Chapter 1: What does R.C. Sproul say about the significance of Scripture?
If God sent you a letter in the mail, would you read it? Who wouldn't read it? And that's what we have here in sacred Scripture. God has spoken to us. He has revealed Himself clearly in His Word. As R.C. Sproul just said, it's like God has sent a letter to us in the mail. Do you see Scripture that way?
Most of us, if we're honest, don't treat the Bible that way at all, especially in the West, where Bibles are so widely available and in many translations. We just don't try Scripture and study it as much as we should. Hi, I'm Nathan W. Bingham, and I'm glad you're joining us today for this Sunday edition of Renewing Your Mind.
Last week we began a short series in 2 Peter, and this week we're continuing that study in chapter 1, as Dr. Sproul considers the importance of true knowledge, that knowledge that comes to us from God. As I said last week, we'll only be studying a portion of this epistle, but you can study the entirety of both 1 and 2 Peter,
when you request Dr. Sproul's hardcover commentary and you give a donation at renewingyourmind.org. But be quick, as this offer ends at midnight. Now grab your Bibles and open it to 2 Peter chapter 1. Here's Dr. Sproul. We'll continue now with our study of the second epistle of St. Peter at chapter 1, verse 2.
Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, as divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us by glory and virtue.
by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. In the greeting, Peter uses a phrase that is commonplace in the salutations of the epistles of the New Testament. He says, "'Grace and peace be unto you.'"
The idea of grace and peace is deeply rooted in Old Testament history. You recall that in the Hebrew benediction, both of these are enjoined in which God is asked to grant them to his people. as integral to his benediction. May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you.
And then may the Lord lift up the light of his countenance upon you. and give you peace. This concept of peace was so important to Jewish people that it became the basic way of greeting one another. And to this day, the Jew will greet his friend by saying, Shalom Aleichem, to which the response is, Aleichem Shalom. Peace be unto you and unto you peace.
But Peter does something a little bit different here when he gives the salutation. Instead of simply saying grace and peace to you, he says grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, comma. Here he speaks of a multiplication of grace and peace.
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Chapter 2: How does Peter emphasize knowledge in his epistle?
Who would read it and put it on the shelf to collect dust? If you got a letter written to you personally from God, you would read it over and over and over again until you began to pay attention to every tiny word, every subtle nuance in the text because you were being informed by a knowledge that comes from God himself. And that's what we have.
I'm firmly convinced that that's what we have here in sacred scripture. And that's why we never graduate from the school of Christ as that we are ever learning more deeply, more carefully, and hopefully more accurately the things that are contained in this word. We remember that Jesus in his high priestly prayer
when he prayed for the sanctification of his disciples and of all who would believe through their testimony, which includes you, our Lord prayed, Father, sanctify them by your truth. Your word is truth.
This book is given to us not to press flowers or to make us feel good, but to reveal the truth of God to us, not as an abstract exercise in intellectual pursuit, but it is given to us that we might know Him and that we might know the Savior. in the fullness of his glory.
I've spent my life studying theology, and I wish I had 10 lifetimes in this world to study theology, because in the study of theology, we're studying the knowledge of God, and the more we learn of God, it's the old saying, the more we know him, the greater capacity for us to love him. Oh, I know that there are people who have the creeds in their head, but no love in their heart.
I don't understand how that can be. For them, theology is established as a defense against the piercing of the soul by God. But that's not what the word is given for. but it is given to define for us who Jesus is. And if you say all you're concerned about is relationships, how do you determine what a good relationship looks like? How do you determine what a healthy relationship is?
Accept by the truth that God gives us, that teaches us what true relationship should mean. And so the multiplication of grace, the multiplication of peace that Peter enjoins is to be found in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, comma, as his divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness.
Up in the first verse, part B, we read that the greeting was to those who have obtained like precious faith with us. And I stressed that the faith that you have is not something that you generated from your flesh, but rather it is a gift of God as the apostle teaches us in Ephesians 2 so clearly.
That the very faith that you have by which you are linked to Jesus is not something that arises spontaneously by your own decision. Nobody can decide to believe in Christ. You can decide to follow Christ. You can decide to obey Christ. But you can't decide to believe something that in fact you don't believe. That faith is a gift that we receive. from the mercy of God.
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