Imagine what it would be like to receive a letter from someone who was a personal friend of Jesus during his earthly ministry. That’s exactly what we have in the New Testament correspondence known as 1 and 2 Peter. Peter is known as a thundering paradox of a man. On the one hand he is known for his impetuosity, for his vacillating between faith and doubt, for his treachery of public denial of Jesus at the time of Jesus’ greatest peril. On the other hand he is known for his magnificent confession of faith at Caesarea Philippi where, without hesitation, he declared his confidence that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the living God.

This is the testimony of a man who not only was part of the entourage of Jesus during his earthly ministry but was also an eyewitness of the resurrection and part of the inner circle of disciples in the great triad of Peter, James, and John. These three were present on the Mount of Transfiguration and were able to see with their own eyes the glory of the transfigured Christ.

A letter from a man such as this is a treasure for the church. His letter, beyond the value of his own eyewitness testimony and his intimate friendship with Jesus, carries with it the weight of the divine inspiration of God the Holy Spirit. What Peter says to the church is merely an extension of what the Lord and Master, Christ, says to the church…

—R. C. Sproul

Source: 1-2 Peter: An Expositional Commentary by R.C. Sproul © Ligonier Ministries 2019. Used by permission of Ligonier Ministries. All rights reserved.

The second epistle of Peter is a brief letter of reminders for first-century Christians. Peter urges his readers to make every effort to grow in their faith, to remember that the promises of God (spoken by the prophets and apostles) are trustworthy, and to beware those who teach otherwise.

—Jeffrey Kranz

Source: “2 Peter: Remember the Truth.” © 2020 OverviewBible. Used by Permission.

Godliness is no optional spiritual luxury for a few quaint Christians of a bygone era or for some group of super-saints of today. It is both the privilege and duty of every Christian to pursue godliness, to train himself to be godly, to study diligently the practice of godliness. We don’t need any special talent or equipment. God has given to each one of us “everything we need for life and godliness” (2 Peter 1:3). The most ordinary Christian has all that he needs, and the most talented Christian must use those same means in the practice of godliness… Godliness is more than Christian character; it is Christian character that springs from a devotion to God. But it is also true that devotion to God always results in godly character… So the definition of godliness we will use… is devotion to God that results in a life that is pleasing to him… we must never lose sight of the fact that devotion to God is the mainspring of Christian character and the only foundation upon which it can be successfully built.

—Jerry Bridges

Source: Some content taken from The Practice of Godliness by Jerry Bridges. Copyright © (2008). Used by permission of NavPress, represented by Tyndale House Publishers, a Division of Tyndale House Ministries. All rights reserved.

God’s Word is a revelation—a revealing of truth to make the dark things light, bringing eternity into bright focus. Granted, there are things in Scripture that are hard to understand (2 Peter 3:16). But taken as a whole, the Bible is not a bewildering book.

—John MacArthur

Source: Content adapted from Our Sufficiency in Christ © 1998 by John MacArthur. All rights reserved. Used by permission of Crossway Books, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

“The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise… He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9 NIV). The last days are to be sad days, for scoffers will make fun of our beliefs and say, “Ha, ha! Where is the promise of Christ’s return? As far as we can see, everything is going on, just as it has from the beginning of creation. Nature goes on in the same manner as always. There have been no signs of any radical change. The promise of his coming has failed.” The scoffers during Peter’s time were evil, but the sad truth is that good people even today scoff at the promise of his coming. They make light of the great hope of the Church: “How illogical is their reasoning about Christ’s return! Here they are! He hasn’t come, and he’s not going to come. Nothing different has happened; therefore, nothing unusual is going to happen.” Because our Lord has not come as yet, will we give up hope? No, indeed. Rather, we will rejoice in the fact that his return comes nearer every day.  

—Henrietta Mears 

Source: This content is from What the Bible Is All About, written by Henrietta Mears. Copyright © 1953, 2011 by Gospel Light. Copyright assigned to Tyndale House Publishers, 2015. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, a division of Tyndale House Ministries, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

God will renovate the heavens and the earth, merging his heaven with a new universe for a perfect dwelling-place that will be our home forever. In other words, heaven, the realm where God dwells, will expand to encompass the entire universe of creation, which will be fashioned into a perfect and glorious domain fit for the glory of heaven. The apostle Peter described this as the hope of every redeemed person: “We, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness” (2 Peter 3:13 ESV). 

—John MacArthur 

Source: Content adapted from The Glory of Heaven © 2023 by John MacArthur. All rights reserved. Used by permission of Crossway Books, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

God is the source of Scripture, while man is its conduit. Peter places side by side the human and divine roles in producing Scripture. God’s role can be summarized under two categories. First, he is the source of Scripture. That is likely what Peter means when he writes that “no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation” (2 Peter 1:20 ESV).[1] The Bible does not originate in the creativity or brilliance of human authors. God speaking is the origin of Scripture; had he remained silent, there would be no Bible. Second, through the Holy Spirit God is the one who empowered human beings to speak. Like the wind that fills the sail of a ship and enables it to move forward, God’s Spirit enabled human beings to speak what God inspired them to say and write.[2] 

Although not stated explicitly, the human role in the production of Scripture can be reasonably inferred from what Peter does say. Simply put, the human authors had to surrender themselves to following the prompting of God through his Spirit. The starting point for Scripture is not the decision of the human author to write (i.e., “the will of man”), but rather the prior action of God to reveal himself through that human author.[3] In order to hear what God was saying, the human authors of Scripture adopted the kind of humble posture described in Isaiah 66:2—“But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word” (ESV). The Holy Spirit may have been the wind that filled the sail, but the sail had to be properly positioned in order for the wind to fill it… 

Given that Scripture is a powerful divine word, written down by the human authors, and reliable and trustworthy, it is no wonder that God’s people are reminded that “you will do well to pay attention” to it (2 Peter 1:19). Believers should adopt a posture of constant readiness to hear, believe, and apply what God’s word says since it is in fact sufficient for all things pertaining to life and godliness (2 Peter 1:3–4).

1. The underlying Greek expression is difficult. Another possibility is that this expression means that prophecy cannot be interpreted according to the whims of the interpreter. But the surrounding context as well as the use of similar expressions in Jewish literature to defend the divine origins of Old Testament prophecy favor the view presented here.

2. Peter uses language that is similar to how both Josephus (Ant. 4.119) and Philo (Spec. 1.65) describe God working in the prophets to move them to speak for him.

3. Scripture notes multiple ways that God worked in the human authors to produce authoritative Scripture. Sometimes he spoke audibly and instructed the author to write down exactly what he said (e.g., Jeremiah 30:2; Revelation 19:9). But more often God prompted the human author to record what God was doing along with its meaning and significance. Yet even in these situations God is the source of Scripture through his act of taking the initiative to prompt the human author to write.

—Matthew S. Harmon 

Source: Content adapted from The God Who Judges and Saves: A Theology of 2 Peter and Jude © 2023 by Matthew S. Harmon. All rights reserved. Used by permission of Crossway Books, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. (p.30-31)

This is a very short book, just three chapters. The dominant theme of this book is chapter 2, and chapter 2 is about false teachers, false prophets, and they are described in very clear, graphic terms in the second chapter. Now chapter 2, which focuses on false prophets and false teachers, is surrounded by other teaching directed at successfully countering their attacks. In other words, chapter 1 and chapter 3 are related to the theme, in that chapter 1 and chapter 3 tell the believer how to be equipped to deal with the false teachers. To fight off the encroaching, deluding deception of false teachers, the believer must know some things. The believer must have some accurate, true knowledge. 

Well, in chapter 1, verse 12 through verse 21, we must know Scripture, and he deals with that. In chapter 3, we must know our sanctification. And in chapter 1, verses 3 to 11, we must know our salvation. If you know the Scripture, and if you know you’re sanctified and set apart unto God from sin, and if you know your salvation is real, then the attacks of false teachers are thwarted; if you don’t know the Scripture, and if you do not know and are not experiencing a continued state of sanctification, and if you are not sure of your salvation, you become a ready victim.

—John MacArthur 

Source: Copyright 2023, Grace to You. All rights reserved. Used by permission. This Grace to You article originally appeared here at gty.org.

Now could it be that the false teachers had come and not only attempted to debunk Peter in general and to debunk the New Testament revelation that had been given and certainly the Old Testament revelation as well, but particularly they were after this issue of Christ’s Second Coming… We believe that the major concern of these false teachers was to deny the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, which, of course, is the culmination to everything. If Christ doesn’t come back, then all the rest is meaningless, right? It’s all meaningless. If he isn’t the end of history and the beginning of eternity, then the rest is a moot point. 

—John MacArthur  

Source: Copyright 2023, Grace to You. All rights reserved. Used by permission. This Grace to You article originally appeared here at gty.org.

[Peter writes because] a group of people is denying a day of coming judgment. So what do the stories of Sodom and Gomorrah, the sons of God and the daughters of men, and Noah all have in common? You have a large percentage, or a large group of people—the sons of God, the people living in Noah’s day, the citizens of Sodom and Gomorrah—all denying that there was a specific moral way to live, transgressing that command, and then you had righteous people in the midst of those being saved. And the people who denied the coming judgment, deny that they needed rescue, or deny that they need to live a certain way, were the ones that came under judgment. 

So you have Peter giving you those two categories. False teachers are a type of people. They’re like the sons of God who slept with the daughters of Eve. They’re like the citizens of Sodom and Gomorrah, they’re like the people who were violent and only did evil all the time in Noah’s day. And then he gives us a contrast: Lot, who was grieved over the wickedness he saw all around him. Noah who proclaimed righteousness—he was a herald of righteousness. And what’s Peter’s broadest point that he’s making? People who preach that there’s no coming day of judgment are ironically judged. And those who know there’s a coming day of judgment and weep over it and proclaim it are the ones who are saved. That’s the broadest point he’s making. Live righteously, proclaim righteousness, weep over unrighteousness… Those who deny a coming judgment will be judged. Those who expect a coming judgment will be saved from it.  

—Seth Stewart 

Source: David Bowden and Seth Stewart in the Spoken Gospel podcast, “2 Peter 1:16-2:22: Nephilim. Sodom. Flood,” published by Spoken Gospel at spokengospel.com.  

The Scripture is kind of a night light. And it shines, now listen to me, only temporarily. It will endure forever but it shines as a light in the dark place only temporarily because only as long as we are in this world is it dark. And that’s what he says. Follow his thought in [2 Peter 1] verse 19. He says we should pay attention to it as a lamp shining in a dark place—what that means is it’s only for a while, it’s not permanent—until the day dawns and the morning star arises in your hearts. 

There’s coming a dawning, this is a beautiful thought, and the lamp, listen to me, the Word, is not the sun. The lamp, the Word, is not the sun, the sun is Christ. But until the day of the dawning when the day star comes, arising in your hearts, and then dawns into the full blazing light of eternal sun, we need the Scripture.

—John MacArthur

Source: Copyright 2023, Grace to You. All rights reserved. Used by permission. This Grace to You article originally appeared here at gty.org.