Introduction

 

2 Peter is a manual for transformation, a how-to guide for holy living. It begins with the promise that in Christ we have all we need for life and godliness—through Christ we can participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption of life caused by our sinful desires. He then tells us what behaviors and attitudes to add to our daily lives, and what type of teachers we need to avoid. Throughout, the focus is on holiness. Peter begins the final chapter by saying "Dear friends, this is now my second letter to you. I have written both of them as reminders to stimulate you to wholesome thinking."

Wholesome thinking. The first stage of the battle for holiness takes place between our ears. We win the battle, first of all, by learning to think right. I want to emphasize, though, that "wholesome thinking" is not what we would call positive thinking. The phrase Peter used means something different. It's a phrase that other writers and philosophers employed—Plato among them—and it means, literally "pure reason". This is reason that is unaffected by the seductive influence of the senses. When Peter says "wholesome thinking", he's not referring to Pollyanna-ism. He's not saying we should pretend it's still the 1950's and we live in a Leave It to Beaver world. He's referring to accurate thinking: seeing the world objectively, as it really is, not subjectively, as our emotions might dictate.

2 Peter 3 tells us how to think and how to develop wholesome thoughts. Wholesome thoughts—right thinking—lead ultimately to a wholesome (in other words, correct) world view. As I've quoted Norman Vincent Peale so many times, "Change your thoughts and you change your world." In order to live in this world as God intended us to, we need to understand the world—we need to have a wholesome world view.

I have a Christian friend from Iran. Growing up, he viewed America as something of a paradise—a Christian nation with big churches and Christian bookstores and Christian radio stations that played nothing but Christian music and preaching all day. Surely, he thought, almost everyone in the US is a believer. How wonderful it must be to live there.

At 18 his dream came true—he was accepted at the University of Oklahoma. Of course, he knew all about Oklahoma from the movies he had seen. People there live in teepees and ride horses and sleep by the campfire. Imagine his surprise to discover when he arrived that Oklahoma has kept up with the rest of the world (almost) in terms of technological advances. And imagine his surprise when he discovered that not everyone in the US is a believer. He was shocked to see triple-x movie theatres, magazine ads with scantily clad women, and rampant consumption of tobacco and alcohol. His view of life in the US was neither consistent with itself nor accurate.

Many of us go through life with the same kind of misconceptions about the world we live in. This is why Peter challenges to develop a pattern of wholesome thinking—to learn think rightly about the world. Today we'll look at three ways to do this.

Allow the Word of God to shape your thoughts.

2 Peter 3:2 says, "I want you to recall the words spoken in the past by the holy prophets and the command given by our Lord and Savior through your apostles." The phrase "holy prophets" refers to the Old Testament. "The command given by our Lord and Savior" refers to the oral tradition of Jesus' teaching that already circulated among believers, as well as the letters of Paul, and probably the gospel of Mark. Peter is saying, in effect: "Do you want to develop wholesome thoughts? Let these words shape your thoughts. Learn to think like the prophets thought. Look at life the way Jesus taught us to. Live the way the apostles teach us to live."

What the Word says about the world is different than what the world says about itself. Just consider what it says about religion. The world teaches that it doesn't matter what you believe, as long as you're sincere. The Word teaches that Jesus Christ is the Way, the Truth and the Life, and there is salvation in none but him. The world teaches that truth changes from culture to culture and generation to generation. The Word teaches that truth transcends time and place and is determined by God, not by popular opinion. The world teaches that what's true for you isn't necessarily true for me. The Word teaches that we are equally responsible and subject to the law of God.

In other areas, the world teaches, "Don't get mad, get even." The Word teaches to forgive your enemies and do good to those who harm you. The world teaches "Look out for number one—in other words, yourself." The Word teaches us to look out for those who can't look out for themselves.

The Word of God teaches us how to view the world, how to understand the difference between right and wrong, good and bad, truth and error. It teaches us how to become wholesome thinkers. Therefore, Peter says, "Remember the words of the prophets and the teachings of Jesus."

Be skeptical about the skeptics.

A second way to develop a wholesome world view is found in verses 3 and 4. "First of all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. They will say, 'Where is this coming he promised? Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.' But they deliberately forget that long ago by God's word the heavens existed and the Earth was formed out of water and by water."

Do you know that I used to think that non-Christians knew something I didn't? I thought they possessed a freedom of thought that allowed them to achieve a type of clarity that those with religious views couldn't obtain. I had the idea that believers cut intellectual corners to get to faith, but non-believers could be more objective about it. I also thought that the typical non-believers' non-belief was based on logical, reasonable, defensible facts. The truth is that the unbelief of most non-believers is based on emotion, circumstance, personal preference or prejudice, and is not the result of intellectual inquiry. To be fair, the same could be said about the beliefs of many believers. The difference, however, is that when intellectual inquiry is relentlessly applied to both arguments, the Christian faith wins hands down.

Peter said there will be those who scoff as the claims of Christianity, particularly the claim of the second coming. We need to recognize the scoffers for what they are. The first and only response of some folks to matters of faith is skepticism, and if matters of faith don't conform to their particular whim, they pass it off as irrelevant.

The problem is that, according to the world's way of thinking, skeptics, by nature of being skeptical, seem to know what they're talking about. We tend to believe skeptics and cynics and critics. For example, have you ever noticed how a reviewer seems so much more credible if he doesn't like the book or movie or CD that he's reviewing? Have you ever noticed how a political pundit seems so much more credible when he attacks a political policy rather than supporting one? Scoffers have a way of ridiculing hope. They have a way of deriding anything that doesn't support the status quo. And yet, when you listen to what they're saying, you discover that their arguments are quite silly.

A few years ago, when I was preparing for a move to California, I told the people in my home Bible study group about my new house. Someone asked, "Does your new house have central air?" I said, "No, it doesn't have air conditioning, but it has a heating system." One of the guys said, "What?! Are you crazy? What are you going to do with a heater in California? And no air conditioner? You got swindled!" Like many people who have never been there or have apparently never watched a weather report, this guy had the idea that California is hot all the time. Maybe it was from watching Death Valley Days when he was a child. True, some parts of California are hot. But where I was going on the southern coast, the weather is famously mild, though occasionally, cold and damp. I didn't need the air conditioner, but I did use the heater from time to time. However, when the guy began carrying on about how foolish it was to live in a house without air conditioning in Southern California, everyone seemed to take his side.

Scoffers and cynics do have an ability to get public opinion on their side, but we need to remember that they're often speaking from as much knowledge as was my friend who had never been to the West Coast. We need to remember that about scoffers when we hear them ridicule the promises of Christ.

Peter uses an interesting phrase here in verse 4. He says they "deliberately forget" that some things are true. They deliberately ignore the small voice that is calling them to a personal relationship with God. They deliberately resist his voice. Their rejection is not the result of honest intellectual inquiry but, as Peter states, of "following their own evil desires."

To develop a wholesome world view, we need to learn not to take the scoffers too seriously. Let's not give their criticisms a second thought because chances are they didn't give it that many thoughts before spewing them out!

See every day as a gift of mercy.

 

In 2 Peter 3:8, 9, and 15, Peter reminds us, "But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: with the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance… Bear in mind that our Lord's patience means salvation…"

The promise Peter refers to is the second of coming of Christ. He's saying God isn't slow; he's patient. He's giving us one more day.

Have you ever wondered how many people convert to Christianity every day? I don't know what the global stats are, but in Africa alone conservative Christians increase at the rate of 16,173 per day. That's adult conversions according to usprayercenter.org. On this one continent alone, every day that Jesus waits changes the eternal destiny of more than 16,000 souls. Every hour changes the destiny of 673; every minute makes a difference for 28 Africans.

Every single day is a gift of mercy, not just for them, but for us as well. God has given us all one more day so that we might have one more chance to repent and come to him. He's given us one more day so that we will have one more chance to praise him, one more chance to serve him faithfully, one more chance to accomplish good for the purpose of his kingdom and the glory of his name.

Think about it. We have today. We can do something great for God. Some of you might say, "But I have squandered a lifetime. I have wasted every good opportunity that came my way." Maybe that's true, but you have today. You can do something good for the glory of his name.

Keep this in mind, too: since God is patient with the human race, we need to be also. He keeps extending the calendar one more day to give everyone one more chance to make things right. Let's do the same. No matter how lost or how hopeless you think another person is, extend the calendar of mercy one more day for her or him. No matter how many times someone has disappointed you in the past, keep the door open one more day. Every day that you're alive is a gift of mercy from God to you. Share that gift with others. Extend mercy to the rest of the world.

Conclusion

Peter wrote this letter so that believers could learn to think wholesomely, so that they could develop pure reason. This purity of thought, this right way of thinking, is necessary in order for us to act and react in real life. In order to live in the world, we need to understand it. We need to see the world as God sees it and as he has revealed it in Scripture. We need to see the world as the Word sees it; we need to refuse to see the Word as the world sees it. What is our source of truth? The Bible. The Word of God. It shapes our thoughts. Let the skeptics say what they will; we stand on the Word of God. And we celebrate every single day as a gift of mercy from our loving Father in heaven so we can share that mercy with the world around us.

Steve May has been a pastor to pastors for more than 20 years, helping preachers and teachers to become more effective communicators of the gospel.