Third Presbyterian Sunday Morning Bible Study - September 26, 2021

Below is the Bible Study written by Jim Rudiger for his Sunday School Class which meets at Third Presbyterian Church, Norfolk, Virginia. It's based on 2 Peter 1:3-15.

What do you use a ladder for? What kitchen can function without the two foot ladder used to get pie plates and gravy boats out of those high cabinets? But, our exposure to ladders really started when we were little guys. One of our first board games was Shoots and Ladders. Then we went to elementary school and climbed ladders to get to the top of the slides on the James Madison playground. When I got older I needed a ladder to tie the net on the basketball goal at Buddy Holland’s house. Then, when I got old enough to get married I could have used a ladder propped up to Jackie’s window so we could elope, but the wedding was all planned and written in stone, so, the ladder stayed in the garage. And finally, at nearly seventy years old a ladder would lead to me taking a swan dive off my roof. The best thing about ladders is that you can get high without a hangover.

Did you know that ladders also figure in religion? What’s the most famous ladder in the Bible? Jacob’s ladder. Then there is the ladder that was used to get Joseph out of that pit when his brothers sold him to a trader headed for Egypt. Then there is that whole religion that is based on ladders - the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints.

In our study today, Peter talks about a ladder - a ladder of virtues. Let’s see how Peter says we should use this ladder.

For the last few weeks we have been studying 1 Peter. There is hardly any doubt that the thoughts and concerns talked about in 1 Peter were those of the Apostle Peter. In this letter however, many scholars believe this letter wasn’t written by Peter. In fact they believe it was written about seventy years after 1 Peter It was quite common in those days to write something and attribute it to someone who was well known and whose authority wouldn’t be challenged. There is a Gospel of Peter which wasn’t written by Peter. There was a book called the Apocalypse of Peter which wasn’t written by Peter. Whether this letter was written by Peter or not really doesn’t matter. What matters is this important message for Christian growth -, not the messenger who wrote it. For our study today we will stick with the idea that Peter wrote this letter.

2 Peter 1:3 His divine power has given us everything needed for life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.

What have we received that has given us everything we need for life and godliness? His divine power. Who is the “His” Peter is talking about? Christ. We hear a lot about the “godly” life. What in the world is the godly life anyway? The “godly life” is to have an attitude that we can trust God and a willingness to live the life God wants us to live. If God is love then the godly life has to be lived in love. There are a lot of things out here in the world that frustrate and defeat us. These defeats strike at the heart of us living godly lives. One of the tragedies in our world is that our love is so often frustrated because it can’t give what it wants to give, can’t do what it wants to do and so often forces us to stand by helpless while a loved one runs up against a disaster. But, Christ’s love is backed by his power. What is the “power” of Christ? How does this power help us living a godly life? Christ’s power strengthens us by letting us know that our love was not in vain. A greater stronger love - the love of Christ - is there to lift us up. That takes a lot of pressure off of us.

2 Peter 1:4 Thus he has given us, through these things, his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of lust, and may become participants of the divine nature.

Peter says that Christ has given us precious and great what? Promises. What are Christ’s promises to us? (1) Escape from the corruption of the world. (2) Be participants in the divine nature. Let’s look at them one at a time.

Escape from corruption. There were Christians in Peter’s day and some in our day too, who said that the grace of God was broad enough to cover all sins even if they hadn’t been committed yet. Since all sins are covered up front, sin didn’t mean anything anymore for Christians. If sin didn’t mean anything, then nothing a Christian did, no matter what sins he might be involved in, would ever cause him to lose the promise of everlasting life. The people who believed that sin didn’t matter - no matter whether they lived during Peter’s day or live now - are people who just want to sin. This was the corruption Peter is talking about. A corruption that was fueled with a self indulgent view that said you could have your cake and eat it too. Here is the dirty little secret about Christians and sin. As long as a Christian lives in this world, sin will never completely lose it’s fascination for us. The world is hell bent on corrupting us. Christ is the only one who can defend us against this fascination. He is our escape hatch from corruption.

Participants in the divine nature. Divine nature? What’s Peter talking about? What Peter had in mind here was that among the Gentiles and their gods, they believed that everyman had a little bit of the divine nature of his god in him - that divine spark. All he had to do was to live a life dictated by this little bit of divine nature living inside of him. The idea was that this little bit of divine nature made a man make the right decisions. Fine in theory, but, does it work out that way in the real world? Life flatly contradicts the idea. Our life is continually exposed to bitterness, hatred, lust and crime. Everything that used to be found every week on “The Young and Restless”. Do you always know what the right thing is? It is really hard to know the right thing to do when we are being assaulted every day by a culture that hates you. While Christianity doesn’t say that on our own, we have a spark of the divine in us. It does say that Christians are capable of becoming participants in the divine nature. It isn’t a slam dunk, though. It recognizes what kind of beings we are, but doesn’t set a time limit on our potential for change. The bottom line is that man has the potential to act the way God wants us to, but only Christ can bring that potential to flower. Spark or no spark, we can’t do it on our own.

2 Peter 1:5 For this very reason, you must make every effort to support your faith with goodness, and goodness with knowledge, 6 and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with endurance, and endurance with godliness, 7 and godliness with mutual affection, and mutual affection with love.

How does Peter start this verse? “For this very reason.” In other words, “Based on what I just told you, here is what you have to do.” Peter gives us some pointers on how to achieve this divine nature. What he paints is kind of like a ladder to heaven. Peter compiles a list of virtues, each one building on the back of the other. Paul does a similar thing when he gives us the fruits of the Spirit. Why are lists used as a teaching method? When we were in school, how did we learn the multiplication table? We memorized a list by reading it over and over again. We had the advantage of books with the lists printed out, but, way back then there weren’t many books available. They were rare. So a teacher would summarize what he was trying to get over by putting it in a simple spoken list. The student learned the list and when the student recalled the list, it would bring back the rest of what the teacher had said. So, what was Peter’s list of virtues?

(1) Faith. Faith is where everything starts. It is on the bottom rung of the ladder. What is faith? Forsaking All, I Take Him. The dictionary says that faith is believing without proof. It is saying that what Jesus said was true and we can hang our hat on it regardless of what the world says. Our confidence in getting through this worldly life anticipating the life to come rests fully on taking Christ at his word. That’s faith. Taking Christ at his word.

(2) Goodness. Everybody has a sense of goodness, but, just what is it and don’t say “being good?” Try this. It’s that quality in a person that makes him kind, sympathetic, generous, moral and fair. Goodness like this is hard to come by. Normally, it’s that quality that makes somebody a good friend. Goodness builds on faith because believing in Christ is the starting rung for goodness.

(3) Knowledge. For the most part knowledge falls into two categories - fact knowledge and practical knowledge. Fact knowledge can be an accumulation of data concerning something of interest. Everybody here has this kind of knowledge. It may be about cooking something special. It might be about an historical time. It may be about your family. Fact knowledge is book knowledge - like a To Do kind of book. But, there is another knowledge - practical knowledge. How would you define practical knowledge. It is being able to apply the fact knowledge - the book knowledge - to solve a problem. It is the practical knowledge that enables a man to decide the right thing to do and then do it effectively. This is the knowledge that Peter is talking about - practical knowledge. Another step up that ladder. Building on faith and goodness, we have knowledge.

(4) Self Control. Now here’s where the rubber meets the road, folks. For me Thanksgiving is the ultimate challenge for this virtue. Will I exercise self control when it comes to a second helping of oyster dressing or another slice of pumpkin pie? Of all of the virtues, this is my sore spot. If it weren’t, then all of my diets would work. The word used in the original scripture meant to take a grip of oneself. It’s like wrestling myself down to ground and tying my hands behind my back to stop me from eating another Surf Rider crab cake. Why do we have problems with self control? There is always a conflict raging in us. A conflict between reason and passion. When passion wins out, we are out of control. When reason wins, we are in control. Now don’t get me wrong here. A little passion is all right. I want a preacher to be passionate about giving a sermon. I don’t want a “ho hum” sermon. So what we need is reason that allows for a little passion. For the Christian our passion is there but it’s under complete control so that passion is our servant and not our master. Don’t you think “Self Control” fits right in on the step above knowledge? It is that virtue that puts our knowledge on the right tract.

(5) What’s next? Endurance. If self control is to be with us when we need it, it has to be anchored in endurance. What’s endurance? It’s finishing the race. It is having the energy to keep on going when our body says “Stop”. Have you ever started something and it becomes so tedious and boring that you want to just put it away and do something more interesting? You just have to suck it up and drive to the finish line. That’s endurance. It is taking everything that life throws at ya and keep going, turning them into another step up that ladder.

(6) Godliness. Our ladder is getting taller, but, we aren’t through yet. On the next rung is godliness. Godliness directs us to the path that we are enduring. It points us to the finish line. We have already talked about the godly life. Godliness is giving God his due. But it is more than that. It is also giving our follow man his due. The man who has godliness is in a right relationship with God and his fellow men.

(7) Mutual affection. What is Peter talking about here? There is a city that is the home of the Phillies and the Eagles. This city has probably the worst sports fans in the whole world. It is home to the only stadium that booed Santa Claus. That city is? Philadelphia. Would you believe that Philadelphia is the Greek word for “mutual affection?” It literally means “love of the brethren.” Or to put it simply, brotherly love. Peter has a point for putting this so high on the ladder. If we are to give our fellow men their due, we have to start with loving our fellow men.

Our ladder isn’t fully extended yet. This mutual affection is said to be with what? With love. Mutual affections means brotherly love and we have accepted that. What is the “with love”thing? This added love is implied. It is Christ’s love. And it is the perfect way to top off our ladder of virtues. You see, love of our brothers is not enough. The Christian must end with the love that is as wide as God’s love. The Christian has to show to all men the love which God has shown to him. The Greek’s name for this love is agape love.

2 Peter 1:8 For if these things are yours and are increasing among you, they keep you from being ineffective and unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 For anyone who lacks these things is nearsighted and blind, and is forgetful of the cleansing of past sins. 10 Therefore, brothers and sisters, be all the more eager to confirm your call and election, for if you do this, you will never stumble. 11 For in this way, entry into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be richly provided for you. 

Peter wants us to keep climbing that ladder. The higher we go, the more rungs there will be. And that’s the point about everything we learn. The more we know about a subject the more we are capable of learning. Ever bake a cake? For some people just baking a yellow cake with chocolate icing isn’t enough. They start learning other kinds of icing and other kinds of cake mixtures. Before long, they try their hand at a simple decoration for the cake. This can grow until they are reading books, going to cake sites on the internet, watching reality cake shows on TV and experimenting with cakes that look like football stadiums or flowering vines wrapping around the cake. The more you learn, the more there is to learn. For Peter a Christian should be like the cake maker and want to learn more and more about Christ every day.

What happens if you don’t continue to learn? You’re still a Christian, but you’ll always be at the starting point. the bottom rung of the ladder. There is no growth. If a Christian doesn’t make the effort to climb higher on the ladder, then he will lose his sight. He will lose sight of Christ at the top of that ladder who is there to be his guiding light. As far as Peter is concerned, to walk without Christ is to walk in the dark. Ever been in the total dark? Like down in the Luray Caverns. When there is no light, do you know which way to go? If you take off running, you might run right into the wall of the cave. With Christ we have our flash light. Christ lights up the cave. But without Christ, Peter tells us there are even more eye problems. You can be nearsighted. What is nearsightedness? Nearsighted means that you see things close to you, but can’t see clearly things that are far away. Without Christ we focus on those things near us but don’t see the big picture. We don’t see the forest for the trees. We don’t see the dangers coming or the opportunities awaiting us.

The guy with the worst eye problem is the Christian who closes his eyes so he doesn’t see the things he doesn’t want to see. He feels that if he doesn’t see it, it isn’t really there. These are the Christians who turn to actions that are contrary to what God wants, believing that out of sight, out of mind. The worst thing about walking in the dark is that you may stumble. Ever get up in the middle of the night and stump your toe on a chair? Christians who walk in the dark or with their eyes closed gives Satan the opening that he needs. He’s going to move that chair so you’re going to stumble or stump your toe.

To fail to climb the virtue ladder is to forget that in our past life we were full of sin, sins that were forgiven when we accepted Christ. Peter is really talking about baptism here. The man who after baptism doesn’t put a foot on the first rung of this ladder has forgotten, or never realized the meaning of the Christian life he has chosen. To become a Christian and remain just as we were before accepting Christ at the bottom of the ladder, is to fail to understand what church membership means. You see our entry into this fellowship should be the beginning of our upward climb on the ladder not a rest station.

2 Peter 1:12 Therefore I intend to keep on reminding you of these things, though you know them already and are established in the truth that has come to you. 13 I think it right, as long as I am in this body, to refresh your memory, 14 since I know that my death will come soon, as indeed our Lord Jesus Christ has made clear to me. 15 And I will make every effort so that after my departure you may be able at any time to recall these things.

What does Peter intend to do? Remind them of these things. What things? The things we just talked about making up the ladder. This is Peter being a good preacher. He says, “I know that you know what I’m telling you. You’ve heard me saying these things a lot of times before. But, I’m going to say it again just so you won’t forget.” He knew that “good” things bear repeating. You see, when you repeat something, you are saying that even though time has passed I still believe this. What are anniversaries all about? Reminding us of a commitment we made. It is an opportunity to replay an important time in our life. So Peter knows that they have not only heard all of this before, but, have taken it to heart. He is repeating himself to encourage them. To tell them that he appreciates their devotion and their Christianity.

And he wants to refresh their memory. What does “refresh mean”? Make fresh again. To bring back that time when something was new and wonderful for us. Sometimes we hear things so much that we forget their meaning. Then something happens to click in our minds and all of the circumstances that gave you that incite comes flooding back. It is almost like we were hearing it for the first time. That was Peter’s goal here. Get them as excited as they were when they heard about Christ for the first time.

Peter said that Christ had made it clear to him that his time was drawing to a close. Maybe he was thinking about what Christ said in the Gospel of John. He said that there was coming a time when Peter would also be stretched upon a cross. That time came and Peter, when taken to the cross, insisted that he be crucified with his head down because he didn’t believe that he was worthy enough to be crucified the same way that Christ was.

Peter declares that after he is gone, he hopes that his words will stay with them. Did they? Mark will recall all of what Peter had told him and use them as the bases for the first Gospel written. Peter’s words weren’t lost. We have heard them again this morning.

Well, the ladder is all set up. It’s safe. The roof isn’t coated in ice. To climb that ladder we have to take each rung one step at a time. With each step we affirm the virtues we believe in. Look up and at the top of the ladder is Jesus, smiling and encouraging us to take one step at a time and not to miss one. Your ladder in the garage may have a sign that tells you not to stand on the top of the ladder, but that sign isn’t on our virtue ladder. In fact, standing on the top of the virtue ladder puts us side by side with Christ.

Prayer: Father, we are poised at the bottom of the ladder. Steady that ladder so that we end safely in your arms, free from the corruption of this world. Amen.