Introduction to 2 Peter

Second Peter is a book for anyone who has ever had questions about their faith.

Questions like, is my faith really making any difference? Why doesn’t my faith seem to be working? Why it is so hard to repent of sin? Why is godliness so difficult? Why do I feel ineffective and unproductive in my faith? Why is ministry so hard?

Questions like, isn’t it possible that we are all just following a bunch of cleverly invented stories? How do we know the most significant events even happened? Are they recorded elsewhere in history outside of the Bible? Even if we grant that the events did take place, how do we know that the Bible was written anywhere near the actual time of the events? And even if it was, isn’t it stretching intellectual integrity just a bit to say that these sixty-six books have remained intact and true to their original form after thousands of years? How do we know the Bible is true? How do we know the Bible is trustworthy? And even if it is, isn’t it stretching intellectual integrity just a bit for modern people like us to hang their entire lives on the words of some ancient text?

Questions like, what really distinguishes true from false? There are so many competing teachings and perspectives and opinions and even lifestyles... who can I really trust? How do we handle all of these competing ideas and lifestyles and perspectives? Who’s right? And who’s to say? What is a Christian to think? What is a Christian to do?

Questions like, isn’t it possible that our Christian hope is just wishful thinking? After all, our faith is not empirical. We can’t test our future hope. There’s really no way to know for sure that Jesus is coming back. There’s no way to confirm the reality of a final judgment day. The new heavens and new earth sound more like fanciful myth than real hope, don’t they?

And even if I had the answers to all of these questions, how should I live? What am I to do with what I know?

Second Peter is a book for anyone with questions about their faith. Second Peter is a book for anyone who has ever had deep-seated doubts. Second Peter is a book for anyone who has ever been frustrated as a Christian in life and ministry.

Because where there is honesty, there are questions.

Why do questions about faith matter? Because faith in Jesus is “precious” and infinitely valuable (1:1). Therefore, we dare not ignore our questions. We must face them, alongside Peter and his readers.