How will they survive? How will the newly converted believers continue in their faith in Jesus? How will this group continue to reach a lost and fallen world with the good news (aka gospel)?
That had to be on Peters mind as he approached his death. How will these people who didn’t have the privilege of face to face time with Jesus survive, even thrive and grow, in numbers and in strength?
What would bind them together? What will unify them? What will keep them from drifting or straying away.
The words. God’s words.
As Peter said to Jesus, “To whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life!”
(“Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.”
John 6:68)
The Old Testament was a map to Jesus. The apostles had their stories of Jesus’ life and ministry, and then there were the letters being written by Peter and Paul, later John and others would write letters, and Luke would write about the miraculous lives, ministry and Acts of the apostles in the early church.
Peter mentions all of these types of books or letters here in chapter three.
“Dear friends, this is now my second letter to you. I have written both of them as reminders to stimulate you to wholesome thinking. I want you to recall the words spoken in the past by the holy prophets and the command given by our Lord and Savior through your apostles.
2 Peter 3:1-2
“So then, dear friends, since you are looking forward to this, make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him. Bear in mind that our Lord’s patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him. He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.
2 Peter 3:14-16
We are believing in Jesus because generations of believers have studied and copied and preserved the word. Now it is our privilege and duty to carry it on. To tell it, to share it, to preserve it we need to know it. We need to know it, as my pastor Rory says, to assimilate it. One teacher I heard or read recently said we need to know it, on an intimate level, like a husband knows his wife, on that level of experiential full knowledge.
Forces are at work to discredit and dilute the Word. Our job is know it and share as best we can.
I want to Remember this one other thing too “Bear in mind that our Lord’s patience means salvation.” Salvation is a treasure meant to be shared.
(Originally posted 1/10/18)
Peter’s Posts 