1. 1 and 2 Peter God’s plan of knowledge Text: 2 Peter 1:1-21
Week 8, May 2, 2018
Gene Wright,

2. 1 Peter
2 Peter 1:1-2: “Simeon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ:
Simeon Peter – about half the manuscripts say “Simon”
A servant and apostle – same language of Paul in Romans and Titus
By the righteousness of our God – not by their own works.
Of our God and Savior Jesus Christ – the grammar here is unmistakable – Peter calls Jesus God and Savior.
It is by the righteousness of Jesus that we are saved.

3. 1 Peter
2 Peter 1:1-2: “Simeon Peter…to those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ.”
To those who have obtained – who were these people? his audience must have been Gentiles. Those once no people are now the chosen people of God (1 Peter 2:10); once strangers to the people of Israel and once far off, but now brought near (Eph 2).
A faith of equal standing with ours – or equal honor. This word, isotimoi, was used with foreigners who were given equal citizenship in a city. Josephus, for instance, says that in Antioch the Jews were made equal in honor and privilege, with the Greeks who lived there. So Peter addresses his letter to those who had once been despised Gentiles but who had been given equal rights of citizenship with the Jews in the kingdom of God.

4. 1 Peter
2 Peter 1:3-4: “May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord…”
Peter phrases this in an unusual way. Paul usually begins with Grace and peace to you from God or Jesus Christ our Lord.
Peter’s wish / hope is for grace and peace to be multiplied to his readers and hearers in the knowledge of God.
The word Peter uses for knowledge is Epignosis. It often means full knowledge. Plutarch uses it of the scientific knowledge of music as opposed to the knowledge of the mere amateur. So it may be that the implication here is that knowledge of Jesus Christ is what we might call "the master-science of life."
Other sciences may bring new skill, knowledge and abilities, but the master-science, the knowledge of Jesus Christ, alone brings the grace men need and the peace for which their hearts crave.

5. 1 Peter
2 Peter 1:3-4: “May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord…”
Knowledge was a much used word in pagan religious thought in the days when this letter was written. The Greek seekers after God sought that knowledge in two main ways.
1) They sought it by philosophic speculation. They sought to reach God by the sheer power of human thought. There are obvious troubles there. For one thing, God is infinite and finite mind of man can never grasp the infinite. Peter did not mean this.
2) They sought it by mystical experience of the divine. This was the way of the Mystery Religions. But any such experience is necessarily transient; it may leave an effect, but it cannot be a continual experience. Peter did not mean this either.
In the NT knowledge is personal knowledge. Not “I know what I have believed” but “I know whom I have believed.” Personal.

6. 1 Peter
2 Peter 1:3-4: “His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.”
Peter begins imparting his personal knowledge and the importance of each hearer developing their own knowledge of Jesus.
We have been given all things we need that relate to life and living for God. Those things have been given to us through our knowledge of God through His Son.
Through this knowledge, we have been granted great promises.
That enable us to become partakers of the divine nature…
Because we have become new people as we became his children.

7. 1 Peter
2 Peter 1:6-8: “For this very reason, make every effort to supplement” – this is probably a poor word choice here. The word is epichoregein which literally means "the leader of a chorus.”
All Greek plays needed a large chorus, which was expensive.
In the great days of Athens there were public-spirited citizens who voluntarily took on the duty, at their own expense, of collecting, maintaining, training and equipping such choruses. The men who undertook these duties out of their own pocket and were called choregoi, and choregein.
The word has a certain lavishness in it. It never means to equip in any miserly way; it means lavishly to pour out everything that is necessary for a noble performance.
It went on to apply to other circumstances beyond drama and a chorus.

8. 1 Peter
2 Peter 1:6-8: “For this very reason, make every effort to supplement” – this is probably a poor word choice here. The word is epichoregein which literally means "the leader of a chorus.”
It can mean to equip an army with all necessary provisions, but always at the back of it there is this idea of a lavish generosity in the equipment.
So Peter urges his hearers to equip their lives with every virtue; and that equipment must not be simply a necessary minimum, but lavish and generous.
The life of a Christian must be a continuous journey of progress toward God.

9. 1 Peter
2 Peter 1:6-8: “For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love.
Virtue – moral power.
Knowledge – insight and understanding.
Self-control – temperance, holding yourself in.
Steadfastness – patience
Godliness – also in verse 3. Living for God with godly character.
Brotherly affection – caring about each other.
Love – agape. The final crown.

10. 1 Peter
2 Peter 1:6-8: “For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
If we have these qualities and in they are in us and if they are increasing – remember, we are on the long journey toward God…
Then we won’t be unfruitful or ineffective.
In the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Remember the chorus director? We will be properly equipped.
Where do we get this knowledge?
2 Timothy 3:17: “That the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” – or the messenger of God.

11. 1 Peter
2 Peter 1:9-11: “For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins.”
Whoever does not have these things…
Is so nearsighted that he is blind – the phrasing here is rarely used in ancient Greek, but Aristotle used it...
For a near-sighted man, and that from someone who closed the eyes in order to see!
Peter’s usage is the image of a near-sighted man screwing up his eyes to see because of the light and in so doing, he cannot see anything at all.
The light is the word and because of his self-imposed blindness – by not developing these qualities – he falls back into sin.

12. 1 Peter
2 Peter 1:9-11: “Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall. For in this way there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”
Therefore, to avoid that fate, practice these qualities to confirm our calling and election / choice by God and our choice to accept God’s good news.
In this way, we will grow closer to God.
The ones who have practiced these things will be granted a rich entrance into the kingdom.

13. 1 Peter
2 Peter 1:12-15: “Therefore I intend always to remind you of these qualities, though you know them and are established in the truth that you have. I think it right, as long as I am in this body, to stir you up by way of reminder, since I know that the putting off of my body will be soon, as our Lord Jesus Christ made clear to me. And I will make every effort so that after my departure you may be able at any time to recall these things.”
Remember – one thing we as humans are good at is forgetting.
Jeremiah 2:32: “Can a bride forget her wedding dress? Yet my people have forgotten me days without number.”
Fifty times in the NT the text uses the word “remember.”
Revelation 2:5: “Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first.”

14. 1 Peter
2 Peter 1:16-18: “For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For when he received honor and glory from God the Father, and the voice was borne to him by the Majestic Glory, ‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased,’ we ourselves heard this very voice borne from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain.”
Peter knows (as does Paul in Ephesians) that the Gnostics are coming with their lavish fables about the aeons and levels of heaven and the need for “secret knowledge.”
But Peter’s message is basic and from the beginning.
Jesus was not merely a man, but was the Son of God. He was an eyewitness of this transfiguration on the mountain.

15. 1 Peter
2 Peter 1:19-21: “And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.”
Peter says that the transfiguring of Jesus made the words previously spoken by the prophets even more sure.
And that these prophets spoke as God willed.
Spend time with those words this week.