Participants: Tom Shepherd & Deyvy Rodriguez
Series Code: PBOTB
Program Code: PBOTB00023A
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00:21 Hello Welcome to Books of the Book. 00:22 My name is Deyvy Rodriguez and I am very pleased that you're 00:26 with us to study these very important books of the Bible 00:29 and today we are studying the books of 1 and 2 Peter. 00:32 But actually today we are ahead of 1 Peter. We're starting in 00:36 2 Peter and we are at chapter 3. And with us is 00:39 Dr. Tom Shepherd. He is a professor at Andrews University. 00:43 He teaches New Testament interpretation at the Seminary 00:46 there. Dr. Shepherd welcome. Thank you. 00:49 Today we are picking up at chapter 3. Is that right? 00:52 That's correct. And what are we talking about? 00:54 Chapter 3 is Peter's answer to the false teachers and he's 00:59 going to particularly focus on the subject of eschatology which 01:04 means last days, last day events so that's where the whole 01:09 chapter is going to revolve around that topic. I'd like to 01:14 take a couple moments just to review Peter's eschatology in 01:19 the two books of 1 and 2 Peter. Eschatology plays an important 01:23 part in both of these precious little gems of 1 and 2 Peter. 01:28 In 1 Peter he introduces the idea of eschatology in 01:32 connection with conversion and with the persecution that the 01:37 Christians are facing. We saw that in 1 Peter chapter 1. The 01:41 terms Peter uses to describe Christ's return are quite 01:46 superlative. It is an inheritance that he talks about that cannot perish, 01:50 cannot be defiled, cannot fade away. It's such a beautiful 01:54 presentation. God is keeping the inheritance safely for us in 01:58 heaven; that's what he says in chapter 1 verse 4. The return of 02:02 Christ is the goal of our faith and carries us through the time 02:06 of persecution in this dark world. As we said before, God 02:11 has solved our past, he has settled our future and so we are 02:16 able to face the present persecution. Okay? Um, the 02:21 return of Christ is the motive force for our pursuit of purity. 02:25 He talks about the revelation of Jesus Christ and how we are to 02:31 have a pure life. It is assured by the resurrection of Christ 02:36 that is referred to in Chapter 1 and again in Chapter 3 and it is 02:42 coming soon and he refers to that in Chapter 1:4 and 5. 02:46 It will include just judgment on evil and honor for those who do 02:51 the will of God. It is fairly obvious that in 1 Peter the 02:54 second coming of Jesus is positive motivation for 02:58 faithfulness and a warning to the world of coming judgment. 03:02 In 2 Peter the focus revolves around responding to the false 03:05 teachers that question the second coming. They have a 03:09 mistaken view as we are going to see; a mistaken view of the past 03:13 It's interesting you know how Peter deals with things in the 03:17 past and now things in the future. They see a uniform, 03:21 these false teachers, see a uniform type of history behind 03:24 them and they think that that portends that the future also 03:28 will be quite uniform. Peter responds by correcting their 03:31 view of the past. He said, No, God intervened in the past. 03:34 He was both the creator of the world and the destroyer of the 03:40 world with the flood in the days of Noah. And this event of the 03:45 past where God intervened portends what is going to happen 03:49 in the future. God is going to destroy the wicked world and 03:53 he's going to redeem those who have trusted in Christ and he 03:58 also takes time to explain the delay, the seeming delay, with 04:02 reference to the mercy of God and he reasserts the certainty 04:05 of the second coming of Jesus. He indicates that this return of 04:08 Christ calls for a holy and focused life. 04:12 So what are some of these false teachings then that these 04:15 teachers are teaching? 04:16 All right the false teachers are teaching... Let's turn and read 04:21 our passage. We're reading today 2 Peter 3 verses 1-7. 04:29 Beloved I now write to you the second epistle in both of which 04:33 I stir up your pure minds by way of reminder that you may be 04:36 mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy 04:40 prophets and of the commandment of us, the apostles of the Lord 04:44 and Savior. Knowing this first that scoffers will come in the 04:48 last days walking according to their own lusts and saying where 04:52 is the promise of his coming, for since the fathers fell 04:55 asleep all things continue as they were from the beginning of 04:59 creation. For this they willfully forget that by the 05:03 word of God the heavens were of old and the earth standing out 05:06 of water and in the water by which the world then that 05:11 existed perished being flooded with water. But the heavens and 05:15 the earth which are now preserved by the same word are 05:18 reserved for fire unto the day of judgment and perdition of 05:22 ungodly men. All right. So here he comes to 05:26 attack these false teachers directly now. It's interesting, 05:30 he starts the chapter by saying this is the second letter so 05:34 there has to be a first if this is the second letter. And he 05:39 refers back to this reminder, the idea of remembering, that we 05:44 talked about in chapter 1 where he knows that he is going to die 05:48 and he wants to leave a testament, a message for people 05:53 to observe and to listen to and we're going to find out all 05:56 through this kind of passage that the idea of remembering is 06:01 very important, forgetting and remembering. So we come into 06:05 verse 3 and we actually meet the statements of these false 06:11 teachers. Let me first read what they said. You read it and we 06:15 notice in verse 3, Knowing this that first of all scoffers will 06:19 come in the last days with scoffing following their own 06:22 sinful desires. They will say where is the promise of his 06:26 coming. For ever since the fathers fell asleep all things 06:29 are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation. 06:33 The first thing we notice about these people is their method of 06:37 approach and their method of approach is mockery. What is 06:46 mockery. How would you describe it? 06:48 Making fun of. Making fun. Okay. Sure. It is 06:53 holding up an idea to ridicule. Who would be so foolish as to 06:59 believe that idea? Right? And mockery is not really an 07:06 intellectual argument. It's based on intimidation, making 07:10 something look silly and foolish so people won't accept it. 07:17 So actually mockery typically covers up a weak argument and 07:23 discourages investigation. Their argument that they're going to 07:30 present is based on the idea that the second coming is 07:34 delayed. They say where is the promise of his coming? And it's 07:39 a sarcastic kind of a question. And then they support this idea 07:45 with a concept... they talk about the fathers who fell 07:49 asleep and all continues as it was from creation. So we've 07:53 got to unpack this argument just a little bit. The first think we 07:57 notice is that Peter is a person who has no problem with 08:02 investigation. He just doesn't say don't believe those false 08:06 teachers. Don't look at their books. Don't talk about it. Just 08:10 you know stop. That would be intimidation itself you see. 08:15 But he doesn't simply give commands. He says well let's 08:19 look at their ideas. And he takes them seriously and he 08:23 quotes them. I don't know if they would have quoted Peter but 08:27 he quotes them. Then he takes and deconstructs their argument 08:31 and shows where it's weaknesses are. But the first thing we 08:36 notice is that they start with mockery. It's a very poor 08:40 teaching technique. A good teacher doesn't use mockery. 08:44 He doesn't try to intimidate his students or her students, 08:49 doesn't put them down so that they feel like they can't ask 08:53 questions. Because good questions are the keys, the 08:57 golden opportunities for teaching, for education. 09:00 I always try to encourage students to speak up in class 09:04 and to respond to what I'm saying, tell me if I'm making a 09:08 mistake and then we can have a good discussion and then you 09:11 have good learning taking place. Now scholars who look at 2 Peter 09:17 and think that it is written later like in the second century 09:21 instead of being written by the apostle Peter, they look at the 09:25 words that are referred to here of the false teachers that ever 09:28 since the fathers fell asleep everything continues as it was 09:32 from creation. And they say Ah-ha. You see the fathers they 09:36 say, the fathers is the first generation of Christians and 09:41 these people have moved off the scene, they've died, and now 09:44 this is the second and third generation of Christians. These 09:48 are people who are later. Well there are two problems, two 09:51 problems with that position. The first is that the term fathers 09:55 in early Christian literature is typically a reference back to 10:00 Old Testament believers, back to the Old Testament. Second, the 10:04 next phrase that Peter states in their argument, ever since 10:08 the fathers fell asleep all continues as it was from 10:11 creation refers all the way back to creation. So it would be a 10:15 little odd going all the way back to creation and then saying 10:19 Oh and these people that just died recently. It's more likely 10:23 they're looking back, back to the Old Testament, ever since 10:27 the father fell asleep, that long chain of people going all 10:31 the way back to creation. Everything just continues the 10:35 same as it was from the days of creation. Well they argue for a 10:42 certain sense of continuity. Things continue as... Sort of a 10:49 teaching of uniformitarianism. Now this is not the 10:53 uniformitarianism that comes centuries and centuries later 10:59 that is linked up with evolutionary theory that you 11:04 have this gradual development and that the world's geological 11:08 column has uniformly been laid down and if you know that it's 11:12 lain down one inch a year and you know something that's 100 11:16 feet you can figure out how long it's taken for that to lay down. 11:19 That's the concept of uniformitarianism. But these 11:23 teachers have something that kind of echoes that; it kind of 11:26 goes along with that kind of idea because they talk about 11:32 everything going back to the creation and that there hasn't 11:37 been this change. So the past is a predictor of the future. 11:42 There's not been this change and so in the future, you know, this 11:47 coming that they've promised is just a fake idea. So they have a 11:51 very interesting kind of way of teaching this. There are three 11:55 main characteristics to their teaching: Eschatological 11:58 skepticism, they don't believe that Jesus is coming back. They 12:02 have a sort of common sense rationalism; they argue in terms 12:05 of the ages have all been the same so it's going to be like 12:09 that off into the future. And then, of course, as we saw in 12:12 Chapter 2 they have this concept of moral freedom that they 12:16 promise people even though they themselves are slaves to passion 12:24 So, that's the kind of thing that Peter is going to present 12:26 before us. Now weren't there philosophies 12:29 of the day that argued like this? 12:31 There were and it's rather interesting. There were two 12:36 groups that seemed to have more particular linkage to the false 12:41 teachers in 2 Peter. These are the philosophies of Epicureanism 12:46 and the Jewish sect of the Sadducees. The Epicureans were 12:54 founded by a man named Epicurus, of course, and he lived from 13:01 341 to 270 B.C. So long before the first century A.D. but he 13:07 had followers who still believed what he had to teach. Epicurus 13:14 taught that the purpose of life was simple pleasures, the 13:19 absence of pain. These were more the pleasures of the mind than 13:22 the pleasures of the body that he taught. He believed, this is 13:26 very important, that the gods do not judge, they do not reward 13:30 and they do not punish and there is no providence. The gods 13:34 live far away from the world. And there's no life after death. 13:37 There's no judgment and there's no postmortem retribution. 13:42 So they really kind of almost atheistic, not atheistic, they 13:46 believed in the gods but not their involvement in life right 13:50 now. So we are just at time for a break so we'll come back after 13:53 just a few minutes and talk some more about these philosophies. |
Revised 2014-12-17