2 Peter 1:12–21
We all observe and maybe even study human behavior and we see the best of what people can do, and we witness and experience human behavior at its worst. What I’m more interested in is why people do the things they do. If you dig down just a little bit, what you’ll find are a set of beliefs. Those beliefs become our authority.
Foundational to how you live is what you believe. And what you believe is foundational to who/what you accept as your authority. For the follower of Jesus how you view the Bible is foundational to your life.
As we turn to 1 Peter, we’re looking at the reliability of the Bible. If it’s our authority, why can we trust it?
In verse 12 Peter says, “I will always remind you of these things even though you know them and are firmly established in the truth you now have.” He was saying that there is a body of truth that is the authority on life and how to live it.
In the next sentence he lets them know that his death in imminent, but he was leaving them this letter so that “after my departure you will always be able to remember these things.” And then he launches into my first point:
Why the Bible has authority.
Look at verse 16; “For we did not follow cleverly devised stories when we told you about the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.”
Here’s Peter’s argument; “We were eyewitnesses.” In the New Testament God has spoken through two sources:
People who saw Jesus with their own eyes. Peter is one of them.
Those who spoke with eyewitnesses. That would be people like Luke who speaks to eyewitnesses and records what they have seen, heard and experienced.
In this passage Peter speaks specifically of the transfiguration of Jesus. It’s the account recorded by Matthew, Mark, and Luke where Jesus takes three disciples (Peter, James, and John) with him up a mountain.
There Jesus is transfigured before them. His face shines bright as the sun and his clothes become white as light. Moses and Elijah appear and speak with Jesus.
It’s such a holy and impactful experience that the three disciples fall face down on the ground, terrified. For a few moments they get an eyewitness glimpse into Jesus’ divinity.
In John 1:14 and Acts 2:22–23, Peter is preaching to a vast crowd 50 days after Jesus’ resurrection in the city where it all happened. Why did no one challenge Peter? Because it was common knowledge in Jerusalem that a man named Jesus was crucified and then rose from the dead.
Virtually all of the N.T was penned within 30–60 years after the resurrection. There were many eyewitnesses of Jesus alive at the time the gospels were written who could have discredited the writings if they were made up stories.
Peter then refers to the Old Testament prophets in verse 19. He states here that they are completely reliable. Peter is reflecting what he observed from Jesus’ words about the Old Testament. Read the gospels and you see that Jesus saw the Old Testament as true, reliable, and authoritative.
Jesus based his life on scripture. Remember the story of the temptation of Jesus? Every time Satan came to Jesus with a temptation, remember how Jesus responded? “It is written.”
The scriptures were the operating principle of Jesus’ life. He lived with full confidence in the scriptures. The scripture was His authority. For Jesus, the scriptures were God’s word. If you’re a follower of Jesus, you can’t faithfully follow him without embracing the scriptures as the authoritative Word of God.
How we know the Bible is reliable.
Those who question the authority and/or the reliability of the Bible often argue several things:
The Bible was written by people. It’s just a bunch of people who wrote down their own ideas and over time someone selected the writings that had a common theme.
We don’t have the original manuscripts so it may have started out as reliable but there have been so many copies of copies of copies that we can’t trust that we have the genuine thing.
Let me address these objections. In verses 20 and 21 Peter writes that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation. True prophecy doesn’t originate in the human will but rather, “prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.”
The word translated “carried along” has as one of its meanings, what wind does to a sail on a boat. Human authors wrote—and they did it in a certain style and with a certain vocabulary—but the Spirit got them to where they needed to go.
So, what about manuscripts? The integrity of any historical document depends on the number of manuscripts that can be referenced and compared. There are 14,000 Old Testament manuscripts that were copied from 500–800 years. When you compare the copies, there are variations in one out of every 1580 words and virtually every variation is a difference in spelling.
What about the New Testament? There are 24,000 manuscripts and in all of those transcribed over hundreds of years there is less than one variation in every 1000 words. These are minor variations that don’t affect the meaning.
So, what does this mean?
In verse 19 Peter writes, “you will do well to pay attention to it as to a light shining in a dark place.”
The scripture is a light shining in a dark place. The human heart, the culture, and the world are all dark places. Only scripture shows you how to live.
Throughout history this Book has profoundly affected positive change in the lives and destinies of countless numbers of people. It's amazing what happens in a person’s life when they approach God’s Word with faith and humility and surrender.
I have seen it again and again; a person may start out with objections and intellectual reservations about the Bible but the moment they surrender their heart, mind, and will, the lights go on and this Book becomes a shining light that lights the path of life.
— Notes from Pastor Marvin Wojda’s sermons on February 5th & 6th, 2022.
CLICK HERE to watch the sermon on YouTube.