2 Peter 3:1 The Way of Remembrance. Here, then, the message of an Apostle, nay, even the teaching of the Holy Spirit, is identified with sacred remembrance remembrance of holy words and deep impressions dropped upon the heart in the highest moments of life. The apprehension of Divine things consis... [ Continue Reading ]
2 Peter 3:3 Righteousness the School of Hope. Note: I. The cause which led persons to argue that Christ was gone never to return. It was the absence of change; the unvarying order and course of nature; the undisturbed, unhalting progress of events. "Things continue as they were from the beginning... [ Continue Reading ]
2 Peter 3:4 The Promise of His Coming. I. Here we have the language of those moods of the human soul which lead in the end to entire rejection of the second coming of Christ. (1) "Where is the promise of His coming?" See here the language of natural impatience. To many a man, in religious as in oth... [ Continue Reading ]
2 Peter 3:10 The Suddenness of the Advent. This truth of the suddenness of the advent of Christ we do not perhaps take sufficiently to heart; but if it be a truth that the second advent of Christ will be sudden, then some very important questions will arise out of that truth, which, whether welcom... [ Continue Reading ]
2 Peter 3:11 Advent. I. The Apostles lived, and prayed, and laboured in the continual expectation that Christ would come again to them, and speedily, and that this promise would be fulfilled in their own lifetime. Thus He was always at the door of their life; and their attitude was just that in whi... [ Continue Reading ]
2 Peter 3:12 From the Bibles that have marginal readings, it will appear that these words admit of a different construction: "Looking for and _hasting the coming_of the day of God." As I understand the intention of God in the place, His will and command is this: that we should do both "hasting unto... [ Continue Reading ]
2 Peter 3:13 I. The man who saw this vision may be described as a dreamer, and the glorious dream which he has put before us here still waits for its fulfilment. But dreamers are the pioneers of workers, and there are few movements of progress which have not had them amongst their leaders. It is the... [ Continue Reading ]
2 Peter 3:16 Consider the best means of avoiding the danger of professing to honour the word of God while yet you degrade it to purposes most alien from its spirit. I. First, I would say, study the Scriptures. What a source of mischief is a rude and blind literalism! What ravages have been wrought... [ Continue Reading ]
2 Peter 3:18 Divine Grace and Human Effort. I. Whenever we have to consider any joint action of God and man, we are in danger either of thinking of God to the exclusion of man, or of man to the exclusion of God. If we think of the Bible as a Divine book, as given by the Spirit of God, we dwell upon... [ Continue Reading ]