Focus: PT-4 “Introduction to 2 Peter”

 

EVENING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 9/10/2025 8:22 PM

My Worship Time                                                                 Focus: PT-4 “Introduction to 2 Peter”

            In yesterday’s SD on 2 Peter I began to look at “Petrine Authority Disputed” which speaks of how those who could well be titled as apostates were saying that 2 Peter was not really written by the Apostle Peter, and in this rather long section with different sub-points in it John MacArthur defends the truth that Peter really did write this letter that we find in our New Testament.  I have stated that God is and always was in control of what was written in the Bible, both Old and New Testaments and that reason is good enough for me to know that 2 Peter is a part of the New Testament.  Now I will begin to continue to quote from this sub-point “Petrine Authority Disputed.”

            “Many scholars, however, are not content to accept the epistle’s claims at face value.  Instead, they insist that it was written decades after the apostle’s death by someone claiming to be Peter.  To support their rejection of the letter’s authenticity, critics advanced several arguments.

            “First, they note that the early church was slow to accept 2 Peter as part of the canon of Scripture.  The first person to explicitly state that Peter wrote it was Origen, early in the third century.  Critics claim there is no trace of the epistle’s existence until that time.  Further, although Origen accepted it as a genuine writing of Peter, he noted that others had doubts about its authenticity.  Writing in the fourth century, the church historian Eusebius of Caesarea also expressed doubts about 2 Peter.  He did not reject it, but included it among the New Testament books whose authenticity was disputed.  The silence of the church fathers before the time of Origen is taken to be a tacit denial of 2 Peter’s authenticity.

            “Critics also point out several alleged historical problems that, they claim, indicate the epistle could not have been written in Peter’s lifetime.  First, they maintain that the reference to Paul’s letters (3:15-16) reflects a time when those letters had been collected and recognized as Scripture.  That, they argue, did not happen until long after Peter’s death.  Second, they believe the false teachers in view were second-century Gnostics.  Third, the writer refers to ‘Your apostles’ (3.2) and says that the ‘fathers’ (who are assumed to be the first generation of Christians) had already died (3:4).  From a critical perspective, that suggests 2 Peter was written by someone who was neither an apostle nor one of the first generation of believers.  Finally critics argue that the reference to Christ’s prediction of Peter’s death (1:14) derives from John 21:18.  John’s gospel, however, was not written during Peter’s lifetime.

            “A convincing argument in the minds of many critics is 2 Peter’s alleged literary dependency on Jude.  Since they date Jude later than Peter’s lifetime, it follows that Peter could not have written 2 Peter.  Further, they insist that an apostle would not borrow so extensively from a non-apostolic source.

            “Relentless critics also point to the supposed differences in style, vocabulary, and doctrine between 1 and 2 Peter.  The Greek of the first epistle, they suggest, is polished and sophisticated, while that of the second is coarse and stilted, replete with grandiose language and difficult constructions.  The critics claim that the vocabulary of the two epistles is also very different, and 2 Peter shows a knowledge of Greek culture and philosophy far beyond the grasp of a simple Galilean fisherman.  Finally in their reckoning, many doctrinal themes found in 1 Peter are absent from 2 Peter.  All of those factors lead many skeptics to insist that the same author could not have written both epistles.”  Now before I go on I want to try and remember something which is more difficult than it used to be, and that is that so-called scholars have attacked the book of Isaiah saying that chapters 39-66 could not have been written by the same man, but when one studies that book of Isaiah they will find that it is like a miniature Bible as the first 39 chapters represent the Old Testament, and the last 27 chapters represent the New Testament.  My take is that both sets of so called scholars looking at Isaiah and 2 Peter are wrong. 

            “Upon closer examination, however, each of the above arguments utterly fails to disqualify Peter as the author of this epistle.”  Now with that last quotation we end this evening’s Spiritual Diary and Lord willing, will continue to look at this sub-section in tomorrow night’s SD.

9/10/2025 8:49 PM