🌳 2 Peter 1:5–7 | “For this very reason...”

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📧 In today’s email…

• 📜 Background context on the book of 2 Peter

• ✈️ A high-level overview of what’s coming this week

• 🎵 A song to help you meditate..

Let’s dig in…

 🧠 Memorize

For this reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge,

and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness,

and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love.

2 Peter 1:5–7

Author, Audience & Book Context ✍️ 

Before we get into our memory verse, let’s get some basic background on 2 Peter:

• Author: The apostle Peter wrote this near the end of his life (65–67 AD).

  • Simon Peter was originally a fisherman who became one of Jesus's closest disciples.

  • After Jesus’ resurrection, Peter had bold faith until the end. He was martyred in Rome by crucifixion upside-down during Nero's persecution.

  • Though initially impulsive and prone to failure (denying Jesus three times), Peter became a bold preacher and missionary, helping establish churches throughout the Roman Empire and writing two letters that became part of the New Testament.

• Audience:

  • Not directly named, but generally agreed to be Christians throughout Roman province of Asia Minor.

• Purpose: 2 Peter warns Christians against false teachers who were denying Christ's return while encouraging believers to remain faithful to apostolic teaching and growing in Christlikeness.

Themes Throughout 2 Peter:

• Warnings against false teachers who deny Christ's return

• The importance of growing in Christlikeness

• Defending the reliability of apostolic testimony

• Describing the Day of the Lord and final judgment

• Call to live holy lives with anticipation of Christ's coming

📹️ Check out the Bible Project’s overview of 2 Peter here.

A High View of What’s Coming This Week ✈️

Here’s what we’ll dive into the rest of the week:

• Confirming Your Calling and Election (Tuesday)

  • We explore the idea of how fruit confirms calling and election

• Virtues (Wednesday)

  • We’ll dive into the specific fruit mentioned in our memory verse

• Connecting back to the OT to prove the Truth of the Gospel (Thursday)

  • We’ll connect the memory verse to the OT and the Gospel

• Recapping What We’ve Learned (Friday)

Apply & Respond: Prepare Your Heart for This Week

Really, 2 Peter gives us assurance that leads to action.

Read & Reflect 🤔 

Take some time to read through all of 2 Peter 1, noting the main points that we’ll cover throughout the week.

Once you’ve finished that, consider this prayer:

Pray 🙏

Heavenly Father, Your Word is good, right, and true.

As I study Your word this week, I pray that Your Holy Spirit works to help me grasp the finer details, even if they seem uncomfortable.

As your servant Peter used his testimony to encourage others in the faith, may my words also serve that same goal. Amen.

Song of the Week 🎵 

Jesus, Firm Foundation was recorded by the Worship Initiative (ft. Robbie Seay) and speaks to the assurance we have in our calling and election that Peter talks about in 2 Peter 1.

Click here to listen on Spotify | Click here to listen on Apple Music