Kootenai Church Morning Worship

Will you turn now in your Bibles to the book of 2 Peter? If your Bible falls open naturally to the book of Hebrews, which, unless you purchased one recently, it probably will, then you just turn a couple of books to the right and you will land at 2 Peter. That is going to be our home for the next while. And it's my custom at the beginning of every book that I preach through to give something of an introduction to the book—to talk about the author of the book, when it was written, why it was written, to whom it was written, and some of the themes that are covered in the book so that we kind of have some sort of an expectation ahead of us of what we're going to get out of 2 Peter.
In some cases, some of the details of things like that regarding Bible books are known from other Bible books. Sometimes the details can be gleaned by reading through the book that you're studying and putting together the pieces. And sometimes you don't have to put together the pieces—the author will just tell you at the beginning who wrote it and who it is written to and why it is written. And then you can begin to sort of fill in some of the blanks by what you read in the course of the book.
And sometimes it's a little bit more difficult, as it is with 2 Peter, to glean some of those details. So today we're going to give our attention to kind of an overview of the book of 2 Peter. And the reason for this is that we want to know why it was written, who wrote it, and to whom it was written so that we can make sure that, as we work our way through the text over the course of the next several months, we'll be able to rightly interpret and understand the passages as we see them and sort of put them all together into a coherent whole. So this sermon is going to be a little bit different than other sermons where I typically open up the passage, we read the passage, and then we sort of mine the passage for the truth that is there and apply it to our lives. This is going to be a little bit different in that there is a lot of background information for this book. But you've seen me do this for other books, John and Hebrews and Ecclesiastes, etc.
So, there are a number of controversies or difficulties that surround the book of 2 Peter. I want to deal with those this morning sort of at the beginning of this so we can just be aware of what the issues are regarding this book and a little bit of what you can expect in the months ahead, and I'll give you a few of them here this morning. They're intriguing, fascinating controversies about the history of this book, and let me just give you three of them quickly.
First, there are questions about the authorship of this book. Now you might be thinking to yourself, But you just told us it's 2 Peter, right? So Peter must have written this. We know that Peter wrote 1 Peter, and this is 2 Peter, so we'd have to assume that Peter wrote this. It is alleged by some that Peter could not have been the author of this book that bears his name. And it bears his name in chapter 1, verse 1. You'll see that there. It bears his name there. But yet, in spite of that, some will allege that Peter could not have been the author of the book. And in fact, of all of the New Testament books, this one has the largest number of detractors, people who say that it could not have been written by the person that we have historically believed wrote the book. Of all New Testament books, this has the most number of even sometimes conservative scholars who will doubt the authenticity of Peter's authorship. Some would say that even though we don't know who wrote it, that it's a pseudepigraphal work, meaning an author wrote this claiming to be Peter or he wrote it in the auspices of being Peter—some would say that even though we don't know who wrote the book, we can nonetheless accept it as part of our New Testament canon and we ought to regard it as Scripture, just like we do the book of Hebrews. We don't know who wrote the book of Hebrews, but nobody questions its authenticity, its authority, its inspiration, or its canonicity. And so some would suggest that even though we don't know really who wrote 2 Peter, we can still regard it as Scripture.
Second, there are questions regarding this book about the date of the book. So if Peter died in AD 68, usually—and he does. Historically we could say AD 67 or 68 is about when Peter died. If that's the case, then those who doubt that Peter wrote the book often like to push the dating of the book past AD 68, beyond Peter's lifetime and even beyond the lifetime of the other apostles. So some people would date this book into the early second century, or even later second century, somewhere post AD 125 or 150. And it's usually—well, yeah, it is always those who doubt Peter's authorship which also give it a late dating for the book.
Third, this book—and this is a curious detail—the book of 2 Peter was among the last, if not the last, of our New Testament books to be (this is a keyword) widely embraced as part of the canon. And by canon, I'm referring to that list of books that we say is our New Testament and Old Testament, the list of books which we regard as authoritative. So 2 Peter, we don't have any early quotations from that book from the early second century by church fathers. In fact, the book is not explicitly cited or named until the early third century by Origen, who cited it as Scripture six times. Some of the early canonical listings do not include 2 Peter. Some of those don't include 1 Peter, by the way, and there was never any question about the authority or authorship of 1 Peter in the early church. So that is not necessarily a deal-breaker, but it is something that we need to be aware of.
Among all of our New Testament books this one was embraced widely much later than any of the other New Testament books. And that's just simply to say not that it wasn't used anywhere, and it doesn't mean that it was never embraced as canonical Scripture by anyone until the third century, but it is to say that its wide acceptance universally among the church was much later than for other New Testament books. The writings of the apostle Paul, for instance, there's no question that most, if not all, of Paul's writings were not only inspired and apostolic, but they were embraced by the church rather quickly.
And I would suggest that there's a couple of reasons why 2 Peter was a little late to the game in terms of its wider acceptance by the church. First, it was written later, I think AD 67 or 68, and this was right on the cusp, right at the beginning, of the Neronian persecution, the persecution of the church under Nero. Peter's audience seems to be a more narrow, focused group of people that doesn't seem to be as broad as 1 Peter, and the reality of the persecution as well as the late date would have meant that 2 Peter would have been much slower to circulate amongst believers. When the church is being persecuted, you just don't go out into the marketplace and start trading Bible books with people, circulating them and copying them. So 2 Peter would have been copied probably less immediately, less frequently, and less prolifically than other New Testament books. And since it was written later—it would have been during the persecution or close to the persecution—it would have been circulated much later and much more sparsely than other New Testament books as well.
If all of this fascinates you, and I can tell there's two or three here that this is fascinating to, I would commend to you the introductions in two commentaries if you want to read about this at great length. One of them is by Michael Green. It's in the Tyndale New Testament Commentaries series, a little series like this on the entire New Testament. It's a good one. There's some real gems in there, like one by Wayne Grudem on 1 Peter that Dave uses; that's a good one. The entire set, the entire Tyndale New Testament Commentaries series, is a good sort of generic, general commentary on all of the New Testament books, mostly reliable from what I have seen. The Old Testament commentary series by Tyndale is not as impressive, but the New Testament is really good. The volume on 2 Peter and Jude written by Michael Green, his introduction to that, goes into a lot of these details, a lot more historical background; it's good.
The second one is a commentary—I forget what the series is—by Thomas Schreiner on 2 Peter, and his introduction to the book of 2 Peter goes into this as well, and I think it's even better than Michael Green's. With either of those commentaries, I don't know what the rest of the commentaries could be like. They could be a hot mess for the rest of it, just absolute trash. I don't know, I haven't read those yet, but the introductions are gold. Judging from the introductions of those two books, the rest of the commentary is probably going to be worth the price.
So today, here's what we want to do. We want to go through the authorship of the book, to whom the book was written—that is, the original audience—where the book was written from, the themes that are in 2 Peter, and then I want to talk about how similar 2 Peter is to the book of Jude, something you're probably already aware of and familiar with.
First, the authorship of the book. I'm going to give you the bluff, the bottom line up front. There's no good reason to doubt that Peter wrote 2 Peter. None whatsoever. There are a bunch of poor arguments that are made against the Petrine authorship of this book, but none of them are good arguments. And even when you pile them all together, they don't make for a good argument. If you take a bunch of bad arguments and you put them together, you don't have a good argument. You just have a bunch of bad arguments. And that's what all of the arguments against Peter's authorship of this book amount to, a bunch of bad arguments, a bunch of bad observations.
Peter is listed or noted as the author of the book. You see it there in chapter 1, verse 1: “Simeon Peter, a slave and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have received the same kind of faith as ours, by the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ.” And reading through that, you'll probably notice that I’ve switched to the LSB as I promised you a few weeks ago, which is why it says Simeon and not Simon. There's a note there, something worth noting there that we'll talk about next week. Peter is named as the author of the book. He claims to be the author. Whoever was writing this at least claimed to be Peter.
And this book includes some personal details that Peter would have known, but not necessarily everybody else would have known to whom Peter was writing. For instance, in chapter 1, verse 14, he talks about how he was close to death, just as the Lord predicted and promised that he would die. To get that prediction, you have to go to the end of the Gospel of John, where the Lord prophesies Peter's death. Peter is referring to that here. That's a personal detail. Further, Peter's witness of the transfiguration in Matthew 17 is mentioned in chapter 1, verses 16–18. He claims to be an eyewitness of the Lord's majesty. That's another personal detail.
Now, some people would object to that, the doubters who doubt Peter's authorship, and they would say, “Well, that was obviously the work of a forger who's borrowing details from Peter's life in order to pass himself off as Peter.” Right? You see how this game goes? If there were no personal references at all to Peter's life, then they would say, “Well, he doesn't reference anything from his life, therefore it must be a forgery.” And if there are references to things in Peter's life, then they say, “Well, that's exactly what you would expect a forger to do is reference things to pass it off as Peter's work.” You see how this game is played? This is what they do with New Testament writings constantly, and even Old Testament writings. When they want to doubt the legitimacy of who wrote the book or when the book was written, they just point to little arguments like this, unfalsifiable little details.
But this letter commends moral virtues. In chapter 1, verses 5–11, there is a list. Look at them there. There is a list of moral virtues to cultivate: diligence, faith, moral excellence, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness, and love. See that list of virtues? It seems a bit odd for somebody who wants to commend moral virtues to fake the authorship of somebody and to lie about being the author of a book when he's really not that person if he wants to commend moral virtues.
Further, this book has a round condemnation in the harshest of terms of people who are deceivers. Chapter 2, verse 3 warns about those who would exploit you with false words. And Peter comes out of the gate against false teachers and false prophets and liars and deceivers. So it seems like an odd flex for somebody to do that when they're really not the person they're claiming to be.
Further, if the book is a forgery, I would suggest to you it should not at all be used nor included in our canon of Scripture, which means that the Spirit of God and the providence of God got it wrong by including this book in our canon if indeed it was a forgery. If it was a forgery, then we should not take the instruction of a liar who tells us what it means to be morally virtuous. Does that seem patently obvious to us all? So we shouldn't even include it in the canon if it wasn't written by who it claims to be written by.
There were ways of writing anonymous books. Hebrews is an example of that. And then there were ways of writing books where you signed your name to it, and 2 Peter is an example of that.
There are some other reasons that people doubt the authenticity of the authorship, and I'll give you a couple of them. The language of 2 Peter is different than the language of 1 Peter. And by that I mean not just that there are words used in 2 Peter that are not used in 1 Peter and vice versa, but that the style of language that is used in 2 Peter is markedly different than the style of language used in 1 Peter. For instance, Michael Green in his commentary says this, “The Greek of 1 Peter is polished, cultured, dignified. It is among the best in the New Testament. The Greek of 2 Peter is grandiose. It is rather like baroque art, almost vulgar in its pretentiousness and effusiveness.” And by vulgar, he doesn't mean profane or crass, but common, just the common language. First Peter is very polished. It's eloquent. Second Peter is much less so. That's his point. First Peter sounds like it was written by a brain surgeon. Second Peter sounds like it was written by somebody from Clark Fork. And to be fair to 2 Peter, he does use words longer than six letters, so it's not quite that bad. But you get the idea. One is very polished. It sounds like an orator. Like somebody wrote the manuscript and polished it up and made it look really good. The other one is just effusive, a lot of words, a lot of phrases, very common, like you would expect somebody to talk who's more rushed than thoughtful. It's two entirely different styles.
Therefore, some say, it can't come from the same author. We know who wrote 1 Peter. Second Peter is nothing like that. Therefore, whoever wrote 2 Peter can't be the same person that wrote 1 Peter. That's the argument. Now, to be honest with you, I think it's one of the dumbest objections ever raised against the authorship of any New Testament book. And I will explain to you why it is dumb. The difference in style could be accounted for by Peter using a different amanuensis for 2 Peter than he did 1 Peter. An amanuensis was a secretary, somebody who Peter would dictate the letter to and they would write that. At the end of 1 Peter 5, I think it's verse 12—yes. “Through Silvanus, our faithful brother as I regard him, I have written to you briefly, exhorting and bearing witness that this is the true grace of God. Stand firm in it!” Peter names Silvanus as his amanuensis, the person who wrote the book. And Peter would have then read the book and made sure it was apostolic, it was what he wanted, before he sent it off. Second Peter, written some years later, could have been written by a different amanuensis, a different secretary. Silvanus would have had one style of writing, it would have been more polished, and whoever wrote 2 Peter, maybe it was Peter himself, would sound a lot less polished, we should say, than Silvanus.
Second, the difference in style can be accounted for by a difference in subject matter as well. These are two very different letters with two very different purposes. First Peter deals with an external threat of persecution against the church by civil magistrates and people in the community. That's what 1 Peter deals with. Persecution and external threat by civil magistrates. Second Peter deals with an internal threat, false prophets and false teachers among you. So two totally different subject matters, totally different purposes. First Peter tries to provide hope for Christians who are enduring persecution. Second Peter wants to provide knowledge so that you may know the difference between what is true and what is almost true. So 2 Peter is about knowing Christ, knowing truth. First Peter is about the hope that we have and being able to communicate that hope to those who persecute us. First Peter points to the sufferings of Christ as an example that we are to imitate. Second Peter points to and emphasizes the return of Christ and that coming judgment upon false teachers. So of course the language is going to be different.
In 1 Peter, Peter reminds his readers of Christ's presence with them, which is exactly what they would want to be reminded of in the midst of persecution. And in 2 Peter, he reminds them of Christ's coming for them eventually, which is exactly what you would need to hear when you realize that the threats among you are very real. So the idea that the difference in style tells us that a different writer wrote each of these books is patently nonsense.
If I write a letter to my wife and my children expressing my love and appreciation for them, and then I turn around and write a screed against false teachers, would you expect the tone, the tenor, the language, the style to be different? My wife and my children should not think that I'm treating them and talking to them like I would false teachers. And a false teacher should not think that I have all the love and affection for him that I have for my wife. So of course they're going to be different. And that's the way it is with 1 and 2 Peter. Two different books, two different audiences, two different purposes. And so that is no argument at all against Peter's authorship of 2 Peter.
A third observation regarding authorship is this. First Peter seems to describe the coming of the Lord in a different way than 2 Peter describes the coming of the Lord. Both of them discuss that issue, but they describe it slightly differently. In fact, if you look at 1 Peter 1:7, Peter says, “So that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” Then in chapter 4, verse 7, Peter says, “The end of all things is at hand.” So Peter is talking to them, the readers of 1 Peter, as if the revelation of Jesus Christ is imminent. It's right there. He says in chapter 4, verse 7, “The end of all things is at hand.” It sounds as if Peter in 1 Peter is describing the coming of the Lord as something that could and will happen at any moment. It's right there. We're right on the cusp of it. It's soon. It's soon! Get excited. He's coming back. It's soon.
But then you get to 2 Peter 3 and when Peter's talking about the day of the Lord, it's almost as if Peter says, “Now calm down. Calm down, son. A day is as to the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as a day. ‘The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance’” (2 Pet 3:9 NKJV). So, in 2 Peter, the coming of the Lord—it’s as if Peter is saying, “Look, slow your jets, Benny. Slow your roll. Give it some time. He hasn't come back yet.” And this is why people point to 2 Peter as being written much later, because they say after the first century came to a close and all the apostles had died out, there was this concern. Did the Lord already return? Is He ever going to return? So 2 Peter was written to comfort people—under the auspices of Peter—written to them to comfort them regarding the coming of the day of the Lord.
But I would suggest to you that the different subject matter of each Epistle accounts for the different way in which the Lord's coming is described in these books. When writing to suffering believers in the midst of persecution, you want to remind them that their reward and their vindication is near. You want to remind them, “You are almost at the end of your race. You are going to cross the finish line. The Lord is there, He is waiting. Your end and the end of all of this is sooner than it seems or feels like it is.” I've done that to you, by the way. Going through Hebrews, I've told you, “The end of your race is a lot nearer than it looks at this moment. And our redemption draws nigh, and we are on the cusp of it, and you will cross that finish line eventually, and it might be soon.” That's how I've described the coming of the Lord.
But when you are writing to false teachers and mockers who scoff at the idea of the coming of the Lord—that's what chapter 3 of 2 Peter is about—then you remind them that though the coming of the Lord is delayed, He will come back and He will judge those who twist and distort His truth. So two different ways of describing the coming of the Lord because it's two different audiences with two different subject matters. So there is no legitimate reason to doubt that Peter wrote 2 Peter or that the book was written around AD 68, prior to his death and just prior to the Neronian persecution. That's first, the authorship.
Now second, to whom was the book written? Notice that the opening verse doesn't tell us. “Simeon Peter, a slave and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have received the same kind of faith as ours, by the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ” (2 Pet. 1:1). That's just simply a way of describing believers. I'm just writing this to believers. It’s a very general description. To those who have received a like, precious faith. That would include us, by the way. But in Peter's day, it was just a generic way of describing Christians widely. This audience is not described by their geography or their status or as belonging to any particular city or church, as other Epistles.
In fact, the opening verses are addressed quite differently even than 1 Peter. 1 Peter 1:1: Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who reside as exiles, scattered through Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, who are chosen.” There, Peter identifies his readers as the elect who are scattered amongst all of these cities. So he is writing a general Epistle to a bunch of believers scattered over and dispersed over the Roman Empire. Second Peter doesn't geographically identify any of them or even describe what city they are in or what status they are in, whether they're scattered or not. Could have been a group of people in a very small narrow location. That's possible.
But we do have a clue, possibly, in chapter 3, verse 1. Look at chapter 3, verse 1: “This is now, beloved, the second letter I am writing to you in which I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder” (2 Pet. 3:1). Now it's been suggested that maybe that identifies that the audience of 2 Peter is the same as the audience of 1 Peter since Peter in 2 Peter 3 says, “This is the second letter that I'm writing to you.” And we would just flip back a page and say, “Oh, there's 1 Peter.” So 1 Peter must be the first one written to them, and if it was written to the believers scattered in Cappadocia, Galatia, Bithynia, and Asia Minor, then the second letter must be written to them as well. That's possible, but isn't it also possible that Peter had written a letter to this group prior to this that was not 1 Peter? That's possible, isn't it?
What second letter is Peter referring to in chapter 3, verse 1? We don't know that. We can assume, we might assume—I guess we could assume, I should say, that it's 1 Peter, but we don't know that for sure. We don't have everything that every apostle ever wrote. We know that we have two letters from the apostle Paul that have not survived. The Spirit of God did not necessarily intend for everything that the apostles wrote to be preserved for the church. So though Peter refers to this being the second letter, 1 Peter and 2 Peter might have been written to two entirely different audiences, 2 Peter being the second letter that he wrote to this particular audience and the first letter has not been preserved for us by the providence of the Spirit of God. So that doesn't necessarily tell us anything for certain.
We might wonder to whom it was written in terms of their being Jews or Gentiles. We don't know that for certain either. There are a number of indications in the book that Peter might have had in mind a Jewish audience. For instance, there are references to Old Testament events and people like in chapter 2, verse 5, where he speaks of Noah; chapter 2, verse 6, where he describes Sodom and Gomorrah; chapter 2, verse 7, where he mentions Lot; chapter 2, verse 15, Balaam; chapter 2, verse 22, where he quotes from the book of Proverbs. In chapter 3, verse 6, he speaks of the global flood and describes the global flood. So there are a bunch of Old Testament references that a Jewish audience would have been familiar with. So maybe the audience was Jewish.
But on the other hand, there are a number of references in 2 Peter that kind of would have fit a Gentile audience who had come out of an idolatrous, immoral, and pagan background, like chapter 1, verse 4: “For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, [look at that last phrase] having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.” That's the type of description that is commonly used in the New Testament of Gentiles, who had come out of a background in which immorality and lust and paganism were rampant.
There's another interesting clue as to the audience at the end of the book. Look at chapter 3, verse 15. Peter writes,
15 And consider the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you,
16 as also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction. (2 Pet. 3:15–16 LSB)
So there Peter cites Paul as an authority, and notice—we'll get to this when we get to chapter 3—he calls Paul's letters Scripture. These false teachers, they distort Paul's letters just like they do the rest of the Scriptures. So Peter identifies Paul's letters as Scripture, and he mentions, notice in verse 15, that the recipients of this letter had also received a letter from the apostle Paul: “Our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you.” So whoever this group of people is, they had received a letter from the apostle Paul and they had received a letter now from the apostle Peter. Peter is aware that Paul had written to them letters in which are some things hard to understand and that this group of people is familiar with the writings of the apostle Paul, whom he calls a brother. So we might conclude that this is likely a mixed congregation, consisting of Jews as well as Gentiles, who had a relationship with Peter as well as Paul, and they had benefited from the ministry and the letters of both Peter and Paul. Now who does that describe? We don't know.
So let's move on to the place in which the book was written and see if we can put together another clue. The place—most likely Rome, though Peter doesn't speak of Rome in the book. At the end of 1 Peter, he talks about being in Babylon, which is probably code for the city of Rome. People take it that way. It likely would have been. It is believed from history or known from history that Peter was martyred outside the city of Rome. At the end of his life, he was in the city of Rome right before his martyrdom. Chapter 1, verse 14 says that when he was writing this book—look what he says. “Knowing that the laying aside of my earthly dwelling is imminent, as also our Lord Jesus Christ has indicated to me.” So Peter was near the end of his life. And when he writes this, it's most likely that he was in Rome. That's where he was martyred.
I'm going to throw out a suggestion, and I read, I don't know, probably twelve commentaries’ introductions this week trying to prepare for this. Nobody that I read suggested this. So take this as worth all of that plus a bag of chips, but if Peter was in Rome and he was writing an Epistle to Christians who were there before he died and he is on the cusp possibly of his martyrdom days, maybe weeks away from that, and he knows that that is near, might he not write a really short, brief, quick, unpolished letter to the people who were there, maybe who were still free in Rome and weren't in prison for their faith yet? And might he have done that to a group of Christians who were right inside the city of Rome? And who else had written to the Roman Christians before that? Paul had. And did Paul write some things in the book of Romans which are hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable twist to their own destruction? Yeah, chapters 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11. Those chapters can be a bit of a challenge, all of them. And so I would postulate, and I'm coming out of the closet in a good way here—I'll be the first one to say this. Maybe it's possible that Peter wrote this book to Christians who were in Rome, a group of people who were also very familiar with Paul's ministry and had already received the book of Romans. That's just my speculation. Now you can totally discredit that because I don't know if anybody else has ever said that.
Number four, the subject of the book. Peter wrote this book to address false teachers. That's it. This was a pressing concern for him. Interestingly, the book doesn't start off with that subject. He doesn't start off chapter 1, verse 1—he doesn't start off like Jude. In the book of Jude, Jude says, “I wanted to write to you about our common salvation, but I found it necessary to address false teachers.” And so right out of the gate, the third verse in, Jude is off and running, dealing with false teachers and false prophets in the church. Peter doesn't do that. In fact, chapter 1 doesn't even mention false prophets or false teachers at all. Instead, in chapter 1, he describes the glory of our salvation, the knowledge of Christ, growing in our faith, developing our virtues, the doctrine of election, progressing in holiness, the necessity of Scripture, and the reliability and inspiration and interpretation of the Old Testament Scriptures. And it's not until you get all the way through chapter 1 to chapter 2, verse 1 that he brings up the issue which is really at the heart of the entire Epistle. Chapter 2, verse 1:
1 False prophets also arose among the people, just as there will also be false teachers among you, who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves.
2 And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be maligned. (2 Pet. 2:1–2 LSB)
Then chapter 2 and chapter 3 are all about these false teachers and the judgment that they face. Peter describes their nature, their teachings, their motives, their manners, their sin, their depravity, the effects of their teaching, and the judgment that will fall upon them. Chapter 3 is all about that day of judgment, the day of the Lord. And then he draws some implications out of that and then asks the question, In light of all these things, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and living in fear?
So what is the teaching that Peter addresses in the Epistle? Nobody is really certain about this either. From the description of the false teachings, it's very generic. He talks about their character, their behavior, their motives, and from the warnings that Peter gives us and from the language that he uses, we can put together some of the pieces of what type of false teaching and false prophets Peter might have been dealing with. And it kind of comes down to two options, probably both and maybe a combination of these two. First, a proto-Gnosticism. You’re familiar with the Gnostic heresy of the early second- and third-century Christian church. Gnosticism or Epicureanism. Both philosophies were prominent and prevalent at the time, and Peter is probably addressing either Epicureanism or Gnosticism. We're not going to unpack those because you're going to learn more about Epicureanism and Gnosticism than you ever wanted to learn before we're done with 2 Peter. So we'll wander through those fields on a later date.
But it is sufficient for us to know that whatever heresy and whatever men Peter was addressing in this Epistle, this Epistle is very relevant for us today because I could give you a list of teachers as long as my arm that are described in 2 Peter 2 that are in the churches today. Second Peter 2 reads like the who's who of TBN and Christian airwaves. These men and women are everywhere. So it is as relevant today as it was when Peter wrote it.
Now let me offer an—this is an interesting observation but also a caveat. Though this book is about false teaching, I want you to know that this series in 2 Peter is not going to be one long weekly diatribe and screed against all of the modern false teachers of our day. I could do that. I could fill weeks of sermons quoting from all of the theological and ecclesiastical miscreants and talking about all of the clowns and mountebanks that populate the airwaves and Christian TV and radio and quote from them and show you what they're doing today and how they fit this description, but that's not what I'm going to do. Our brother Justin Peters does an adequate job of that. He doesn't need my help, and that's not what this is about.
As is appropriate throughout the series, I might reference modern-day teachers, and I don't have any problem naming names. You know that I think it's biblical to do so. So I will reference certain teachers who are good examples of the very thing that Peter is addressing in this Epistle, but I don't want you to think that preaching through 2 Peter is my excuse to come off the top rope on a whole bunch of false teachers that are out there with whom I have axes to grind. That's not the case at all.
In fact, I was reflecting upon this last week. In the nearly thirty years that I've been preaching here, I've never preached through 2 Peter or Jude at all. I find that somewhat ironic since four out of the five books that I have written deal with false teachings and false teachers and call out, often, some of these people by name and answer some of their teachings. And not only that, but I'm currently working on another book which is going to address a false teaching within the church, and the people who teach it are basically described in 2 Peter 2. If I'm asked to go on a podcast or go speak somewhere outside of Kootenai Community Church, it is almost always to address one of these issues or to speak on one of these subjects. So outside of the walls of our congregation, if I'm known for anything outside of this, it's for taking a stand on some of these issues and addressing them. And yet, in thirty years of being here, that has not been my emphasis whatsoever. Thirty years of preaching and we're just now getting around to 2 Peter and Jude.
So this is not what I want to be known for, addressing false teachers and false teaching. It's certainly not something that's on the top of my list, that I've got to make this like what Kootenai is known for, what we stand for, and this is the hill that we're going to die on, none of that whatsoever. I can agree with Jude’s sentiment when he says, “I'd much rather have written to you about almost anything under the sun than what I have to write to you about.” Same thing with false teachers. No pastor who is worth his salt loves to get up and just rail against false teachers. Justin [Peters] does it because it is necessary, and he is uniquely qualified and gifted to do it in a way that I think is patently biblical and gracious. It is a necessary thing. But even Justin, if every false teacher on the face of the planet tomorrow shut down their ministries and there was nothing for Justin to address, he would be the happiest man on earth because he would gladly just stop addressing all of the nonsense and just address the truth and be an expositor of Scripture.
So one last thing. We've gone through four of them. One more—the similarity between Jude and 2 Peter. There's an intriguing feature of 2 Peter, and that is that it sounds as if somebody is stealing from somebody between 2 Peter and Jude because there is obviously a literary connection between these two books. In fact, the similarities between Jude and 2 Peter are obvious. Jude has twenty-five verses in it, and of those twenty-five verses, fifteen of them are found in 2 Peter either in whole or in part. Fifteen out of the twenty-five verses you can find in 2 Peter either in whole or in part. And not only that, but they describe the same kinds of men, they use the same phrases, and they use the same illustrations. And in fact, the parallels between 2 Peter 2 and Jude, those parallels are in the same order. So it's not like one borrowed from the other and kind of mixed it up to make it look like it was his own. The similarities are striking, and they're in the same order all the way through.
So what accounts for the similarity between Jude and 2 Peter? One of three things was happening. Number one, it's possible that Peter used Jude as a source. In other words, Peter had a copy of Jude's Epistle and in reading it, he thought, This is gold. I could take this and I could add an introduction to the beginning of it, I could wind up a little conclusion, probably develop a little something about the day of the Lord, and that in itself would make a good Epistle. And I have a group of people who need to hear this same thing. It's possible that Peter used Jude's Epistle.
Some people will argue against that and they'll say, “There's no way that an apostle like Peter would stoop to use a non-apostle’s writing, like Jude.” I think that's silly because that assumes that Peter thought so highly of himself that he couldn't see the value in anybody else's work. And I don't see Peter as that type of a guy at all.
Second, it's possible that Jude borrowed from Peter, that he had Peter's Epistle and thought, You know, I got a group of people who could really use this warning, but it needs to be more concise, more pithy, so I can just kind of take that description in chapter 2—they didn't have chapters back then, but you know what I mean—that description of false teachers, and I can kind of boil that down a little bit. I got a few little ideas of my own to add. I'll put an introduction on it, a conclusion on that, make it much shorter, and send that off, and it'll kind of be a real brief, concise, pithy description of false teachers. So it's possible that Jude borrowed from Peter. So did Peter borrow from Jude, or did Jude borrow from Peter?
There is a third option, and that is that both of those men were using a third source. This is possible as well. It's possible that there was some document circulating through the early church in Peter’s and Jude’s circles and both of them saw this description of false teachers that was used and circulated for the benefit and edification of the church and both of them took that description and incorporated it into their own work. If that is what happened—and you can, by the way, find good, conservative, Bible-believing scholars that will take each of those three possibilities and defend them. Ultimately, we don't know who used who, and we don't know if there was a third source.
But we do know this: regardless of who used who, if there was a third source, and how these books came to be, that issue has no bearing at all upon the inspiration of the Spirit, the authority of the book, the authenticity of the book, or whether or not it belongs in the canon. And if they used a third source, it says nothing about the inspiration of that source. Both of those men could quote from and use a third source without that source being inspired, just as Dr. Luke used eyewitness testimony and historic documents to compose the Gospel of Luke, and we affirm the inspiration of the Gospel of Luke. Does all that make sense? So those are the three options.
Now, it has been suggested, and I think that this is a curious suggestion, and again, put this up there with my previous suggestion that Peter wrote this in Rome to the Romans—it's been suggested that Jude was Peter's amanuensis and that Jude wrote the book and that when it was written, before it was sent out, Jude himself took that and said, “We can make this more concise, and I know some people who could use this,” and Jude then took what Peter wrote and sent it out and that Peter and Jude were behind really both of those books in that sense. There is a scholar who—I forget his name, but he has suggested that. That idea hasn't caught on like wildfire by any stretch of the imagination, but I thought it was a very interesting suggestion. I'm fascinated to find out who wrote whose first and who or what they were using. We're going to have to wait till we get to eternity to ask those men that. It's going to be down my list of things I want to ask people when I get there, but it will come up at some point.
And so all of that kind of sets the table a little bit for the study ahead. Next week, we will jump into chapter 1 and start looking at how it is that Peter describes our salvation. A lot of times at this point, I'll have kind of an outline of the book that I'll be referring back to again. I haven't gotten that far in terms of outlining the book. Chapter 1 kind of describes progressing in our faith. Chapter 2 describes the perversion of our faith. Chapter 3 describes sort of the judgment and the culmination of our faith. In fact, that might be a good outline right there. Somebody should write that one down. The progressing in our faith, the perversion of our faith, and I'll find another word. I'll use AI to figure out what that third one is going to be. But that's the outline. Three different chapters that kind of break out nice and even like that. We're going to go through each of them starting with chapter 1, verse 1 next week.