If there’s ever been a moment when the church needed to recover Peter’s understanding of the word “knowledge,” it’s right now. We are living in an age in which spiritual “knowledge” is minimized, while spiritual apathy is maximized. It is an age marked by spiritual drought—where the soul quietly withers, only appearing alive. It is an age in which false teaching intimidatingly goes unchecked, and cynicism is popularized and celebrated as a virtue. The sad result of such an ap

Zephaniah uses an ancient winemaking metaphor to create a striking image of God’s people who have sat spiritually undisturbed for so long that they have become internally thick, stagnant, and spoiled—like wine left resting on its dregs until the sediment hardens and the whole batch loses its vitality.r

We all would agree that Peter writes specifically about Christians possessing a saving knowledge (epignōsis) — that deep personal and experiential, relational, morally transformative knowledge of Jesus Christ (1:2–3, 1:8). But did you know that he also uses another term for general knowledge (gnōsis) or distant knowledge (1:5–6) for a special group of people within his church community? Both epignōsis and gnōsis have a root definition of 'knowledge.' But the difference bet

The idea of “losing one’s salvation” is a shocking thought. Reading through 2 Peter, the shock sizzles immediately in the very first verse. The false teachers whom Peter later condemns in chapter 2 aren’t outsiders slipping in through cracks. They are insiders like Peter himself. He speaks to all his readers as those who have “obtained a faith of equal standing with ours” (2 Pet 1:1). Whoever “us” refers to—apostles or other believers—the point is clear. Peter is talking to p

No one expects Peter to begin his letter with an earthshattering statement. But he does. He opens his second letter purposely using a specific undeniable grammatical construction that shakes the ground under every reader who understands what he is doing. Using this linguistic grammatical structure... Peter claims that Jesus is God! In 2 Peter 1:1, Peter uses a Koine Greek grammar rule, (what grammarians have termed the Granville Sharp Rule) to present A Grand and Sharp Divine

This is the fifth and final blog in the series “The Apostle Peter’s Relational Framework: The Structure of the Spiritual Life.” In earlier posts, we introduced Peter’s relational framework and noted that his concern is not abstract theological categories—whether someone is “eternally saved” or whether salvation can be “lost.” Instead, Peter consistently describes the concrete, experiential reality of a person’s relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. His letter assumes three

This is the fourth blog in the series “The Apostle Peter’s Relational Framework: The Structure of the Spiritual Life”. In previous blogs, we have seen the first state of spirituality of the people Peter describes in his second letter. Peter describes them as rebellious and enslaved, as those who do not yet know Jesus. We have also seen the state of those who have moved from the first state to the second state of spirituality: the state of those who have come into a genuine an

This is the third blog in the series “The Apostle Peter’s Relational Framework: The Structure of the Spiritual Life”. In our last blog we looked at Peter’s first spiritual state: spirituality before knowing Jesus. In this blog we will discuss Peter's second spiritual state. The spiritual state of being in a genuine relationship with Jesus: This is Peter’s second, or middle state of three states. 2. The Middle State: Real Participation in Jesus as the Christ The middle stat

This is the second blog in the series “The Apostle Peter’s Relational Framework: The Structure of the Spiritual Life”. Peter's First Spiritual State: Life Before Knowing Jesus. This blog is the second in the series “The Apostle Peter’s Relational Framework: The Structure of the Spiritual Life”. In our last blog we introduced the idea of Peter’s three-tiered spiritual framework and in this blog, we will move past introductory remarks to discuss Peter's First Spiritual State:

This is the first blog in the series “The Apostle Peter’s Relational Framework: The Structure of the Spiritual Life”. Peter Describes States, Not Categories In his second letter to a wayward group of Christians, wavering in their estimate of the value of their relationship to Jesus, Peter does not use terminology that divides humanity into fixed theological categories such as “saved vs unsaved” or “regenerate vs unregenerate.” Instead, he frames their salvation experience and