R.C. Sproul

And I've often wondered what Paul thought when he got to heaven, what he thinks now when he was removed from active ministry and thrown into prison and all he had time to do was write some letters.

And the greatest impact on the world that he ever made was not through his missionary journeys, but through his pen.

And so maybe that's what Peter was thinking about.

I'm writing this down on paper.

so that you will have a reminder of what I'm teaching you even after I'm gone.

Irenaeus, later on, one of the early church fathers, quoted this exact verse and attributed it to Peter.

Some skeptics don't believe that Peter wrote this.

Irenaeus did.

And Irenaeus thought that what Peter was referring to in verse 15 was not this epistle, but the gospel of Mark, which

was written where Mark basically served as a secretary for Peter.

We could just as easily call the gospel of Mark the gospel of Peter.

So perhaps Peter had in mind, at least according to Irenaeus, something even with greater grandeur than this epistle, the entire gospel of Mark.

Whichever it was, he was able in his care to make certain

that even to this day, we have a reminder of these things.

Now, verse 16 changes the basic thought here in the text, although it's not unrelated to what has gone before it.

But Peter makes this declaration that's extremely important, first by speaking in the way of negation.

when he's talking about the message that he has been proclaiming, he wants to explain what that message is not and where it has not come from before he speaks about what it is and where it has come from.

He says, for we did not follow cunningly devised myths or fables.

when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty.

Other translations say it this way, that we don't teach cunning myths, but we declare to you what we have seen with our eyes and what we have heard with our ears.