THE STORY OF THE EARLY CHURCH

Verses about the Apostles' "TRAVELS and ACTS"

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Book 22 of 27 - SECOND LETTER OF PETER

Writer: The apostle Peter;

Date: c AD65-67, not long before Peter's execution;

Where written: Rome;

Readers: Scattered Christian churches, possibly the same ones referred to in 1 Peter;

Why: A warning about false teachers, especially their denial of Christ's divinity and his second coming.

According to Some Modern Scholarship: This is the most disputed Letter of the New Testament, partly because it appears to include material from the Letter of Jude. It may therefore have been written by an unknown Christian towards the end of the 1st century or early in the 2nd

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WE HAVE BEEN GIVEN GOD'S MESSAGE

 26.1 GREETING AND BLESSING

2 Peter 1:1-2 - Simon Peter, a servant and messenger of Jesus Christ, sends this letter to those who have been given a faith as valuable as yours in the righteousness of our God, and saviour Jesus Christ. May you know more and more of grace and peace as your knowledge of God and Jesus our Lord grows deeper.

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26.2 CHALLENGES OF THE CHRISTIAN LIFE

2 Peter 1:5-9 - For this very reason (... God's gift of Christ) you must do your utmost from your side, and see that your faith carries with it real goodness of life. Your goodness must be accompanied by knowledge, your knowledge by self-control, your self-control by the ability to endure. Your endurance too must always be accompanied by devotion to God; that in turn must have in it the quality of brotherliness, and your brotherliness must lead on to Christian love. If you have these qualities existing and growing in you then it means that knowing our Lord Jesus Christ has not made your lives either complacent or unproductive. The man whose life fails to exhibit thee qualities is short-sighted - he can no longer see the reason why he was cleansed from his former sins.

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26.3 ENCOURAGEMENTS; PETER'S IMMINENT DEATH; HE DESCRIBES THE TRANSFIGURATION OF JESUS

2 Peter 1:12-18 - I shall not fail to remind you of things like this (... the challenges of the Christian life) although you know them and are already established in the truth. I consider it my duty, as long as I live in the temporary dwelling of this body (with death as a martyr very near), to stimulate you by these reminders. I know that I shall have to leave this body at very short notice, as our Lord Jesus Christ made clear to me (... presumably Jesus' prophecy of Peter's death recorded in John 21:18). Consequently I shall make the most of every opportunity, so that after I am gone you will remember these things.

We were not following a cleverly written-up story when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ - we actually saw his majesty with our own eyes (... during the transfigured appearance of Jesus with Moses and Elijah, Matthew 17:1-13). He received honour and glory from God the Father himself when that voice said to him, out of the sublime glory of Heaven,

'This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased' (Matthew 17:5; Mark 9:7; Luke 9:35).

We actually heard that voice speaking from Heaven while we were with him on the sacred mountain (of Mount Hermon or Mount Tabor). The word of prophecy was fulfilled in our hearing!

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 THE FALSE TEACHERS WHO DENY THIS

 26.4 WARNINGS ABOUT FALSE TEACHERS

2 Peter 2:1-3a - But even in those days (of the Old Testament) there were false prophets, just as there will will be false teachers among you today. They will be men who will subtly introduce dangerous heresies. They will thereby deny the Lord who redeemed them, and it will not be long before they bring on themselves their own downfall. Many will follow their pernicious teaching and thereby bring discredit on the way of truth. In their lust to make converts these men will try to exploit you too with their bogus arguments.

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THE END-TIMES WILL COME AND CHRIST WILL RETURN

 26.5 REMINDERS ABOUT PETER'S PREVIOUS TEACHING

2 Peter 3:1 - This is the second letter I have written to you, dear friends of mine, and in both of them I have tried to stimulate you, as men with minds uncontaminated by error, by simply reminding you of what you really know already.

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26.6 PETER COMMENDS PAUL'S LETTERS AS SCRIPTURE

2 Peter 3:15-16 - Meanwhile, consider that God's patience is meant to be man's salvation, as our dear brother Paul pointed out in his letter to you, written out of the wisdom God gave him. In that letter, as indeed in all his letters, he referred to these matters. There are, of course, some things in his letters which are difficult to understand (... it may help readers to know that even early Christian leaders had problems following some of Paul's teaching), and which unhappily, ill-informed and unbalanced people distort (as they do other scriptures), and bring disaster on their own heads.

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26.7 FINAL WARNINGS AND A BLESSING

2 Peter 3:17-18 - But you, my friends whom I love, are forewarned, and should therefore be very careful not to be carried away by the errors of wicked men and so lose your proper foothold. On the contrary, you should grow in grace and in your knowledge of our Lord and saviour Jesus Christ - to him be glory now and until the dawning of the day of eternity!

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continuing the Apostle's "Travels and Acts", on to Part 27, 1 John OR back to J B Phillips HomePage

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