2 Peter

Purpose & theme

Second Peter is a stirring farewell letter, written by the apostle Peter near the end of his life, as he sensed that “the putting off of my body will be soon, as our Lord Jesus Christ made clear to me” (1:14). Knowing his death was near, Peter writes to leave a lasting reminder to the church, urgently concerned to protect God’s people from two great dangers: false teachers who were creeping into the churches with destructive heresies and immoral lives, and scoffers who mocked the promise of Christ’s return. Against these threats, Peter’s aim is to ground believers firmly in the true knowledge of Jesus Christ and to spur them on to grow in godliness, so that they will not be “carried away with the error of lawless people” but will “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (3:17-18).

The letter’s three chapters address three great needs. First, Peter calls believers to spiritual growth: because God’s “divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness,” they are to “make every effort” to add to their faith a whole chain of Christian virtues, confirming their calling and election (chapter 1). To reinforce his message, Peter appeals to his own eyewitness testimony of Christ’s majesty at the transfiguration and to the reliability of the prophetic word of Scripture, which came not by human will but as “men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (1:21). Second, he delivers a blistering denunciation of the false teachers — their greed, sensuality, arrogance, and certain doom — warning the church against their seductive but destructive influence (chapter 2). Third, he confronts the scoffers who say, “Where is the promise of his coming?” affirming that “the day of the Lord will come like a thief,” that God’s apparent delay is patience granting time for repentance, and that this world will give way to “new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells” (chapter 3). Second Peter is thus an urgent call to grow in Christ, to hold to the truth of God’s word, and to live godly lives in eager expectation of the Lord’s certain return.