2 Peter 1 Discussion

Peter doesn’t write like a distant religious celebrity. He calls himself a servant, names his authority as an apostle, and then says something that flips status upside down: you have “a faith of equal standing” with his. That one line reshapes how we think about spiritual confidence, church culture, and what it means to be ordinary people following an extraordinary Savior.

We work through 2 Peter 1 step by step, tracing the growth path Peter lays out: faith that gets supplemented with virtue, knowledge, self-control, steadfastness, godliness, brotherly affection, and love. We talk sanctification in plain language, including why “partakers of the divine nature” is about sharing in God’s life and becoming more like Jesus over time, not becoming a god. Along the way we connect these qualities to everyday discipleship, spiritual disciplines, and the kind of steady character that keeps you from being ineffective and unfruitful.

Then we go straight at the hard question: does growth mean you can become sinless? We say no, but we also refuse the hopeless story that you’re destined to stay trapped. Peter holds out real victory over sin, real assurance, and real freedom because God’s divine power grants “all things that pertain to life and godliness.” We also tackle biblical authority, the trustworthiness of the apostolic witness, and why Scripture is not “man’s words about God,” but the Holy Spirit speaking through the prophets and apostles. If this encouraged you, subscribe, share it with a friend, and leave a review so more people can find the show.

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Transcript

Welcome And The Game Plan

Pastor Plek 0:10

And welcome back to a chapter day. Keeps the devil away. I'm Pastor Pleck. That's Pastor Holland. We're talking 2nd Peter chapter 1. We're going to outline it, we're going to observe it, and we're going to interpret, we're going to apply it so that you and Jesus will be fully equipped to go into the darkness, to push it back on your way where you live, work, and play today, every word you say.

A Clear Outline Of 2 Peter

Pastor Plek 0:32

All right, so 2 Peter verses 1 and 2 is the greeting and the believer's calling. Peter introduces himself as a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ. And then he's asking for peace to be multiplied through the knowledge of God. Then verses 3 through 11, he talks about what it is to grow in godliness and confirming your calling. And he throws out some Christian that the Christians are supplement their faith with virtue, knowledge, self-control, steadfastness, godliness, brotherly affection, and love. These qualities fruitful and effective in knowing Christ. Then you got verses 12 through 15 where remembering the truth of the gospel, Peter knows his death is near as Jesus has revealed to him, and he wants everyone to remember these things before he leaves this earth. Then verses 16 through 21, the trustworthiness of the apostolic witness and scripture. So he's like, hey, listen, we're not following cleverly devised myths. You can trust us. Everything is coming from the Holy Spirit as the prophets of old spoke. Okay.

Equal Faith And Apostolic Humility

Pastor Plek 1:34

Let's get into some observations. What you see here.

Pastor Holland 1:37

All right, he says, those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours. That's a pretty big deal. He's Peter seems to really be trying to like put himself in the same like on a level playing field with the people he's writing to, even though he says, Hey, I'm a I'm an apostle of Jesus Christ. So he rec, you know, he's he's not shying away from the authority given to him, but he's saying we have the same faith, um, a faith of equal standing. Yeah. Like before God, like I'm not any better than you.

Pastor Plek 2:06

And in his last letter, he did say, Hey, I'm a fellow elder. Fellow elder. Yeah. Writing to elders. I'm just I'm just like one of you guys. I'm not some special class of something. Right. I appreciate that. Yeah. That's humility. Clearly, he got to do some awesome stuff. He was special, though.

Pastor Holland 2:20

Like he was special in terms of like his he had authority as an apostle and he had this special influence, but he was really making sure, like, oh, don't treat me like I'm, you know, a celebrity. Outclassing you or something. Yeah,

Partakers Of Divine Nature Clarified

Pastor Holland 2:32

exactly.

Pastor Plek 2:32

All right, what about um partakers of the divine nature? What do you think exactly he means there?

Pastor Holland 2:40

All right, I can tell you, how about we start with what Mormons say this means? What do the Mormons say? The Mormons say that this means that you become a God um in heaven and you do something called eternal progression, that you partake in the divine nature, meaning you become a God, and if you know, eventually you get to create your own, not only your own world, but worlds, right? Universes, and you get to populate them with your own spirit children, just like God the Father populated earth with his spirit children. Yeah.

Pastor Plek 3:11

That's the Mormon teaching. So what it could mean, though, is that you share in the life of God, maybe you're transformed into his character qualities, uh, and you get to participate in his holiness through Jesus.

Pastor Holland 3:23

Yeah, and you receive eternal life. You get to live forever with God, um, united um with him by faith in Christ. So the Christian teaching is not you become a God and get your own universes.

Pastor Plek 3:34

Yeah. So partaking in the divine nature is deeply tied to basically just sanctification.

Pastor Holland 3:38

Yeah, sanctification and eternal life.

Pastor Plek 3:40

All right. Uh, and just in case you're like, what's sanctification? It's becoming more like Jesus over time. Okay. Uh what other don't be Mormon. Don't be Mormon. All right. What uh what other what other things do you see here?

Pastor Holland 3:54

Um verse five is like, take this and add this and add this and add this. And I really like it. Um and he starts off uh supplement your faith with virtue. What are the virtues? So you have the classical um Greek virtues,

The Virtue Ladder Of Christian Growth

Pastor Holland 4:10

the cardinal virtues that Christians um adopted and said, like, hey, these are true, actually. We're we're on board with these, are um temperance, justice, prudence, fortitude, and fortitude. Um, and or courage. Fortitude or courage, yeah. Prudence or wisdom, temperance or self-control. Uh, and so you have these four cardinal virtues um that are basically just saying, like, here is here is the um um everybody knows this.

Pastor Plek 4:39

You don't have to be a Christian to understand that.

Pastor Holland 4:41

Yeah, right. You it's like God has written his law on our hearts, and even non-Christian Greek philosophers like Plato and Aristotle recognize these things that these are necessary for like a virtuous human life.

Pastor Plek 4:54

And if you lack these qualities, like when you get to from virtue to um virtue all the way to love, if you lack these qualities, there you're so near side of these blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins. Yeah. So meaning the progression is I get saved, then naturally um you you should be wanting to supplement your faith with virtue, knowledge, self-control, steadfastness, godliness, brotherly affection, and love.

Pastor Holland 5:23

Yeah. Meaning, like the Christian life is not, okay, I'm saved and now done. I just kind of like coast until Jesus comes back. But rather you are constantly supplementing your faith with um all of these things that it lists here, and that it says that they're if these qualities are yours and are increasing. So not only are you supplementing faith with virtue, but an increasing amount of virtue. You are increasing in the virtue throughout your whole life. Okay. And that keeps you, it says, you know, from being ineffective and unfruitful in your knowledge of the Lord.

Pastor Plek 5:55

Yeah. So do you all could this also be a list of fruits of the spirit? Because a lot of them I see that are sort of like similar. So you know love and self-control. Like so from Galatians 5, it's love, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. And when you look at this list, you've got um knowledge. Okay, that's not self-control is definitely there. Perseverance is is steadfastness, which I guess that's another one. Uh godliness is the you know, that's maybe a collection of all those, but you got you have love, you have brotherly affection, which is like above. Anyway, it's it's interesting. I feel like it's just a an extension of the fruits of the spirit.

Pastor Holland 6:39

Yeah, there's some overlap for sure.

Pastor Plek 6:42

Okay. Um what else you see

Victory Over Sin Without Perfection

Pastor Plek 6:45

observation-wise? Um you will never stumble into sin. Therefore, but make every effort to be sure make sure of your calling election. By doing this, you'll never stumble into sin. What is he saying there? You could be, is it possible for you to be sin free if you just do these things?

Pastor Holland 7:08

Good question. Um in 1 John, you know, he says, if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. And so that concept there, the fact that we'll I think teaches there will always be some element of remaining indwelling sin. But what Peter's saying here is really important. It's that you can have substantial, legitimate victory over sin as a Christian. You are you are not dominated by and enslaved to sin anymore, to where um, you know, maturing as a Christian, uh, your life should actually look different. You should not be like continually um uh falling into the same sins over and over again throughout the rest of your life as a Christian. You should be actually increasing and making progress and sanctification. Yeah. Um, and the more you do that, you know, you get to a point in your life where you go, okay, I know I still have sin in me, but I'm not like, I'm not stealing, I'm not murdering, I'm not cursing, I'm not, you know, coveting. Um, and when that kind of when a sinful desire comes up in my heart, man, I confess it, I mortify it, I put it to death through confession and prayer. So I I think he's saying you can actually expect not sinless perfection, but legitimate victory over sin.

Pastor Plek 8:27

Yeah. Um, one of the the notes I see here from the English Standard Vers version is the words into sin are not in the are in into sin, so you will never stumble into sin. They're not in the Greek text, but the Greek word pateo is used in soteriological context for more than a mere hesitation or stumbling. So it suggests here it means to be ruined or to be lost, referring to loss of salvation, while also acknowledge that the meaning to make a mistake, to go astray, sin is plausible in this context. Yeah.

Pastor Holland 8:59

So the idea is here it's impossible to be making progress in sanctification and walk away from your faith.

Pastor Plek 9:06

Yeah, it's impossible to suffer misfortune, meaning like utter ruin as a result of sinning. But meaning you can't lose your salvation. Yeah. Uh, because heights or death nor anything created can separate us from the love of God. So you're that won't happen. And when you when you're calling an election, is sure that's the confidence you have to walk freely that you're not gonna, oh no, I don't want to do that and stumble into sin.

Pastor Holland 9:31

I I think this is really important because that like I there are a lot of Christians, I think, who could just kind of accept defeat for certain sin struggles and just go porn is like the probably the biggest one that I hear about. Uh porn, I think a huge one is um that's talked about a lot culturally right now, same-sex attraction and homosexual desires. And so and there's this narrative in society that's just like, oh, you're just born with that, that's who you are, it can never change. Rather than saying, nope, by the Spirit, I can actually overcome this in the same way that any other sinful desire can be put to death, and I can actually expect transformation in my life. Yep. And you have the world telling you, no, you can't, you're gonna be enslaved to this forever. Whereas I'd say the Bible tells you you can be free.

Pastor Plek 10:10

Amen. Amen.

Why We Drift Toward Myths

Pastor Plek 10:12

All right, let's get into some nature of man. What are you seeing here in this text?

Pastor Holland 10:17

Um there's a need to add to our faith.

Pastor Plek 10:21

Ooh, like there's like a general Oh, what you're saying is that men have a lacking in their faith that they need to add to.

Pastor Holland 10:28

Well, he says, add to your faith, supplement your faith. So not to make you saved, but once you are saved, right? You don't just say, I have faith, that's it. I'm gonna I'm gonna add, I'm gonna supplement my faith with knowledge and virtue and self-control. Like the Christian life, we need to understand the Christian life is a journey and of progressing and sanctification.

Pastor Plek 10:51

Yeah. Um, how about men have the divine for Christians who who are men have divine power has been granted to to all of us that things that pertain to life and godliness through learning, to your point, uh, through the knowledge of Him. Uh how about we need reminders of the qualities that make up a Christian? That you can kind of go coast through life and you drift and you don't realize you're drifting because there's no one calling you to remember the qualities. And are you loving? Are you self-controlled? Are you displaying brotherly affection? Do you have virtue? Yeah, very good. Um how about we do have a tendency to f to think of or follow cleverly devised myths? Like we like our natural tendency is not to trust the gospel and come up with alternative stories that could explain the whole thing. Yeah, and we have like this, like all entire atheistic views of Christianity have come from cleverly devised myths that we had to be attributed to Christians that they didn't actually come up with.

Pastor Holland 11:56

Yeah. I think kind of related to that, when he's talking about no prophecy of scripture comes from someone's own interpretation, like we have a tendency to um doubt the reliability of scripture. Yeah. And so you have these reminders in the New Testament that it really is that these really are the scriptures of the Lord, from the Lord, they're breathed out by God. Um they, yeah, they're this is the words of the Holy Spirit that we're reading here.

Pastor Plek 12:23

That's good. Okay. Um there's a there's a call on human beings to be diligent to confirm your calling. Um I guess that means that there's a tendency to drift. That's kind of what we're talking about. Let's get into the character of God.

God’s Power Love And Eyewitness Proof

Pastor Plek 12:40

Um, God gives us divine power.

Pastor Holland 12:43

Yeah. His his divine power is granted to us, so he's powerful.

Pastor Plek 12:48

Yeah. Um, I love that God declares over Jesus on the mountain, this is my beloved son, with whom I'm well pleased. God loves his son Jesus. And then we know from I think it's John 17, 23, in his high priestly prayer, that God loves Christians even as equal to the way he loves Jesus because of the attribution of Jesus' righteousness to us. And our union with Christ. And our union with Christ. And so I think there's something really special about when you, this is my beloved son, you you could put your name in there, like he truly does love you. It isn't just a, I just love everybody. It's a I love you. Um, and there is obviously a y'all aspect to it, but you can receive the love of the Father through Jesus. Yeah.

unknown 13:43

Yeah.

Pastor Holland 13:43

And I mean, this is really powerful, uh, just confirmation too of like this is Peter who walked with Jesus, who's saying, like, I heard from him the voice from heaven. I was there on the mountain that when he, you know, for the transfiguration, right? Right. I saw him transfigured, I heard the voice, I saw the resurrected Jesus, I saw him crucified, I saw him again alive. And so, like, it just yeah, just a reminder of how God, how many proofs he gave.

Pastor Plek 14:12

Yeah. And and the fact that Peter is the guy that got to hear God's voice on the holy mountain saying, This is my son whom I uh love, uh, listen to him with him. I'm well pleased. What a wild thing. He was just a fisherman, he just was another guy going about his, you know, mundane life. Yeah. And then all of a sudden Jesus flips it up upside down, and now he's gets crucified on the largest stage. Uh he gets to be, you know, honored everywhere he goes. People think of heaven as the you know gates of St. Peter. You know, like it's it's kind of wild to think about some dude. He denied Jesus three times.

Pastor Holland 14:51

Yeah, and like, yeah, he's not exactly a super Christian. God is a redeemer. Like, this is the Peter who denied him, and and but Christ forgave him and restored him and said, Go feed my lambs. Yeah. And now look at what Peter's doing, feeding the lambs, right in scripture to shepherd and feed and love the flock of God.

Pastor Plek 15:10

This is gonna lead us to some application, but like if you feel like you're just an ordinary person or you've failed Jesus too much, that doesn't mean God's not gonna use you. He used Peter of all people to be an apostle, to be an elder, to transform the world through his hand, by God working miracles and stuff through his hand. Yeah. All right, so let's get to application.

Application Commands And Promises

Pastor Plek 15:33

Uh sin to avoid, promise to claim, example to fall, command obey, or knowledge to believe. What do you got here?

Pastor Holland 15:39

Knowledge to believe, no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man. Nice. And just understanding that all scripture, as Paul said, 2 Timothy 3.16, is breathed out by God. These are uh I I heard um uh a sermon recently where someone claimed that these are not God's words, they're just man's words about God. And they were advocating for tearing out certain pages of the Bible that they didn't agree with and saying that, you know, we got to get those out. They said, we need a third testament because these two aren't enough. Just crazy wacko stuff where you go, nope. The this is not just man's words about God, this is God's words. Eventually they shall produce one. Yeah.

Pastor Plek 16:19

All right, so void spiritual laziness or lack of growth. If you're not diligent to add to your faith, knowledge, virtue, etc., you are spiritually lazy. Avoid that.

Pastor Holland 16:29

Yeah, and nearsighted. Yep. So much so that you're like basically blind. Maybe not even saved. All right. Um, okay, for example to follow, Peter says, I will make every effort, this is verse 15, so that after my departure, you may be able at any time to recall these things. That's the heart of a good teacher.

Pastor Plek 16:51

Like he's gonna die. Uh-huh. And he's like, I want to make sure you at any given time can know that we just follow something we made up, that this is legit. And so I'm writing these prophets, trust the apostles. You can believe the word of God. Yeah. Um, all right, how about just Commando Bay? Uh confirm your calling and election through good deeds, and your works confirm your election, you're chosen by grace through faith.

Pastor Holland 17:22

Yeah. Amen. Um, where's the the verse uh everything we need for life and godliness? Uh just reading it. That's about that's in the scripture part.

Pastor Plek 17:34

Um life and godliness. Is that you know, I'm not seeing it there.

Pastor Holland 17:44

Wow, I just read this and then I lost it.

Pastor Plek 17:47

Um it is right at 2 Peter verse 1, or chapter 1, verse 3.

Pastor Holland 17:55

Verse 3. Oh my goodness, right at the beginning. Okay, so knowledge to believe, his divine power is granted us, granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence. Everything we need, um, all things that pertain to life and godliness, God will grant to you. I think I think that's good knowledge to believe, good promise to claim of like whatever God calls you to, he will give you everything that you need to do it. Some of what he, you know, part of that is he's given you his spirit, he's given you his word. Um, and then he gives you, you know, in doing that, you have his guidance and his presence. Man, I love that. You have everything you need to follow God.

Pastor Plek 18:37

So command obey, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, knowledge, self-control, steadfastness, godliness, brotherly affection, and love. Amen. Hey, thanks so much for joining us. We'll see you next time on a chapter day.