EVENING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 10/28/2025 8:53 PM
My Worship Time Focus: “Peter’s Legacy Statement”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: 2 Peter 1:12-15
Message of the verses: “12 Therefore, I will always remind you about these things — even though you already know them and are standing firm in the truth you have been taught. 13 And it is only right that I should keep on reminding you as long as I live. 14 For our Lord Jesus Christ has shown me that I must soon leave this earthly life, 15 so I will work hard to make sure you always remember these things after I am gone.”
I just want to say that before I quote John MacArthur’s introduction to this chapter and these verses that I think that Peter really wanted not only those he was writing this letter to, but us who have the privilege to now read it that Peter’s heart was really in the Lord’s desire for us to read and understand what he has, and continues to write. “15 so I will work hard to make sure you always remember these things after I am gone.”
John MacArthur writes: “Any good teacher realizes the value of repetition. Research has shown that within an hour after hearing a spoken message, people forget up to ninety percent of it. Certainly God knew that when He said to Israel:
4 "Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD is one! 5 “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6 “These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up. 8 “You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. 9 “You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. (Deut. 6:4-9; cf. v. 12; 7:18; 8:2, 18-20; 9:7; 2 Kings 17:38; 1 Chron. 16:12; Pss. 78:7, 11, 42; 103:2; 106:7, 13; 119:16, 153; Isa. 51:13-15; Mark 12:29-30, 32-33).
In spite of all the warnings and reminders through the centuries, Israel has had a great memory for the wrong things and a poor memory for God’s truth, as when Isaiah indicted her: ‘For your have forgotten the God of your salvation and have not remembered the rock of your refuge’ (Isa. 17:10a; cf. 51:13a; Hos. 8:7-14). Similarly, God gave the Passover to be an annual reminder of His redemption, grace and mercy, judgment and justice, and covenant (Ex. 13:3-10. But today when Jews observe Passover, they remember the Exodus from Egypt, even while rejecting the God who delivered them (cf. Rom. 2:28-29; 10:2-4).
“Even believers tend to remember things that are better forgotten and to forget things that should be remember (cf. Rom. 7:15, 18-19; Heb. 12:5). Thus Pete writes the words in this text and later tells his readers, ‘This is not, beloved, the second letter I am writing to you in which I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder’ (3:1). And not long after Peter, Jude called on his readers ‘to remember the words that were spoken beforehand by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ’ (Jude 17; cf. Acts 20:35; 2 Tim. 2:8; James 1:25). Because Jude’s letter is so similar to 2 Peter, he must have had Peter’s epistle in mind. They were following the Lord’s example when He admonished the apostles to ‘remember the word that I said to you’ (John 15:20).
“In this passage Peter digresses from his subject of salvation and drops in a statement about the importance of reminding people of essential truth. Christ had called Peter to Pastor (John 21:15-19), and his words reveal his pastoral passion in four motivations: Urgency, kindness, faithfulness, and brevity.”
Lord willing we will look at “Urgency” in tomorrow’s SD.
10/28/2025 9:19 PM
No comments:
Post a Comment