1st & 2nd Peter, Introduction
1 Peter; 2 Peter · Vern Peterman · Oct 1, 2006
1 & 2 Peter (2006-07), No. 01
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/492603502925

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

First and second Peter, just so you make sure you're in the right place, right? This is a pair of books I just have for a long time. Just really thought, man, these are really cool. Imagine writing these. This is several decades after he had walked with the Lord.

And towards what ended up being the end of his life, And he, as he wrote these, imagine, this is the guy that stood there at Caiaphas' house and said, I don't know him. What's that? Denied him three times. Can you imagine that? And if you look at the Gospels, at one point after and during the time he denied the Lord, they actually exchange glances. how that must have sunk in, astounding, how that must have struck his heart to have come to realize that. And afterward, after the Lord's resurrection, for the Lord to come to him and to say in three different ways, feed my sheep, shepherd my sheep, And to have the Lord ask him after having walked the earth, you know, together, side by side, have the Lord ask him, do you love me? So that's the guy whose words we're reading. This to me is phenomenal stuff. There is nothing quite like it. Nothing compared to it.

Of the disciples, it's interesting, the Lord chose twelve, and all twelve with the exception of John, died a martyr's death from any record that we have. And Peter was one of those. John, of course, records some of the account of Peter as well. John was the one who, because of what appears to be special connections, got Peter access into Caiaphas Courtyard. He otherwise wouldn't have gotten access. Here's John also years later contemplating, I got Peter into the courtyard only to have him deny the Lord three times.

This is amazing stuff. It's John that records the detail of the interaction of our Lord and Peter. Isn't that something? Something to just think about. Let's take a look here. You've got your handout. I see we've run out. We need to get some more here. So it says, I'd like to introduce you to Peter. Yeah, that Peter. That one. Peter was a shy fellow, right? Not so much. Not so much. Always willing to speak up and think later. What's that?

Sanguine Peter, yes. He is described as being among the first selected. Think of Peter. What was Peter's occupation? He was a fisherman. So when the disciples were characterized as fishermen, Peter was kind of right at the head of that characterization. Who else was selected along with Peter that were also fishermen? James and John, brothers. Who else? Andrew. Andrew, any relationship to Peter? So here's it so here's Peter and Andrew and James and John so two pairs if you will of brothers all four fishermen and It's interesting.

I didn't bring it for this week, but I'll show you next week Peter's house in Capernaum the north end of Sea of Galilee has been excavated and and it from the evidence appears very very clearly to be Peter's house and And so I'll show pictures of that next week on the screen, so you have a chance to take a look at that.

But I think one of the things for us to look at is this is not an ethereal letter. This is a letter by a guy who walked with our Lord, who went through the things that he went through. And some of the things were just amazing, astounding to think about, having gone through. You know, he talked about him denying the Lord.

Here he is on the Mount of Transfiguration, where he's up there and all of a sudden here's the Lord with Elijah and Moses. What kind of cool thing are you going to say in the middle of that? What can you say that's like a really momentous, insightful thing to say?

Let's make some tents. Or the Lord comes walking on the water up to the boat. And so Peter says, I'm not going out there. No. What does he say? Hey, let me do this too. And then he does begin walking, and then all of a sudden it doesn't work. The sea gets holes in it. Peter shaped holes. it's uh... this is this is a phenomenal letter it is it is very important we understand the reality of it isn't some of the serial letter floating out there this is a guy who walked with the lord you know in retrospect openly recognized that crazy foolish foot-in-the-mouth things that he said here decades later after having time to process what had gone on and to learn further the things that had taken place, now writes these letters full of amazing insight. Some things to look at here are the bullets.

He was named Peter by Christ. We talk about first and second Peter and just think not too much of it. That's the name given to him by the Lord. that wasn't what he had been called his whole life, up until that point. Simon was the word, and then the other is Cephas is the name that you'll read in the Bible. The Aramaic and the Greek is actually Kephas. Kephas, which basically means stone, just like Peter.

He was a fisherman by trade on the Sea of Galilee. Christ called him to be a disciple among the very first. Known initially for his bold if unenlightened statements and proclamations. Here the Lord's resurrected and nothing much is happening and so he says, I'm going fishing. Why? That's what we know how to do. And it's there where the Lord shows up on the seashore as He greets them and they've fished all night and caught absolutely zip which is a lot of work for nothing He's credited with both great statements and tragic denials of the Lord This what are some of the great statements that Peter made Pardon you are the Christ. Yeah, so he made he made this great acknowledgement of And then he made other statements that I'm sure he was thinking later, well, I sure wish I hadn't said that. Ever had that experience?

Anyway, a leading spokesman among the apostles in the first 15 chapters of Acts. Interestingly, he's prominent in the first 15 chapters and virtually disappears in the subsequent chapters. The Apostle who passed on the gospel of salvation to the Gentiles isn't it interesting we oftentimes think here's Paul the Apostle to the Gentiles Peter however was the initial one And it put him in a position of having to do a lot of explaining when he got back to Jerusalem Chapter 11 of Acts written about by Paul with whom he spent some time Paul says that he spent time with Peter.

He stayed with Peter. So they spent some time together. One of the things we'll revisit a little bit later is there are places where Paul's choice of words and Peter's choice of words, for what we can tell are a few weeks together, were astoundingly similar. Identical even in some points.

We'll take a look at that here's where Peter mentions Paul and Says this at 2nd Peter 3 14 through 16 Therefore beloved since you look for these things be diligent to be found in him in peace spotless and blameless and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation just as Also our beloved brother Paul according to the wisdom given him wrote to you. I as also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the scriptures, to their own destruction." Interesting, what is the phrase, the rest of the scriptures, imply to you? Yes, Peter Peter was here saying, you know, he didn't say Paul's letters and the scriptures He said the rest of the scriptures Meaning what Paul wrote was scripture What Paul wrote was scripture?

Okay, you've got a supplemental handout here This is See we identified that here It's this last one that's got some color on it. And this one, this is a kind of a timeline looking at the time when we have evidence that Peter was present in Jerusalem and possibly present later in Rome.

What we see is that for the most part, for a period of probably a couple of decades, Peter was in and around the environs of Jerusalem during those first couple of decades of his life. What's interesting is there's a period of time where there's record outside of scripture centered around 50 AD where he spent several years in Antioch at the church there. He is last recorded there in Acts chapter 15. This is number 6 on the Now, the footnote where he was at the Jerusalem Council, which would have meant if he was at Antioch for several years there, he would have traveled down to Jerusalem for this council and then gone back up to Antioch.

That's excuse me the the green light it's number 13, which is the the Antioch tradition Again, once you get outside of scripture, you're talking extra biblical records. They don't have the reliability of scripture But they seem to you know, they're also don't appear to be something you just discard it appears to have some substance to it.

I And then the other interesting indications, Paul wrote the letter to the church at Rome, right? We got Romans that's being studied in the next room here. I think they're starting in the chapter 7 there. So here's Paul writing to the church at Rome. Did he mention Peter there in the letter to the church at Rome?

No. If Peter had been there, that would have been pretty phenomenal. There are some later traditions that Peter had been in Rome for some decades, but the indication from scripture is not there. You find that Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon were all written by Paul from Rome when he was under house arrest. Amazingly, they never mentioned Peter. Some of the claims that Peter was in Rome for some decades just has no foundation. It would have been phenomenal for Paul to have mentioned all these other people and never mentioned Peter. So the only indication we have of Peter possibly being Roman is the last, you see him in blue there, the last indications. And one tradition has it that he was crucified upside down. in Rome. That would be the thing.

Now, why crucified upside down? Does he figure that's some kind of yoga posture or what? Why crucified upside down? Why would that be of any significance? Isn't that interesting? The crucifixions were always done right side up, but I suppose they thought, hey, we don't care. If you want to die upside down, we'll nail you anyway. So this would be something extraordinary. But that's the way it's recorded, is that he has to be crucified upside down. So they obliged him. Yeah, I mean, the Roman soldiers, they didn't much care. Get the nails in, you're going to die on this thing no matter what happens. Whether it be right side up, upside down, they really didn't care.

So here's Peter spending earlier decades staying around Jerusalem. Apparently spending some years up at Antioch. And then it appears that eventually making his way towards Rome. And being crucified there upside down. He and Paul, from the traditions we have outside of scripture, appear to have been martyred fairly close in time to one another, both in Rome, from the evidence that we have.

Let's take a look at page 2, top of page 2 on the handout there. First, Peter 512, we get the clue that Sylvanus, this is also known as Silas. But why would there be two different names in the same guy, Sylvanus and Silas? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You've got the right idea. We have nicknames, too, don't we? And Robert, Bob, you know, Bobby, we have various nicknames. And this is the same idea. Sylvanus, Shorten, Silas. It's a nickname.

So where do we know about Silas from? He traveled with Paul. Where do we first read about Silas? Do you happen to recall that? In the book of Acts. What I've quoted here is 2 Corinthians and 1 Thessalonians. Who was with Paul in the jail in Philippi? There's Silas, all right? And remember, here's Paul and Silas in the jail in Philippi. And they were put in the stocks, which is the inner prison.

And let me tell you what that's like. First of all, they didn't bother cleaning the prison up from the last guy. They don't have an electric air circulation system. I don't think they even have really close-by windows. This would have been in the inner prison. Sometimes the prisons would even have depths and levels. This would have been in the inner prison. From the studies of how prisons were done in those days, putting them in the stocks would have been the most secure and deepest part of the prison. It also would have been the darkest and least well equipped with air circulation. Nasty. What they would do is they'd shove you back in the hole about the size of a dishwasher. And they'd shove your tail end into this hole and then they'd put your feet and hands in the stalks kind of at the front of the hole.

And that's where Paul and Silas, this guy, were. And of course they stayed there all night and griped and groused and complained, right? They rejoiced and sang to the point where the rest of the prisoners, including the jailer, were getting an incredible message.

And they had never seen this behavior out of somebody who'd been in the stocks. Ordinarily it was, this really stinks, this is getting downright uncomfortable, and my hands and my ankles hurt. And my lower back is killing me from leaning over like this, and I can't move. and boy it would be nice to breathe. That's the usual behavior out of the guys down there if they're saying anything.

Paul and Silas, here's Paul and Silas down there, Paul and Silas instead are praising the Lord so that all the prisoners are hearing from the worst part of the prison, all the prisoners are hearing the message of the Lord in song. It's that Silas that's here. He was assisting Peter with the writing of 1 Peter. Mark is also mentioned. This is John Mark. Now think about John Mark. Remember John Mark? Who's this John Mark guy? Did he have an association with Paul too? Pardon? What? He abandoned him? What happened?

Here is Paul and Barnabas and what do they do? They first go to the island there, where Barnabas is from, and then they head towards what we now call Turkey. At that point, John Mark says, I'm going home. Right? And then on the second proposed journey, where Barnabas and Paul are going to go together, Barnabas says, I want to take John Mark. And Paul says, no way. You remember what happened last time. Well, we find out later that John Mark is Barnabas' cousin. And so there's a particular attachment there. But we also find something else.

Barnabas is a fellow who champions losers, champions people that others don't trust. Think of Barnabas, and he was the one who took Paul to the apostles and said he's okay. Can you imagine that? This is the apostle that tried every chance he could to kill Christians. There's Barnabas kind of front ends that he's a daring guy and says, this guy's all right. Now Barnabas is daring again.

And he says of his cousin John Mark, he's OK. And Peter's got the idea too. John Mark has spent time with Peter. So now here's this guy, John Mark. So here's Silas, who spent time with Paul. They're in the depths of the stinky, awful, profoundly uncomfortable Philippian jail. John Mark, the guy who went home to see his mom, has now come around and recognized, hey, this is a whole lot bigger than what's back home.

Seems to have learned some lessons. Who else learned some lessons? Peter? So it's real interesting that the Lord takes people who have done some really stupid things and turns them around. Isn't that neat? That's a neat thing. It sure gives me hope. Now, let's look at this here.

Here is this tracking of 1 Peter with the book of Acts. Someone suggested that Luke was also associated with the writing of 1 Peter. Here's why. Act 411 and 1st Peter 2.4 both 411 is Peter talking, right?

And 1st Peter 2.4 that we'll see Christ is the rejected stone.

Those are together Next thing acts 122 532 1039 and 1st Peter 5.1 both all those have mentions of being an eyewitness of Christ Next one down the list, Acts 10, 34. Remember Acts 10 is the one where Peter is with the Gentiles over at Caesarea on the coast. And so he is the first one there to give the gospel to the Gentiles. So then in 1 Peter 4, 5, God is the judge of the living and the dead is mentioned in both places.

And Acts 15, 9 and 1 Peter 1, 22, the cleansing of the heart. these five themes and and the one that the second one there first Peter 5 one an eyewitness of Christ mentioned three times there in Acts with respect to Peter so there it is not specifically mentioned but a clue that Luke may well have been associated with them as well so here's an interesting connection here's that may also be and so that's why I indicate here this isn't a stated fact But this is more than incidental.

This is not just an accident. One possible explanation is that he has a copy. Another explanation is that Luke is there. Maybe both. The parallels are more than accidental. These five things are listed in both books. It's also interesting that you have these parallels in 1 Peter, but not in 2 Peter. it would seem to imply that maybe Luke was present or you know with your suggestion that Peter writing this you know maybe had a copy of Acts in front of him but by second Peter the one or both of those was not the case. I was wondering about Fisher in those times.

Yes. Were they regarded as educated men or were they What was their place in the social ladder? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good question. The question he he has is, is, you know, fishermen. What would have been their educational level, social ladder, that kind of thing? In general, it would have been like this. A fisherman would not be one who would be thought of as highly educated in terms of having spent lots of time with rabbis and things of that sort.

Paul was one who was recognized as highly educated. He was able to speak Greek. Paul would be highly educated. No, I'm making a comparison. Paul was highly educated, would be able to speak probably Greek, Latin, Hebrew and Aramaic, four different languages at least. Paul quotes a number of philosophers and poets from different cultures around the Mediterranean. Paul spoke in complex sentences.

He's got first and second place for the longest sentences. in anything that we ever have in the Greek language. Luke was a doctor. Highly educated. That's why I was wondering. These two are almost opposites. Now let's talk about, because back to your question, in contrast to that, here's Peter who was literate. I think there's no question about that.

Peter was literate. but would not have had the education as Paul. He would tend, and we'll see it here, he doesn't tend to use a lot of compound words. He doesn't use highly complex sentences. He doesn't make quotes of poets and philosophers and things of that sort. So Peter was a literate man, but not highly sophisticated in his education. As a fisherman, he would have spent lots of time fishing and knowing that well. Being literate would be helpful even for his business.

His friend and disciple, John, seems to have been well-connected enough that John has a number of places where it indicates that John had connections with the Sanhedrin. And for example, only John records Nicodemus, a member of the Sanhedrin. John records that he got Peter in to Caiaphas' house. So John has special connections, social connections, even as a fisherman.

So a fisherman wasn't automatically low level, but it was typically assumed not a high level of education like Paul had. Is that going to address it? Illiterate man not unintelligent, but not a high level of education was probably the best way to characterize it Okay now let's take a look Farther down here acts was written a couple years earlier than first Peter and say, something like about two years, 1 Peter is apparently drawing upon the content of the book of Acts, possibly with Luke's assistance. Now, the other thing is, if that's the case, that also gives evidence of early circulation of the New Testament documents among the believers. If you had a copy of the book of Acts, With him now to whom is he writing here's we've got a little map Added to it here first and second Peter written to believers of course in 1st Peter 1 1 Peter listed the regions where the letters addressed those believers scattered throughout Pontus Galatia Cappadocia Asia and Bithynia and Those are widely varying areas in terms of the kinds of places that people lived in.

That would be everything from a major port city like Ephesus all the way to some mountain mining town. So a widely varying area. Some portions around there, a lot of specialty agriculture. and different kinds of mining, smelting. One thing is, in our culture, because we have the ability to use railroad and things like that to transport ores, We will typically have mining and the processing of the ores in sometimes different places. Here, what would happen is if you had mining, and this was an area where they had different kinds of metals, including gold, iron, copper, in the mountains in the areas that Peter's writing to, they would have smelting operations. So you'd have people that would work the mines and right nearby have a smelting operation. So you have people doing that.

A lot of the mines were worked by slaves. The slaves who worked in the mines had the toughest jobs of any slaves in the whole empire. About 30% of the Roman Empire were slaves. Some of them were people who were born into slavery, born of a slave. That was called a verna, interestingly. A verno was someone who was born into slavery.

You also have those who would be captured for military purposes and then typically they would put them into slavery way far away from where they'd been captured so there wouldn't be some temptation to just run back. So you had all those different people. About one in every three of the recipients of Peter's letter would be a slave, a goodly number of them working in mining and agriculture.

Some of them in the cities. Ephesus would have been about half slaves. So you had port cities, big port cities. You had mining towns. You had agricultural villages. You had a bunch of Roman roads combing their way through this territory. You'd have Roman soldiers running through.

Lots of variety in the people receiving the sweater. uh... what's interesting about the plates is because of the week we tend to instantly jump to uh... the historic american slavery in which case there was a low level of literacy in this case uh... uh... very valuable slave might be a literate slave you would have you would have slaves who It might be a medical doctor slave. You might have a lawyer slave or a scribe slave. You would have a slave that would run your business.

It was real interesting. Slavery would be a real variety. The ones who were working the mines, and those were included in Peter's readers here, the ones working the mines would have the toughest jobs. Safety? No. government departments of mine safety, the Romans didn't have that. If you're breathing nasty stuff, tough. If a rock falls on you, oh well. So tough work, tough environment to try to deal with.

So here's the place, people along the coast, people in mountainous areas, people in areas that were valleys and plains, all of those would be included in these areas that he was writing to. Cappadocia off to the east. I'll get some pictures up later and I'll kind of spread it through here where we'll get some indication of what some of these places are like. Cappadocia, we'll show some pictures later. had a bunch of houses that were just carved out of rock. One place in Cappadocia they had underground cities that would hold tens of thousands of people in one underground city. Sometimes multiple stories down. Isn't that amazing? Just phenomenal. What was that? A couple of reasons.

One is, notice where Cappadocia is. You see that on the map there? The eastern part. Now, if you are a Greek army, or a Babylonian army, or some other kind of army, and you're going to go through Turkey, where are you going to go through? Cappadocia. People in Cappadocia, they just go, I'm tired of this. We've got all these guys coming through here all the time, and we're just sick of it. So what do you do?

You build a house that can't burn and tear down. You carve down these underground cities and then what do you do? You know how you see the stone rolled in front of the tomb like the Jesus tomb? They would have access to these cities underground with a stone rolled in front of the opening. Would they be underground or tunneled into a hill? Both. Tunneled in, underground, both of those circumstances. Sometimes they would have different levels of them.

They would have this carved out, and if you made it through the first stone, they'd have some rocks waiting for you. They'd have all kinds of things for the person who tried to come in. Imagine if you make some little tight, narrow entrance. It doesn't matter if you have some massive army invading. They're going to come in one at a time, right? So how are you going to fight them? One at a time.

All the military advantages of having some massive army, chariots, all sorts of really sophisticated military equipment, doesn't matter one bit. So this is the advantage that they took of both the kind of rock that was there and that kind of thing. Anyway, we'll take a look at more of these things.

This was part of the population that Peter was writing to. Sounds a lot like it, doesn't it? This is a NORAD type place. You had a question? Well, they were phenomenally ingenious. The number that sticks in my head is as many as 18 stories down. They would have capacity for over 20,000 people in one underground city. The only elevator that they had was they would have an air tube going up, and they would also pull up things.

Obviously, you've got all these people. They've got waste, right? How do you get the waste out? They would have a system of pulleys and ropes to pull the waste out. It was really interesting, but amazing defense. If it's summertime or wintertime up top and the weather is extreme, down below it isn't that way. Real interesting.

Here's Galatia and Asia where Paul had carried out missionary activities alongside others. The believers of Peter addressed here include a large minority of Jews who settled there about two and a half centuries earlier. What had happened is after Alexander the Great died, it was interesting, Alexander the Great had this idea of doing this military exploit and all this conquering, but had no particular plan for how does this keep going. And so here's Alexander the Great on his deathbed and they're asking him, what do you want to have happen here? And he just said, to the strongest. And so the empire broke apart.

The part of the Greek empire that included Babylon, which is where a lot of Jews had gone from several centuries before, the part of the empire that included Babylon, the governor of this area had decided it would be a good idea to get some of the Jews moved into this area you see here. And so what he did is he told the Jews, he said, I'll give you 10 years. 2,000 Jewish families took him up on that and moved here.

So this area that Peter is writing to, lots of Gentiles, Greek-speaking Gentiles and speaking Jews. But if they're Jews, right? So we'll see as we go through here, Peter speaks as a Jew, but not at all ignorant of the Gentile situation in this area, but also well aware that there are Jews there that can relate to the things that he can convey.

Things out of, for example, the Testament. So they'll understand quite well when he quotes the Old Testament. a believer. This is now the second one, in which I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder that you should remember the words spoken beforehand by the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior spoken by your apostles. So these were believers who had gotten first Peter and then second Peter. You can imagine this letter gets distributed, right?

And where's it going to? It's going to big cities like Ephesus. So here's the people in Ephesus. How long has the church in Ephesus been in place by the time this gets there? A couple decades roughly, right? So here the church has been around for a couple of decades. It goes there. So here's this port city of Ephesus. It goes up to the mountain town. There's this little tiny church in some mountain mining town. And the people live out in the wilds. And by the way, you know why the mountains are there?

This is a horrific earthquake fault zone. I'll see if I can get a slide that'll include the fault zones running through Turkey. Boy, the place is just shaking all the time. One of the Greek authors says this area is eusistos, good for earthquakes. So this is a shaky place he's writing to as well.

With a lot of variety, and you've got Christians in all kinds of environments. And really, isn't that the way it is now? We've got Christians in all kinds of environments. So it doesn't matter what environment you're in, this is a good message. This is a good thing to hear. This is a good thing to learn from.

When did Peter write these letters? It would be nice if Peter would have written 9 a.m., 927, 63 or something, but they didn't have that system. As a matter of fact, our calendar wasn't accepted in all parts of the modern world, even within the last century. Russia did not accept the calendar that we have even to less than a century ago. So anyway, Peter didn't put a date down.

So we're left to dealing with clues. But by looking at the chronology of Peter's life and things that are there, it appears that 1 Peter is written about 63 AD. 2 Peter, a few years later, about 66 AD. You might come up with something that records a slightly different number, different by a year, maybe two. And the reason is because we're just kind of putting evidences together, but not based. Peter didn't say, for example, in the second year of this emperor or something of that sort that would allow us to nail it down a little better. uh... so looking at those clues uh... that's about the time and it also gives you an idea how old in the lord of the oldest christians who he'd be writing to some of them would be quite young in the lord and some of them possibly maybe a couple decades old more that's in that would be part of the spread uh... okay According to the number of these chronologies second Peter's likely written about a year before Peter's death by martyrdom Peter's Peter's getting close to the to the end and You know, we don't know but Peter may have had a sense of you know I've I've been around on this planet for a few decades and I'm not sure I can count on Being around a lot more So what sort of things do people write when they know that their time is getting short and Yeah, and they come down there, but I don't got much time left to say.

So let me tell you something really important, because that's the only thing that makes good sense right now. So that'd be another perspective to have here. He isn't just kind of, you know, sending us some rambling random thoughts. Oh, this might be kind of nice to say, you know, he doesn't just give him some little ditty. Roses are red and violets are bluish, you know.

If you get this letter, you know that I'm Jewish. He didn't just write some little ditty to them that was sort of contentless or, you know, it might be nice things to say. He said important things. He said things that really counted, didn't he? All right. He was probably in his 60s when he wrote it. Yeah. Yeah.

And that kind of history was pretty old. Yes, a good many of the slaves didn't live past their 30s and 40s. If I were a slave in a mining district, here I am in my middle 50s, that would have been really old for a slave in a mining district. I'd have been phenomenally old. Usually the slaves would die in their 30s and 40s, someone in their 50s as a mining slave. Many of the recipients here, that's almost unheard of. Take a look at the outline that's there, and I'm going to obviously have some more things to pass along to you as we go. Here's the outline.

We've got both books included. And this will give us the big picture on what we'll be looking at here as we go through this. By the way, we're going to be taking about nine months to go through these two letters. So we'll be going into about the middle of next summer.

Pardon? Well, let's see. I'm sure I'll give you a paper enough to fill a notebook. But that's what these things are. These are classes and message series that we've had before. So. So let's look at the big holes that you see on the outline of First Peter or those main headings. Salvation yeah, he is going to talk to them in the first chapter and a half roughly About their salvation now. Why would that matter these guys are already saved. Why would you write a letter about their salvation? Pardon Yeah, and why would they be confused? That's a good point? Well? Why why would they be confused? Oh? Well, they hadn't seen the written word at all. They were being taught by many different people who had different influence.

Okay, yeah. We don't know how the gospel got to some of these areas and how it got spread, so getting some things down straight was important. Yeah. So, that's one thing. You hear from an apostle, this is, okay, now I know I'm getting the straight story. It might well correct some things that weren't there. One of the things he's going to bring up in 1 Peter chapter 2 is desiring the milk of the word that you may grow by it.

So the idea of salvation isn't something you got it and all right, now I'm done, I've just got to wait to die. But instead that there's a growing in it. Just even that concept. So that salvation is not the end but it's a start. And so just passing along that perspective is something to get in their minds. And you're right, avoiding confusion.

Paul spends chapters in Romans before he gets talking about application, just talking about their salvation, right? Why? We need to get it straight because that's where we're starting. Suppose somebody took you and blindfolded you drove for a long time and you could tell I'm getting on a plane and I'm flying somewhere. And then they took it off and they said, OK, now you can go back home.

What's the first thing you're going to do? Huh? Where am I? You're going to be asking, where am I? That's what first Peter is starting off with. Where are you? Where are you? and and and so that's what he that's what he's going to begin with in here is going to talk about their salvation because knowing where my start in this journey is exceedingly important so he's going to lay that out real quickly uh... the next one the submission of the believer you've got all sorts of uh... circumstances and how do i feel now that i'm a believer how do i deal with all these people as we get there we'll talk about Some of the ways in which people rebelled were they did things behind somebody's back. They'd sneak around and do various things and you'd say, no, this is the way it works out. Now that you're a believer, it doesn't work that way anymore. The last one, the suffering of the believer.

My guess is that they were going through this. We have from a few decades later letters between the governor of the Roman district here in the northern part of where Peter is writing and the Roman Emperor, letters back and forth. Those letters are corresponding about basically how do I treat these Christians. He describes the difficulties that he put them through. These people are already going through the early stages of that.

The next thing in 2 Peter, you notice the three points there. Cultivating Christian character. He's continuing on the message. Remember, start of chapter 3 in 1 Peter, this is the second letter. Talking most likely to the same people. A warning about false teachers. And then finally, confidence in Christ's return. Giving him hope. Giving him hope.

Imagine, let's say you're a slave working at a smelting place up in the mountains here. Your job all day is sitting in front of this furnace, hot enough, and they didn't have a lot of sophisticated stuff to cool things off. What happens if you're working in a smelting furnace and it's a hot day? Nice job. Yeah? Nice job. Tough, tough deal.

Okay, let's put this aside now and let's pray. Lord, thank you for the marvelous privilege we have of looking here at these precious words written by your Apostle, who learned a lot of things the hard way, who spoke out when it's apparent that what he said wasn't wise, and yet he is, through the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, giving us wise words here. And we just thank you for that. Thank you for the journey that we have ahead of us here as we tour through these wise words. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.