Parallel 2PET Intro

The Second Letter of Peter

Purpose

To denounce false teachers and to encourage continued growth in the faith

Author

Peter

Date

Early 60s AD

Setting

Written to the same groups of believers addressed in 1 Peter, whose communities were being infiltrated by false teachers

Many worldviews, religious perspectives, and cultural values clamor for attention. Second Peter urges growth in Christ’s grace and warns against compromising the Christian faith by mixing it with ideas that are foreign to Christianity.

Setting

Second Peter was probably written to the same group of Christians as 1 Peter (1 Pet 1:1; see 2 Pet 3:1). We do not know if Peter ever visited Asia Minor—the New Testament tells us little about his movements after he departed from Jerusalem around AD 44 (Acts 12:16-17). We know that Peter was in Rome in the early 60s AD. Presumably, he wrote 2 Peter from Rome shortly after 1 Peter. Early Christian tradition indicates that Peter died under the emperor Nero in AD 64 or 65.

Summary

In the letter opening (1:1-15), Peter identifies himself and his readers (1:1-2) and introduces his main concern, that his readers will grow in their knowledge of God and of Christ (1:3-11). He also tells them with a sense of urgency that he does not have long to live (1:12-15).

Chapter 2 is the central focus of this letter, where Peter profiles and condemns false teachers. Peter prepares for this denunciation by emphasizing the certainty of Christ’s return in glory (1:16-21). The false teachers were evidently skeptical about Christ’s return and final judgment.

Peter denounces the false teachers in four stages: He predicts the coming of false teachers (2:1-3), he insists that God will judge them while rescuing the righteous (2:4-10), he declares the false teachers’ sins (2:10-16), and he pronounces their doom (2:17-22).

After further insisting that Christ will, indeed, return in glory to transform the world (3:1-13), Peter concludes the letter as he began, by praying that his readers will “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (3:18; see 1:3-11).

Authorship

The author identifies himself as Simon Peter (1:1), one of Jesus’ apostles. Peter claims that “this is my second letter to you” (3:1). The first letter was probably 1 Peter.

In many ways, however, 2 Peter is unlike 1 Peter, while containing striking similarities to the letter of Jude. Because of this, some interpreters think that someone else wrote 2 Peter. This conclusion is unnecessary because 2 Peter is dealing with a situation very different from 1 Peter; naturally, the language and concepts differ. Moreover, it is possible that Silas (Peter’s scribe mentionedalso called Silvanus in 1 Pet 5:12) was responsible for some of the wording of 1 Peter and that Peter used a different scribe in 2 Peter.

Relationship to Jude

It is undeniable that 2 Peter and Jude have some kind of literary relationship. The two letters use too many of the same unusual expressions for the similarities to be coincidental or a matter of shared oral tradition (cp. 2 Pet 2:3 // Jude 1:4; 2 Pet 2:4 // Jude 1:6; 2 Pet 2:6 // Jude 1:7; 2 Pet 2:10 // Jude 1:8; 2 Pet 2:11 // Jude 1:9; 2 Pet 2:13, 17 // Jude 1:12; 2 Pet 3:3 // Jude 1:8). This relationship can be explained in one of three ways: (1) Jude borrowed from 2 Peter; (2) 2 Peter borrowed from Jude; or (3) both 2 Peter and Jude borrowed from a common literary source now lost. Option 2 is the most popular, although option 1 is equally possible. Option 3 is least likely, simply because it is more complicated and unnecessary. Whichever author did the borrowing was apparently faced with a very similar situation and found what the other had written to be appropriate to his own purposes. Such borrowing was not uncommon in the ancient world; rather than being considered plagiarism, it was considered a compliment.

False Teachers

The false teachers that Peter denounces cannot be identified with any known heresy in the ancient church. With their immorality and skepticism, these false teachers assumed that God’s grace gave them the liberty to do anything they wanted to do (2 Pet 2:19-20). They had no use for authority (see 2:10-11). They engaged in illicit sex, excess drinking and eating, and greed (2:13-20). They might have been precursors to the later, second-century Gnostics.

Meaning and Message

Second Peter is dominated by a concern over the presence of false teachers in the church. Although these profligates were claiming to be Christians (2:1, 21-22), Peter leaves no doubt that in reality they were destined for condemnation as rebels against the Lord (2:3, 10). Peter writes this letter to warn his readers to reject these false teachers and their teaching, and to remain faithful to the Good News. This letter is a vital reminder of how dangerous it is to deviate from the truth. The church must always be on guard against those who twist the truth of the Good News and whose lives sadly misrepresent it.