Living in God's True Story

2 Peter
1. Auflage 2021
ISBN: 978-1-68359-484-0
Verlag: Lexham Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 128 Seiten

Reihe: Transformative Word

We all need a reminder of the true story at the heart of the gospel. In the face of false teachers and skeptics, Peter wrote his second epistle to remind his readers of God's true story. They needed to be reoriented to the truth of their identity and status in Christ. Christians continue to experience similar challenges to our spiritual foundations today. In Living in God's True Story: 2 Peter, Donald L. Morcom shows that remembering the truth is the core theme of Peter's second letter. In the midst of false alternatives, he encourages believers to live faithful lives that demonstrate love and wisdom. Though it may be short, 2 Peter is an impactful letter that explains how we can order our lives in accordance with God's true story.

Donald ('D') Morcom lives in Brisbane, Australia, and is lecturer in New Testament and Greek at Malyon Theological College, an affiliated institution of the Australian College of Theology.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Morcom

Leseproben

2

“HOW FIRM A ?FOUNDATION”

2 PETER 1:1–4

In my home country of Australia, as in many other parts of the world, termites—“white ants,” as we call them here—pose a significant threat to wooden structures. White ants are only small creatures, but they can do an awful lot of damage. Unseen and unnoticed, they eat away at house frames, floors, posts, fences, and anything else made of wood that they can sink their teeth into. You have no idea that anything is wrong until one day you lean unsuspectingly against a wall and it suddenly gives way. Prevention is better than cure, of course—most Aussie homeowners spend plenty of good money to keep the white ants at bay and the pest-control industry in business. So pervasive are white ants that their name features in the vocabulary of politics and organizational life—to “white-ant” a political party or an organization is to undermine or sabotage it.

Peter makes it clear that false teachers and scoffers were trying to “white-ant” the faith of his readers (see especially 2 Pet 2:1–3:7), so it makes sense that Peter would be at pains to remind them of the solid, white ant–proof foundation that God has already laid for them in Christ. When we try to answer the transformative question of 2 Peter 3:11, “What kind of people ought you to be?” we must begin with a clear understanding of this unshakable foundation. For our encouragement and assurance, Peter sets out the security and benefits of belonging to God and being part of his true story in the introduction to his letter (1:1–4).

A Greeting from the Author

As is customary in many of the letters of the New Testament, the author begins by identifying himself. He is “Simeon Peter, a slave and apostle of Jesus Christ” (2 Pet 1:1, my translation).13 The longer version of his name, “Simeon,” is found only here and in Acts 15:14, where James refers to him in this way at the Jerusalem Council. “Simeon” is the transliteration of the Hebrew name of the son of Jacob and the tribe named after him in the Old Testament; “Simon” is the common Greek form of his name, and many English translations opt for this rendering.

Simon Peter was one of the first disciples called to follow Jesus (Matt 4:18–20; Luke 5:1–11). He stands out in the Gospels as the leader of the disciples and someone capable of passionate affirmations of the true identity of Jesus as Messiah (see Matt 16:16–18, the occasion when Jesus gives him his new name, “Peter”; John 6:66–69). With James and John, he was also a member of the inner circle, whom Jesus involved at key points in his ministry, such as the raising of Jairus’ daughter (Mark 5:37; Luke 8:51) and the transfiguration (Matt 17:1–9; Mark 9:1–9; Luke 9:27–36), an event Peter recalls in 2 Peter 1:16–18. But he was also impetuous and guilty of some disappointing failures, the worst being his denial of Jesus (Matt 26:69–75; Mark 14:66–72; Luke 22:54–62; John 18:15–27). As he was shattered by guilt at his failure, his reinstatement by Jesus in John 21:15–19 marks a turning point in his life that he never forgot. The two letters that bear his name, 1 and 2 Peter, are part of his obedient response to commands he received directly from Jesus: “And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers” (Luke 22:32), and “Feed my lambs.… Feed my sheep” (John 21:15, 17).

Empowered by the Holy Spirit following the day of Pentecost, at which he preached a crucial sermon (Acts 2:14–36), Peter became an important figure in the geographical and cultural spread of the gospel in Acts. Although Galatians 2:7–9 describes a division of labor—Paul to the gentiles, and Peter (Cephas) to the Jews—this division was not completely watertight. Even if his practice sometimes lagged behind his theology (Gal 2:11–14), Peter was instrumental in the earliest stages of preaching the gospel to the gentiles. His vision at Joppa led to his proclaiming the gospel to the Roman centurion Cornelius and his household (Acts 10:1–11:18). After his miraculous, angel-enabled escape from prison, Peter “left for another place” (Acts 12:17)—unspecified, but probably well outside the Jewish orbit, in which his life was now threatened. He reappeared to make a convincing speech at the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15:6–11), which paved the way for the decision not to “make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God” (Acts 15:19) by adding the weight of observing Jewish ceremonial law. After this, we know very little about Peter’s own personal history. He addresses his first letter to “God’s elect, exiles scattered throughout the provinces of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia” (1 Pet 1:1), an area covering much of the western half of modern Turkey, suggesting that he had significant influence there. According to early Christian testimony, Peter met martyrdom in Rome by being crucified head down during the reign of the emperor Nero (reigned AD 54–68) in the mid-60s AD.14

Peter further identifies himself as “a slave and apostle of Jesus Christ” (2 Pet 1:1, my translation). For good reasons, many people today recoil from the use of the word “slave” to describe a Christian’s relationship with Christ. You can easily understand why if you have seen uncomfortable but important movies such as Amistad or Twelve Years a Slave, where the horrors of slavery are vividly depicted.15 Many English versions of the New Testament (KJV, NIV, ESV) soften the translation of the Greek word doulos to “servant” or “bondservant” (the former is too weak, and the latter too archaic, to do justice to doulos), but they show little hesitation in referring to the false teachers as “slaves” of corruption (2 Pet 2:19, where the same word doulos is used). We need to understand that for New Testament writers such as Peter and Paul, doulos carries the idea of a completely sold-out commitment to Jesus Christ and the mission he had given them—the apostolic mission of taking the true story of the gospel to their world. There is really no other way of understanding their—and our—Christian identity.

By referring to himself as an “apostle,” Peter is claiming the right to speak with authority to his readers, since he had been appointed by Jesus Christ himself for this task. But at the same time, Peter wants to make sure that his readers understand that they are not in any sense inferior to the apostles as far as their faith is concerned—in fact, God has chosen them to receive “a faith as precious” (2 Pet 1:1) as the apostles’ faith. The same “righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Pet 1:1) that was at work in the apostles is also at work in Peter’s believing readers.16 There are no second-class citizens among God’s people.

A Foundation Laid by God

“Grace and peace be yours” (2 Pet 1:2) is a characteristically Christian greeting in the New Testament—variations of it appear at the beginning of every one of Paul’s letters, plus 1 and 2 Peter, 2 John, and Revelation. The grace of God and peace with God encapsulate both the ground of our salvation and its most important result. It’s no wonder that Peter expresses the longing that grace and peace may be multiplied to his readers, because these are among the most important and valuable benefits of knowing Jesus Christ and are the most important ingredients of the solid foundation on which we stand. Grace, peace, and knowing Jesus Christ are vital as our spiritual foundation, which Peter demonstrates by using them as inclusive bookends to his letter (compare 2 Pet 1:2 with 3:14, 18).

Here’s the crucially important point: no one less than God himself has laid the foundation on which believers stand. As Christ-followers, this is the source of our confidence and assurance. God takes the initiative in our salvation; God lays the foundation on which our Christian lives are built. This point is made repeatedly in the New Testament (for example, Rom 3:21–26; 1 Cor 1:26–31; Eph 2:8–9; Phil 3:9; 2 Tim 1:9; Titus 3:5), because it is vital for Christ-followers to understand that the righteousness of Jesus Christ, our God and Savior, is the basis and foundation of our salvation, not our own righteousness. Peter establishes this indispensable principle at the very beginning of his letter. “His divine power” (2 Pet 1:3) has bestowed on us everything that contributes to life and godliness; he is the one who has called us to his own glory and goodness (1:3); he is the one who has made us the objects of his great and precious promises (1:4).

I still remember quite vividly as a young teenager being let down by someone who had committed to doing something and failed to carry through on that commitment. “But you promised to do it!” I said. “No,” was the response, “I didn’t promise I’d do it, I only said I would.” As if there were a difference! Thankfully, God’s character is the guarantee that he will keep his promises. As Paul declares so confidently, “For no matter how many promises God has made, they are ‘Yes’ in Christ” (2 Cor 1:20). (At the same time, of course, we need to be more careful than we often are about interpreting God’s promises in their context. God often gave specific promises to individuals or groups of people in specific historical circumstances that can’t be...