Introduction to 2 Peter

Who is Peter?

He was a disciple of Jesus. One of the “inner 3” with James and John. His actual names was “Simon” but Jesus said he would be called “Peter” because “on this rock I will build my church.

Contrary to what Catholics believe, Peter was married. Several times in the NT it refers to Peter having a mother-in-law.

He wasn’t wealthy, him and his brother had a small fishing boat.

Luke 5:3 “He got into one of the boats, which belonged to Simon, and asked him to put out a little from the land. Then he sat down and was teaching the crowds from the boat.”

Wasn’t from an educated background.

Acts 4:13 “When they observed the boldness of Peter and John and realized that they were uneducated and untrained men, they were amazed and recognized that they had been with Jesus.”

Peter was known as a hothead. He had stated how much he was willing to give for Jesus, even striking a man’s ear, and telling Jesus that He isn’t allowed to die.

Peter would be the one to start the ministry to the Gentiles. Which is significant for 2 Peter because it will be written to Gentiles warning them about false teachers.

Did Peter write it?

So far when we have looked at a book we haven’t gotten much into the authorship of books. That’s because most of the NT books we know who the author is, and with the OT it was an oratory culture so we know who the source is even if it wasn’t them that wrote it down.

But 2 Peter is the most contested book of authorship in the NT, there are many who believe that Peter didn’t write 2 Peter.

Why?

The language is very different from 1 Peter.

For this reason some consider that Peter COULDN’T have written 2 Peter, it must have been someone else. How could Peter write letters with such different language?

It is also written like someone who is much more well trained then we know Peter to have been. Like if someone usually wrote with the vernacular used in the south, but then another letter speaks as if they are from New England.

2 Peter and Jude have a lot of inter-lapping content.

Several portions are in fact word-for-word the same with one another. This means either 2 Peter took from Jude, Jude took from 2 Peter, or both took from an earlier source. But the question is “why would the great Apostle Peter take the information from someone else?”

There are some who believe that 2 Peter was written as a Pseudopigrapha. What does this mean? It was a style used sometimes where someone would write a work as if they are someone else. A false writer. It’s the opposite of a ghost writer, it is someone pretending to be a well-known figure.

The arguments FOR Petrine authorship

Internal evidence

The book claims to be written by Peter, in fact a Hebraic form of His name only found in Acts 15:14

If one was attempting to write AS Peter, they would have chosen the greeting from the 1st letter or one of the more common names of Peter.

This unique form of his name is an argument for Him writing it.

The author claims he will die soon (1:14)

This would seem like an odd statement for a pseudonymous writer to make

The author claims to be an eyewitness of the events of Jesus life and of the church

The transfiguration (1:16-18)

He states this as evidence of the 2nd coming and that He heard God’s Words from heaven

This would be an odd argument to make for someone who WASN’T actually there, it wouldn’t have credibility

This would the statement fundamentally deceptive

This would also be an odd event to describe for proof of the 2nd coming outside of being there

A pseudonymous writer would have embellished this event

The author claims Paul to be a “beloved brother” and on the same authority as Paul.

This would be a bold statement for someone to make if it wasn’t Peter himself.

He see’s Paul as having the same authority as Himself but no inferior to him, as only an Apostle would be able to make

It claims to be the 2nd letter of Peter.

If someone was writing pseudonymously and was attempting to make this a 2nd letter of Peter, they would have used more dependence on 1 Peter.

External evidence

It is used in many of the early church fathers in 1 Clement, 2 Clement, Barnabas, and the Shepherd of Hermas. All of them were between 96 Ad and 140 AD.

This shows it was used as early as the 1st century but definitely the 2nd century.

The 3 best allusions to 2 Peter are in 2nd Clement, the Epistle of Barnabas, and by Justin Martyr.

Origen quotes 2 Peter six different times showing that he saw it as authoritative, Eusebius accepted it, Iranaeus quoted it, Clement of Alexandria most likely wrote a commentary on it. All of this proves it was at least in general use within the 2nd and 3rd centuries of the church.

The Apocalypse of Peter, a false work written later, is also dependent on 2 Peter. This was written in the early 2nd century.

It is clear that many of the early church fathers used it and accepted it, proving they believed it to be authentic even when many of them had questions about it.

By the 4th century it was considered Canon in the church even when other well-known books were removed as part of Scripture.

Other Pseudo-Petrine works were discarded while 2 Peter was accepted. They didn’t just include things with Peter’s name on it but used serious discretion. “The conclusion of the early church should not be set aside easily”

If 2 Peter was in fact written by Peter, and Peter was martyred under Nero in Rome, then it must have been written between 60 AD and 68 AD. Even if not, another work called “Apocalypse of Peter” that takes much of the writing of 2 Peter was written in 110 AD so it must be before then. So anywhere between 64 AD-110 AD.

Style

2 Peter seems more influenced by Greek philosophical thought but Peter was a business man who went and shared the Gospel to both Jews and Gentiles, he could write according to context!

It is also very hard to know a certain style when we have just two short letters as the criteria. It would be like if 500 years from now someone found a letter you sent to your grandmother and a letter sent to your friend from school, they might not think it was written by the same person!

Meanwhile, they do show similarities. Both like to repeat words for emphasis

What about the similarities between Jude and 2 Peter?

Certainly Peter could have known about Jude or vice versa and used some of the wording for themselves.

One answer would be in knowing who Jude is, Jude is the half-brother of Jesus and his brother James was the leader of the church in Jerusalem, the biggest church at the time. Therefore he would have been held in high esteem. The other answer is that Jude actually takes from Peter. But Scripture often takes language from other parts of Scripture, all of the Gospels have wordage that comes from other parts of Scripture. In fact, this means they hold the writing of another in high regard.

But they are also very different letters in style. When we get to Jude we will see that it is succinct and has a clear structure from beginning to end. 2 Peter is more free flowing, moving from topic to topic quickly. They also deal with different issues. Jude is dealing with people who deny Jesus being God and use God’s grace to live however they want. Peter is dealing with people who deny prophecy and God’s sovereignty.

Argument against pseudepigripha

Paul specifically criticizes false writings, therefore it would be hard for the early church to support it.

2 Thessalonians 2:2

2 Thessalonians 3:17

The early church rejected other writings that claimed to be other authors

This includes the Gospel of Peter that claimed to be written by Peter and was rejected in AD 180

There is no evidence of the early church receiving pseudepigraphic writings as Scripture

There is no real reason, other than in order to deceive, to write the letter under the name of Peter.

In the ancient world there were pseudepigraphic writings that were considered “legitimate to deceive if the cause was important enough to justify the lie” - Schreiner

But within the tradition of the church this would not be considered honorable, it was deceptive.

The one, sometimes accepted view, is that the writer isn’t trying to deceiver but writing a “transparent fiction”, that is it was known to not have been written by Peter from the outset and culturally people could consider it acceptable to read.

The problem is that there is no evidence to support this, no early church father states this as a fact.

Who is Peter writing to?

He is writing to Gentile believers in churches, it doesn’t tell us where this church was but it was most likely a group of churches.

Peter is dealing with heretics, both theological and moral, that were in the church. Peter speaks with urgency towards the issues being faced because those in the church are being drawn towards these heresies.

-Words used in the book are that of “wandering off” (2:15), that they had “rejected the Lord who had redeemed them” (2:1), they had “forsaken the holy commandment” and become “entangled in the defilements of the world” (2:20-22)

-Peter talks of them wandering away into many kinds of immorality. Sexual, drunkenness, gluttony,, self-indulgence. They had become “slaves of corruption” (2:19)

-This is probably because they started to view God’s grace as means of living under any freedom that they wanted to. That as long as they believed the Gospel, and trusted that they would be saved that God didn’t care how they lived.

-They also had stopped believing that God would come and judge all people.

-Some had taken the delay of God to mean that he was never returning.

-They had denied the teaching of the prophets on these issues and in doing so were denying the Lord.

The worrying part is that those Peter is writing to are those within the church, not outside.

In some ways the teaching is similar to Epicureanism. It was a general belief that rejected divine providence, rejected that God (or “the gods”) were engaged with the issues of humanity, that everything is by chance. They denied any form of divine intervention thus humans could live any way that they desired.

-The basis of their teaching was freedom to enjoy whatever one desired.

-Although the false teachers were not specifically Epicurean but those who had been influenced by its teaching, much like the beliefs of our time can change us. These were people within the church who were among those who called themselves believers but had been influenced by secular teaching that God was not going to return.

-Although this freedom wasn’t specifically a desire to live any way they wanted, it became the logical conclusion.

-There are those now called “universalists” who believe that God won’t judge anyone but everyone will be saved one day. This is a similarly scary heresy, that allows for people to live however they want while believing there won’t be consequences to their actions. To live “your truth”, and that it doesn’t have to be the same as another person. They lived by their own freedoms.

What does it mean to “guard the truth”?

There are two parts of guarding the truth. 1st, that God will guard our hearts. 2nd, that we must work to guard our own hearts.

Specifically, we are called to guard the truth. Many people like to define their own truths and tell us what we need to believe. About politics, about who you are, about what kinds of thinks you should support and care about.

And in a world that tells you that you can’t tell another person what they can believe the most common form of argument is protest. Protest on social media, protest on the streets, protest at school. But in actuality protest is a form of truth tellings.

1. The substance of protest is rooted in some kind of objection.

2. Protesters object to things that they believe are not right.

3. In order for there to be right and wrong, there must be a way the world should be.

4. If there is a way the world should be, then the world has purpose.

5. If the world has purpose, then someone must have intentionally designed it.

6. Someone did intentionally design the world, and we call this person God.

Every protest sign is a placard reading, “This isn’t right. This isn’t the way the world was created to be.”

So if there is a truth that we can believe in, then it is vitally important that we seek to guard that truth. Otherwise people start to lose the way the world SHOULD be for their own vision of what they believe the world should be.

Regardless of whether you agree with the conviction being championed, remember that the people involved are protesting because deep within their souls they know that there is a way the world should be and this world is broken and far from perfect. We want to help people find this world.