After delivering his blockbuster vision, Peter finished his letter with words of encouragement and exhortation.
2 Peter 3: New Heavens and a New Earth
not that many people know the Apostle Peter also had a heavily eschatological message.
2 Peter 3: Thief in the Night
Necessarily, thieves do not announce their expected time of arrival, as that would be counterproductive. In the same way, Jesus’s return is certain and imminent, but kept under wraps.
2 Peter 2: Peter’s Oracle
In Peter’s mind, the creation of the world and the judgment of the Flood acted are proofs of God's impending judgment by fire.
2 Peter 2: Actual Versus Potential
It seems regeneration is a combination resulting from the organic intersection of God’s divine choice and action, and our own receptivity and reciprocal action.
2 Peter 2: Four Soils, One Harvest
The whole point of Jesus’s parable about the sower and the soil was for the farmer to have a harvest. The importance of the seed taking root, growing full heads of grain, and being harvested was the key.
2 Peter 2: Predetermined? Or Free?
Peter took it in stride that all human beings are enslaved—either to God in Christ, or to Satan and darkness. The apostles taught there was no middle ground. Our question today, however, particularly in the west, and even more particularly in such places as the United States, is, “How much free will do humans actually have?”
2 Peter 2: Cain and Korah
This last part of chapter 2 opens up much-discussed topics: human freedom and that grey area between claims of faith and falling away from faith.
2 Peter 2: Balaam’s Revenge
It is an exact corollary to what Peter—and Jude—were speaking in such strong terms against. It was the Gnostic cancer, threatening to infect the entire church.
2 Peter 2: Balaam’s Oracles
Maybe the catch word for us, as it surely was for Peter’s readers, who knew this story very well, is Have No Fear. Even despite mistakes, wrong choices, sin, and anything else, nothing can derail God’s plans for God’s people.