“Dear friends, this is now the second letter I have written to you; in both letters, I want to stir up your sincere understanding by way of reminder, so that you recall the words previously spoken by the holy prophets and the command of our Lord and Savior given through your apostles.”
With chapter 3, Peter changes the tone of his letter. Chapter 2 was mainly about condemning the false teachers and warning of their impending condemnation. Here in this chapter, he is back to addressing his readers. He starts by calling them his dear friends. He uses this phrase three more times in his letter. His tone is much more reassuring as he reminds his fellow believers of their hope in Christ’s return.
He tells them that this is his second letter to them, and that in both letters, “I want to stir up your sincere understanding by way of reminder…” We have Peter’s first letter, 1 Peter in our canon of Scripture. There may be other letters that Peter wrote to the dispersed churches that we do not have access to, but there is no reason to believe that 1 Peter isn’t the letter he is referring to. John Barry writes this in his commentary. “The first letter is likely 1 Peter. This may indicate that the audience is the same for both letters, unless this refers to correspondence that is now lost. The contents of 1 Peter could certainly fit what is said here about this first letter.”
The purpose of the letter is to remind them of the words “spoken by the holy prophets and the command of our Lord and Savior given through your apostles.” I want to break this down. First let’s look at the words “reminder” and “recall” used in the verses. Peter has written about this before. Earlier in his letter, he writes, “Therefore I will always remind you about these things, even though you know them and are established in the truth you now have. I think it is right, as long as I am in this bodily tent, to wake you up with a reminder, since I know that I will soon lay aside my tent, as our Lord Jesus Christ has indeed made clear to me. And I will also make every effort so that you are able to recall these things at any time after my departure” (1:12-15). Peter knows how important it is to have a constant reminder of God’s Word in our hearts. Even when we are established in the truth, we still need to be reminded. As I was writing this, these verses came to mind. “Listen, Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. These words that I am giving you today are to be in your heart.Repeat them to your children. Talk about them when you sit in your house and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Bind them as a sign on your hand and let them be a symbol on your forehead.Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your city gates” (Deuteronomy 6:4-9).
This leads into the next part. They are to recall the words previously spoken by the holy prophets. The words spoken through the holy prophets would be the words we now refer to as the Old Testament. Peter is telling his readers that they need to be familiar with the Old Testament teachings. And as we get further into chapter 3, and the second coming of the Lord, having a familiarity with the prophets such as Daniel, Jeremiah, and Joel is important to be able to stand up with confidence against the scoffers Peter writes about in verse 3.
Peter also writes about “the command of our Lord and Savior given through your apostles.” The apostles are the apostles of Jesus. Of course, Peter is one of these. In his first letter, Peter writes, “But as the one who called you is holy, you also are to be holy in all your conduct; for it is written, Be holy, because I am holy” (1:15-16). Douglas Moo writes, “The central demand of the gospel was first laid down by Jesus himself (see Matt. 5:48: “Be perfect therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect”). And this same basic demand was passed on and fleshed out by the apostles to Christians all over the world. It was precisely this need for Christians to strive for conformity to the will of God taught by Christ and handed down by the apostles that the false teachers were willfully ignoring.”
Let’s wrap up these verses. Peter stresses the importance of knowing both the Old and New Testament Scriptures. He wants to stir up a sincere understanding. We need to be able to understand and apply the Bible and what it teaches to every aspect of our lives. We need to have a Christian worldview. I am reading How Now Shall We Live by Charles Colson and Nancy Pearcey. The second chapter describes what a Christian worldview is. It is knowing the laws and ordinances by which God has structured creation, and allowing those laws to shape the way we live. And the way we learn those laws is by reading our Bibles. We believe the Bible to be the inerrant, inspired, infallible Word of God.
I’ll end with this quote from Charles Spurgeon. It is especially important today when we have so many people, even people in the church, who try to tell us that the Bible is just a good book, not God’s inspired, inerrant, infallible Word.
“Peter believed in the inspiration of the very ‘words’ of scripture; he was not one of those precious ‘advanced thinkers’ who would, if they could, tear the very soul out of the Book, and leave us nothing at all; but he wrote, ‘That ye may be mindful of the words’- the very words-‘which were spoken before by the holy prophets.’ ‘Oh!’ says one, ‘but words do not signify; it is the inward sense that is really important.’ Exactly so; that is just what the fool said about egg-shells. He said that they did not signify; it was only the inward life-germ of the chick within that was important; so he broke all the shells, and thereby destroyed the life… If the words could be taken from us, the sense itself would be gone.”
Grace be with you!
Abundant Joy 