2 Peter 1: Growing n Faith
Resources:
Notes:
- 2 Peter focuses on several key themes:
- The Danger of False Teachers: Peter strongly warns against false teachers who infiltrate the church with heretical doctrines, leading believers astray and ultimately to destruction.
- The Importance of Christian Growth: He emphasizes the need for believers to grow in their faith and knowledge of God, developing virtues like self-control, perseverance, and godliness.
- The Certainty of Christ’s Return: Peter affirms the reality and imminence of Christ’s second coming, urging believers to live in light of this future event.
- The Importance of Scripture: He highlights the authority and sufficiency of Scripture as the foundation for Christian faith and life.
- These themes are interwoven throughout the letter, with Peter urging believers to remain steadfast in the truth, to grow in grace, and to eagerly await the Lord’s return.
Notes on the video:
- Amongst the suffering there is false teachings – how do we get through the false teachings? Jesus is our master to help us through it.
- Critics have been tougher on 2 Peter than any other book in the New Testament. Many thought Peter wasn’t the author because there were 2 styles of writing.
- 1 Peter was written by Silas using the words of Peter
- 2 Peter was likely written by Peter or someone else.
- Peter refers to Jesus’ prediction that Peter is going to die:
- Some actually thought 2 Peter was written by a false teacher. This is weird because 2 Peter talks a lot about being wary of false teachers.
- v1 : Peter refers to himself as a slave of Christ
- v3-4: he begins to address the conditions of Christians
- By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvelous glory and excellence.
- And because of his glory and excellence, he has given us great and precious promises. These are the promises that enable you to share his divine nature and escape the world’s corruption caused by human desires.
- Divine power is all we need to get through life. This power of resurrection is available to us thanks to Jesus.
- Another resource available to us are the precious promises of Jesus Christ.
- Also see Philippians 3:10 and Ephesians 1:19-20
- v5-7: We were given multiple supplements to extend and grow our faith (emphasis added):
- In view of all this, make every effort to respond to God’s promises. Supplement your faith with a generous provision of moral excellence, and moral excellence with knowledge,
- and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with patient endurance, and patient endurance with godliness,
- and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love for everyone.
- These are all related – building our faith starts with goodness and builds on knowledge. Knowledge leads to self-control. We display our faith through goodness, knowledge, and self-control. After we get self-control we must have endurance – persevering in spite of adversity. Endurance, then, leads to godliness – a desire to please God in all aspects of our life. Godliness causes us to perform overt acts of kindness, putting everyone ahead of ourselves (brotherly affection). Brotherly affection finally leads to love towards all which is the highest form of love (seeking the welfare of others above your own welfare).
- John 3:16 models all of these resources.
- v8-9: If we can do these things we will produce fruit for Christ.
- The more you grow like this, the more productive and useful you will be in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
- But those who fail to develop in this way are shortsighted or blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their old sins.
- Verse 9 warns us against losing our passion for the faith and becoming stale.
- The video ended before the pastor could cover the rest of 2 Peter 1.
- Later in 2 Peter 1, Peter lays a foundation to support his attack on the false teachers in the church. He also introduces ideas supporting his declaration that the Day of the Lord is coming.
- Later chapters in 2 Peter will use this first chapter to support his arguments that the Day of the Lord is coming.
Group Discussion:
- While 2 Peter got a lot of criticism Jude also received quite a bit because Jude references the book of Enoch which is a non-canonical book. Parts of Jude appear to have been transcribed from the book of Enoch.
- How does your faith grow by doing good things and resisting temptation?
- Resisting temptation requires reliance on Jesus. Faith is doing things Jesus’ way, not my way. This makes our faith grow stronger.
- v5-8 outlines the qualities and progression of how to grow in our faith.
- If you possess these qualities you are already witnessing to the power of Christ just by being.
- This is true but you are experientially learning things by doing things – not just by existing.
- Can non-believers do good deeds and what is different about a good deed done by a believer?
- This is the difference between being a disciple and being an apostle.
- One is being (disciple), while the other is doing by following the prompts of the Holy Spirit and doing the things he commands you to do (apostle).
- Being drives you to do things but doing things does not drive you to being. For example, the Pharisees bragged about doing a lot of things but they only did them to make themselves look good, not to worship God.
- Don’t just hear the word, do it.
- If you start with the being and enter into the doing, you will experience the next level of being by doing.
- Doing without being restricts your growth in being.
- Doing without being means you’re doing things you think it makes you look good to God, not because God wants you to do it.
- This is what the Pharisees were doing – bragging about their faith instead of practicing their faith due to being driven by the spirit.
- 2 Peter seems to be two letters written at two different times. There seems to be a passage of time between the first half and the second half. The wording is also very different from how 1 Peter was written.
- 2 Peter likely had a different scribe.
- This is also true of the gospel John when compared to Revelations. The Greek in Revelations is very bad in comparison to the gospel of John – likely meaning John wrote Revelations himself while on the island of Patmos.
- Review of member gratefulness and individual prayer requests.
