1. Even though it is Paul’s shortest and most personal letter with none of the theology or doctrine we have come to expect in his writings it, from my perspective, has more about the personality of Paul concentrated in one place than any of his letters. It is here that we see what a master of persuasion he is without being a manipulator. He clearly knows those to whom he writes and their love for each other. Like his letter to the church at Philippi he is loving and grateful for their love and support for him. Like his challenge to the Christians at Rome he talks straight about what…

Billy Graham used to say he preached with a Bible in one hand and a newspaper in the other. Given what we read in the newspapers today it is so tempting to put names to people that Jude leaves nameless – but obvious. I suppose in every era we could do that but since he doesn’t, I won’t either – as much as I would like to do that! Before we jump into the book and discover what Jude means by “contending for the faith” I think it is important to realize there are two book-ends that hold everything together here. They are what give the book consistency and give…

1.  Peter understands the importance of reminding people. As we said last week, most people don’t need instructing as much as they need reminding. This is the basis of natural law. We assume people are born with a basic sense of right and wrong. Paul even talks in Romans about the Gentiles who do not have the Jewish Law but they do “by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.”…

1. The way you teach people to recognize a counterfeit bill is to train them in the characteristics of real currency – not to show them counterfeits. There are too many different ways to make counterfeits. In the same way this morning, I would rather focus on what is true instead of what is false for a couple of reasons. First, what is false is constantly changing. Granted, there are some consistent characteristics but there is so much variety of false teaching as we discovered when we looked at the various religions several months ago. Second, concentrating on false teachings and false teachers has a tendency to make us see…

2 Peter 1:5-21 September 5, 2016 1. The tension between participating in the divine nature and living in the corruption caused by evil desires. Desire is a never ending battle, isn’t it? There will never be an Armistice Day or Veteran’s Day in our struggle with desire. The war will never be over. We will win some battles but the war will last our whole life. We are all veterans of the war struggling with sin. We live in a constant tension between the new life that is growing and the old life that hangs on and never quite lets go. And desire is such a graphic word in Scripture.…

1. There is some literature we assign to younger people that is good for them to read but impossible for them to understand. I think many of Shakespeare’s plays fit this category as well as the book of Ecclesiastes. I might even put Peter’s letters in that category. His letters to the young church are written from the perspective of an older and wiser man who has experienced a great deal of suffering before he wrote. Peter could not have written these letters as a young man. 2. There are times I struggle with why people who are so obviously crooked or corrupt seem to get through life so easily.…

After a few weeks in the book of 1 Peter we should have noticed that those to whom this letter was written were in far different circumstances than we are this morning. There are several ways we can read these passages about suffering, persecution and the end of the world. We can read this as history that describes a particular time and place that was real but is no longer the case. It’s a picture of the pioneer days of the faith. These are our roots and our ancestors. We can read it as we would a memorial to our founders and as a tribute to them as we might…

1. The early Christians saw themselves as living in the days of Noah. The culture was coarse, corrupt and full of violence. “The Lord saw how great man’s wickedness had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. The Lord was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain…The earth was corrupt and full of violence. God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways.” The same could be said about our culture. We live in a coarse and corrosive culture…

1. In the final chapter of John, Jesus tells Peter how he is to die – upside down. In a sense he also lived upside down from what he had been as a young man. The Apostle writing these letters is not the impulsive and proud person we meet in the Gospels. Instead, we see a man seasoned by age, circumstances and the Holy Spirit. Time and again, including the passage this morning, he talks about the virtue of submission and the power of endurance in the face of persecution. 2. My mental picture of Peter giving advice to women about beauty just confirms his living upside down. This is…

This morning we are going to look at the passage from the perspective of Paul in Romans 13 as well as Peter. It’s important to realize that the earliest Church fathers were in agreement about the relationship between the church and the government. The early church was not a revolutionary movement. It was not a conservative movement. It was a fellowship of foreigners and exiles living temporarily in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation. If you look at the several passages in 1 Timothy, 1 Peter and Titus there is a consistent theme. “Pray and be grateful for those in authority that we may live peaceful and quiet…