2 Peter: Living with the End in Mind

We read all of 2 Peter and reflect on how an open Bible forms discernment, courage, and hope. False teachers promise freedom but lead to slavery, while God’s patience invites repentance and a steady, holy life that waits well for Christ’s return.

• why godliness requires an open Bible
• how Peter’s eyewitness account grounds faith
• the virtue ladder that guards fruitfulness
• recognizing and resisting false teachers
• true freedom versus slavery to desire
• God’s patience as mercy, not delay
• living holy and at peace as we wait
• growing in grace and knowledge to stand firm

“Are you armed? Are you equipped? Are you in the fight?”

Chapters

• 0:00 Why An Open Bible Matters
• 2:22 Reading 2 Peter Aloud
• 6:31 Growth, Calling, And Eyewitness Truth
• 9:16 Warning Against False Teachers
• 12:16 Freedom, Slavery, And Returning To Sin
• 14:28 Scoffers, Judgment, And God’s Patience

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:11

Hey, welcome back to the Out Loud Bible Project Podcast. This is Mike, and I'm so thankful for you. I I've said it before. I'll say it again. I'm thankful that you're spending your time this way. Cracking open the Word of God, maybe not literally, but audibly. Hey, I was listening to a Christian radio station just this morning, actually, and the teacher whose segment was on at the time said, You cannot live a godly life with a closed Bible. You can't do it. You can't live a godly life with a closed Bible. If you're a Christian, you say you follow Jesus, you want to be godly, you want to do this thing, you can't do it with the closed Bible. I'm thankful that you, you know, maybe it's not a physical Bible right now. We're doing this through a podcast. Um, but your ears are open, your heart is open, ready to receive what God has for you. And this is certainly not the only way to do that. Um, but I'm thankful that we get to spend this time together, and I hope that inspires you to go back into your physical Bible, open it up, and uh and just seek God's answers, seek his heart, seek his will through it. There is no question that you are wrestling with, there is no problem that you are suffering in that cannot be answered and addressed by the pages of the Bible. Maybe not the first time you read it, maybe not the second or the third or fourth or fifth time, I don't know, but there is an answer to life's most important questions in the Bible. It's here. It's here somewhere. If you can't find it right away, then that's just your cue to keep on looking, keep on digging until God speaks through his word. He's already answered it. It's there somewhere. Maybe today in this episode, there's an answer for what you have been thinking about, wondering, seeking God about. Let's tune in, let's see what we've got. This is Second Peter today. We're gonna do the whole letter in one episode because it's only three chapters. I don't think I have much context to say about it or introduction to give. Let's just get into it, let it say its part, and then we can talk a little bit about it afterwards before we call it a day. How's that? Here's Second Peter 1 through 3, the whole thing in the New English Translation. From Simon Peter, a slave and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who, through the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ, have been granted a faith just as precious as ours. May grace and peace be lavished on you as you grow in the rich knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. I can pray this because His divine power has bestowed on us everything necessary for life and godliness through the rich knowledge of the one who called us by his own glory and excellence. Through these things he's bestowed on us his precious and most magnificent promises, so that by means of what was promised you may become partakers of the divine nature after escaping the worldly corruption that's produced by evil desire. For this very reason make every effort to add to your faith excellence to excellence knowledge to knowledge self-control to self-control perseverance to perseverance godliness to godliness, brotherly affection, to brotherly affection, unselfish love. For if these things are really yours and are continually increasing, they will keep you from becoming ineffective and unproductive in your pursuit of knowing our Lord Jesus Christ more intimately. But concerning the one who lacks such things, he's blind. That is to say, he is nearsighted, since he's forgotten about the cleansing of his past sins. Therefore, brothers and sisters, make every effort to be sure of your calling and election. For by doing this you will never stumble into sin. For thus an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be richly provided for you. Therefore, I intend to remind you constantly of these things, even though you know them and are well established in the truth that you now have. Indeed, as long as I am in this tabernacle, I consider it right to stir you up by way of a reminder, since I know that my tabernacle will soon be removed, because our Lord Jesus Christ revealed this to me. Indeed, I will also make every effort that after my departure you have a testimony of these things. For we didn't follow cleverly concocted fables when we made known to you the power and return of our Lord Jesus Christ. No, we were eyewitnesses of his grandeur, for he received honor and glory from God the Father when that voice was conveyed to him by the majestic glory. This is my dear Son in whom I am delighted. When this voice was conveyed from heaven, we ourselves heard it, for we were with him on the holy mountain. Moreover, we possess the prophetic word as an altogether reliable thing. You do well if you pay attention to this as you would to the light shining in murky places until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. Above all, you do well if you recognize this. No prophecy of Scripture ever comes about by the prophet's own imagination. For no prophecy was ever born of human impulse, rather, men carried along by the Holy Spirit spoke from God. But false prophets arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. These false teachers will infiltrate your midst with destructive heresies, even to the point of denying the master who bought them. As a result, they will bring swift destruction on themselves, and many will follow their debauched lifestyles. Because of these false teachers, the way of truth will be slandered, and in their greed they will exploit you with deceptive words. Their condemnation pronounced long ago is not sitting idly by. Brazen and insolent, they're not afraid to insult the glorious ones. Yet even angels, who are much more powerful, do not bring a slanderous judgment against them in the presence of the Lord. But these men, like irrational animals, creatures of instinct, born to be caught and destroyed, don't understand whom they're insulting, and consequently in their destruction they will be destroyed, suffering harm as the wages for their harmful ways. By considering it a pleasure to carouse in broad daylight, they are stains and blemishes, indulging in their deceitful pleasures when they feast together with you. Their eyes, full of adultery, never stop sinning. They entice unstable people. They have trained their hearts for greed, these cursed children. By forsaking the right path, they've gone astray because they followed the way of Balaam, son of Bozor, who loved the wages of unrighteous, yet was rebuked for his own transgression. A dumb donkey, speaking with a human voice, restrained to the prophet's madness. These men are waterless springs and mists driven by a storm, for whom the utter depths of darkness have been reserved. For by speaking high sounding but empty words, they're able to entice, with fleshly desires and with debauchery, people who have just escaped from those who reside in error. And although these false teachers promise such people freedom, they themselves are enslaved to immorality. For whatever a person succumbs to, to that, he is enslaved. I'm just going to read that one again. Whatever a person succumbs to, to that he's enslaved. For if after they've escaped the filthy things of the world through the rich knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they again get entangled in them and succumb to them, their last state has become worse for them than their first. For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than having known it, to turn back from the holy commandment that has been delivered to them. They are the illustrations of this true proverb a dog returns to its vomit, and a sow, after washing herself, wallows in the mire. Dear friends, this is already the second letter I've written to you in which I'm trying to stir up your pure mind by way of reminder. I want you to recall both the predictions foretold by the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles. Above all, understand this. In the last days, blatant scoffers will come, being propelled by their own evil urges and saying, Oh, where's his promised return? For ever since our ancestors died, all things have continued as they were from the beginning of creation. For they deliberately suppress this fact that by the word of God heavens existed long ago, and an earth was formed out of water and by means of water, and through these things the world existing at that time was destroyed when it was deluged with water. But by the same word the present heavens and earth have been reserved for fire by being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly. Now, dear friends, do not let this one thing escape your notice that a single day is like a thousand years with the Lord, and a thousand years are like a single day. The Lord's not slow concerning his promise, as some regard slowness, but is being patient toward you because he does not wish for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. When it comes the heavens will disappear with a horrific noise, and the celestial bodies will melt away in a blaze, and the earth and every deed done on it will be laid bare. Since all these things are to melt away in this manner, what sort of people must you be, conducting your lives in holiness and godliness while waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God? Because of this day the heavens will be burned up and dissolve, and the celestial bodies will melt away in a blaze. But according to his promise, we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness truly resides. Therefore, dear friends, since you're waiting for these things, strive to be found at peace, without spot or blemish when you come into his presence, and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as also our dear brother Paul wrote to you according to the wisdom given to him, speaking of these things in all his letters. Some things in these letters are hard to understand, things the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they also do to the rest of the scriptures. Therefore, dear friends, since you have been forewarned, be on your guard that you do not get led astray by the error of these unprincipled men and fall from your firm grasp of the truth. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the honor both now and on that eternal day. It takes greater wisdom and discernment to live in these last days now. Where does that wisdom and discernment come from? The Bible. And yeah, like Peter admits, hey, there's some difficult to understand things in here. And people who are ignorant and unstable, they twist them so that they feel better about lives and I don't know, try to make other people feel bad about theirs. Whatever they're doing, you have the responsibility to know the scriptures, to know what the Bible says, live it, obey it, know the truth. Know the differences between what is actually true and what things sound true in the culture today. This is how we stay diligent and vigilant until the end times, until Jesus Christ comes back. When he comes back, will he find us ready? Until then, it's a war for truth. Are you armed? Are you equipped? Are you in the fight? That's the thinking out loud thought for the day.