to us through himself, by his Spirit in us. Again, God's power is involved in our knowledge - we cannot know God without God.
When times are tough, when things are hard, when you're struggling and suffering and doubt arises, remember that. Remember that God's Holy Spirit is in you. The same Holy Spirit that was with the prophets in the Old Testament; the same Holy Spirit that was with Peter and the New Testament authors; the same Holy Spirit that was with Jesus. How can you trust that God is who he says he is, that he loves us and will keep his great and precious promises? Because God has revealed himself through Jesus Christ to all humanity; and because God speaks to us in the written Bible, inspired by God the Holy Spirit, and God the Holy Spirit inside you will connect you to the truth of God's great and precious promises.
You'll also be glad to know that it isn't limited to the Old Testament for us. In 2 Peter 3:15-16 Peter puts the stamp on Paul's writings as other Scripture. We have the whole of Scripture for the Holy Spirit to speak to us through. Of course, we have to read it.
Step 6: So what? Remember the process: step 1) God's power; step 2) knowledge of God; step 3) living a godly life. This stuff is not just stuff we know. It's stuff we must do. We are not just recipients of the divine nature; we are participants in it.
Read the passage: (2 Peter 1:5-8). From the verses we've just looked at, we see that knowledge of God and knowledge of his promises are the vehicles through which we are able to live godly lives, and participate in the divine nature. So it's little wonder then that verses 5-8 focus on ensuring that our knowledge of Christ is both effective and productive. If our knowledge of God is being ineffective and unproductive, perhaps it is because we are not using it to live a godly life.
Read the passage: (2 Peter 1:9-11) And if we are having doubts about our faith and our understanding of God and our relationship with God, perhaps it is because we are not confirming our calling and election through the living of that godly life.
