Participants: Tom Shepherd & Deyvy Rodriguez
Series Code: PBOTB
Program Code: PBOTB00021A
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00:19 Hello and welcome to Books of the Book. 00:22 This is a program where we study 00:24 the Bible and we take a book from the Bible and we study it 00:28 thoroughly. Today we're talking about the writings of Peter. 00:32 With us is Dr. Tom Shepherd. He is a New Testament 00:35 Interpretation professor at Andrews University. Dr. Shepherd 00:39 the program title for today is The Angry Pastor. What's up with 00:43 that? Well church services that you 00:47 remember well are interesting. They usually come in two types. 00:52 Either it's one where you were deeply blessed. The word of God 00:55 just spoke to you, the Holy Spirit touched your heart, you 00:59 gave your life to Jesus or you saw some new wonderful truth. 01:03 That's one type of unforgettable church service. The other type 01:07 of unforgettable church service is when something goes terribly 01:12 wrong. And I have a story. It's from an unknown time, unknown 01:17 place, you know distant and all that, long ago far away type of 01:23 thing. It was a Sabbath morning and the pastor, I don't quite 01:29 remember why but the pastor was angry. He was angry with the 01:34 church. And the pastor stood up in the pulpit and took his Bible 01:40 and he was turning from text to text and he was just really 01:44 giving it to the congregation and telling them how they had 01:48 done things wrong and how bad they were and he was really 01:52 quite upset and he talked for about 15 minutes, he shut his 01:56 Bible and he walked right out of the church. And we were just 02:02 all stunned in this service. I mean when the pastor walks out 02:06 usually you're going to go shake his hand you know but there was 02:11 no closing hymn and everybody was just kind of... they were 02:14 just stunned by this whole experience. 02:16 It would make me think did he have the problem or was the 02:19 problem with the church? Well, probably the answer is Yes 02:22 We formed a little committee and we went and we saw our pastor 02:28 and we found reconciliation and I'm still friends with this 02:33 pastor today. But it was something that kind of shocked 02:39 people. When somebody gets so angry in church we're not used 02:43 to that. This is kind of a preamble to what we're going to 02:46 read here in 2 Peter chapter 2. We're going to start in verse 1. 02:51 The whole chapter has this rather angry pastor tone to it 02:57 and we're going to read for... We're going to talk about this 03:02 passage of scripture, 2 Peter chapter 2 during this program 03:07 and the one following and we're going to talk about the people 03:11 that are involved in this story, but we're going to start by 03:16 reading chapter 2 verses 1-11, 2 Peter 2:1-11. It's a little 03:20 bit of a longer passage so I'll read the first three verses and 03:24 then you can read the next part. But false prophets also arose 03:29 among the people just as there will be false teachers among 03:33 you who will secretly bring in destructive heresies even 03:37 denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves 03:42 swift destruction. And many will follow their sensuality and 03:46 because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed and in their 03:50 greed they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation 03:54 from long ago is not idle and their destruction is not asleep. 03:59 And we're in verse 4: For if God did not spare the angles who 04:03 sinned but cast them down to hell and delivered them into 04:07 chains of darkness to be reserved for judgment and did 04:11 not spare the ancient world but saved Noah, one of eight people, 04:14 a preacher of righteousness bringing in the flood on the 04:19 ungodly and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes 04:23 to condemn them to destruction making them an example to those 04:27 who afterward would live ungodly and delivered righteous Lot who 04:32 was oppressed by the filthy conduct of the wicked. For that 04:35 righteous man dwelling among them tormented his righteous 04:39 soul from day to day by seeing and hearing their lawless deeds. 04:43 Then the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of 04:46 temptations and to reserve the unjust under punishment for the 04:50 day of judgment and especially those who walk according to the 04:53 flesh and the lust of uncleanness and despise authority. They are 04:57 presumptuous, self-ruled. They are not afraid to speak evil of 05:01 dignitaries whereas angels who were greater in power and might 05:05 do not bring reviling accusations against them before 05:11 the Lord. Well we've started off here. It says Peter... 05:16 The page almost feels warm even after 2000 years and we will see 05:19 as we get to the last part of the chapter it's even warmer. 05:21 Yes. So the angry pastor you're talking about is Peter. 05:25 Okay. In verse 1 of chapter 2 Peter says that there will be 05:32 false prophets among you. Wasn't there already false prophets? 05:38 Why does he say that there will be as if there wasn't? 05:41 Yeah. It's very interesting. Here he describes them as though 05:46 they're in the future and yet when you get further into the 05:51 chapter and especially when you get into chapter 3 is sounds 05:55 that they're right there right then. It's like he's kind of 05:59 mixing these two together and this becomes a useful time for 06:03 us to discuss the relationship between 2 Peter and Jude. 06:07 Now when we first talked about 2 Peter we briefly mentioned 06:11 that there is a literary relationship between the two 06:16 books and it has led many scholars to think that actually 06:21 that Jude was written first and then the author of 2 Peter 06:27 borrowed from Jude when he was writing 2 Peter. Now you can 06:32 still argue that Peter wrote the book and he used somebody else's 06:36 writing. We know that that happens sometimes that people 06:39 will make use of somebody else's work and that in the ancient 06:43 world this wouldn't be... You know we have modern laws of 06:48 plagiarism we talk about and those laws are kind of a recent 06:52 kind of development in relationship to publication but 06:55 it wouldn't be necessarily an issue for Peter in his time. 06:59 But we want to kind of understand the relationship 07:02 between these two books and it helps us to understand what's 07:06 going on in 2 Peter 2 when he uses a future tense, okay. 07:10 First there is a close link between the two books, a 07:14 literary linkage and the question comes as to which of 07:17 the two books was written first. There is evidence that actually 07:22 Jude used Peter. Now some people say it's the other direction, 07:27 that Peter used Jude but I lay out before people two concepts 07:33 that help point toward Jude as using 2 Peter. There is a change 07:38 of tense in Peter. It says that the false prophets will come, 07:45 the false teachers will come and in Jude verse 4 it says that 07:53 they're here, they've come, they're already present. 07:55 So Peter is predicting them and Jude says here they are, they've 08:00 come. So that would suggest that Peter's written earlier, he's 08:04 predicting what will happen and Jude says what Peter predicted 08:09 here it is, it's already arrived But one of the most interesting 08:13 linkages between the two books is the relationship between Jude 08:18 verse 17 and 18, and 2 Peter 3 verses 3 and 4 that we're going 08:23 to study a little later in these programs. So we have a graphic 08:27 here of this relationship between Jude 17 and 18 and 08:32 2 Peter verses 3 and 4 and we 08:35 get a picture of the text and 08:38 you'll notice that if we read 08:41 the part about Jude it says 08:44 that you'll see there I've 08:47 underlined certain words, the 08:50 predictions of the apostles it 08:52 says of our Lord Jesus Christ. 08:54 It said, They said to you in the 08:57 last times there will be 08:58 scoffers following their own 09:00 ungodly passions. Okay. And of 09:03 course this has its closest link 09:06 to 2 Peter chapter 3 and it says 09:08 he also refers to predictions of 09:11 the holy prophets and the 09:12 commandment of the Lord and 09:14 Savior through your apostles 09:15 knowing this first that scoffers 09:17 will come in the last days with 09:18 scoffing following their own 09:20 sinful desires. And then they go 09:23 on to say where is this promised 09:26 second coming. Now it's very 09:28 interesting if you look at these 09:30 two passages carefully, there's 09:33 very clear literary relationship 09:35 between the two passages and 09:38 Jude says he's quoting somebody. 09:41 He's quoting somebody. And the 09:44 interesting thing is there is 09:47 no other text in the New Testament that has such a close 09:51 relationship, very close relationship to the words in 09:55 Jude as these words in 2 Peter. Now if Jude was written first 10:02 and Peter, or whoever, is using Jude to write his document, then 10:10 we're left with the question, so who was Jude quoting? But if 10:16 Peter writes first, it's obvious who Jude is quoting. He's 10:22 quoting from Peter. Because there is no good parallel 10:26 elsewhere in the New Testament for these words in Jude it makes 10:31 sense that 2 Peter was written first and Jude is quoting 10:35 2 Peter and that Peter talks about the false teachers coming 10:39 and it seems as though they're already on their way. Maybe they 10:42 have arrived. Remember Peter is writing to a group of people 10:47 over a broad area of territory. Some of them may have already 10:50 arrived and were arriving in other churches and Peter says 10:53 they're coming, they're coming, they're going to be here soon 10:56 and Jude when he writes says they've already gotten here, 10:59 here they are. And if they're coming from 11:01 somewhere, where are they coming from and how do these false 11:04 teachers or how did these teachers become false? 11:07 Aw, well, that's a great question, but before I go there 11:11 I need to lay out the linkage between 2 Peter chapter 2 and 11:15 2 Peter chapter 3. We have 11:19 another graphic here that shows 11:20 the comparison between these 11:23 two. It's quite interesting. 11:25 You'll see there the parallel 11:26 pattern deals with the Old 11:28 Testament, the Christian setting 11:30 the warning and the two paths 11:32 and there are false prophets in 11:36 2 Peter 2 and there are true 11:38 prophets, these are the prophets 11:40 that refer to the text we just 11:42 looked at in 2 Peter 3. There 11:45 are false teachers and they are 11:47 the mockers that are there in 11:49 chapter 3. There's a warning 11:51 about their destruction, their 11:53 heresies. Many will be deceived 11:55 in chapter 2 and then he says 11:56 you know that the mockers will 11:58 question the second coming in 12:00 chapter 3 and then the two paths 12:02 to destructions for the false 12:03 teachers, salvation for the 12:04 righteous is one of the themes 12:06 of 2 Peter 2 and you'll notice 12:08 defeating the false teachers and 12:10 protecting the Christians from 12:11 destruction, the destruction of 12:13 the wicked and salvation in 12:15 chapter 3. So the two chapters really kind of have a parallel 12:19 structure to them and help us to recognize what's going on and 12:23 how he is fighting these false teachers in both chapters and he 12:27 comes at it in a little bit different way. In chapter 2 he 12:30 is going to focus on the questions of their deceptive 12:34 character and what they're like and then finally in chapter 3 12:37 he's going to get down to the issues and start talking about 12:41 what they actually said and how Christians can understand that, 12:46 counter that and be secure in the truth. Peter is angry and 12:51 he's angry for a good reason because somebody is threatening 12:56 his flock. He's a good shepherd and he's watching over these 13:00 people and when wolves start to come towards the flock the 13:05 shepherd takes out his club and starts swinging because it's no 13:10 small matter. So he's angry in a good way? 13:14 In a good way, that's exactly right. You see if you were next 13:17 to a precipice next to a cliff and you were about to fall off 13:21 and I said, Oh Deyvy, please come away from the cliff, you 13:24 might get hurt. And you fell off Woo hoo and I said Deyvy it's 13:28 too bad you didn't hear what I said. No, we have to give clear 13:31 warnings. Sometimes you speak a little more loudly. You pull 13:34 somebody out of the street that is about to be hit by a car. 13:38 So Peter is doing some of this very kind of thing. He's warning 13:42 them very carefully about what is coming and how these false 13:45 teachers will mislead them. Well we'll take a break right at this 13:49 point because we need time for a little bit of messages. We'll be 13:52 back to talk more about 2 Peter chapter 2. |
Revised 2014-12-17