2Peter 1:12-14 - Harps for Saints

2Peter 1:12-14

12-14 Therefore I intend always to remind you of these things, though you know them and are established in the truth that you have. 13 I think it right, as long as I am in this body, to arouse you by way of reminder, 14 since I know that the putting off of my body will be soon, as our Lord Jesus Christ showed me.

Peter is not ashamed to harp on the important things of doctrine. Here, he says that he intends always to remind the saints, regardless of how mature or learned they are - or think they are. He knows Israel’s history. He was right to be careful, for Israel’s history parallels that of the church. Israel knew God’s law. Israel had the covenants. Israel had Moses and the prophets. Yet Israel needed to be told over and over again.

Show me a professor of religion who thinks he knows it all and I will show you a person headed for trouble. Show me somebody who is not interested in hearing the gospels again , or the Exodus - or even the genealogies - and I will show you a person in deep spiritual danger. You cannot hear the gospel too often. You cannot sit under the preaching and teaching of right doctrine too much. The gospel is the power of God unto salvation to those that believe.

It isn’t over just because you made a commitment, prayed a prayer or walked an aisle. It isn’t over because you answered an altar call or two, or three or more. It’s not over because you had "an experience" that blew your socks off and made you feel spiritual. It isn’t, "Give me no doctrine but Jesus!" - an idiotic concept actually propagated by some poor souls, to their great peril. Peter is saying that he was quite happy to keep on repeating the same truths over and over again endlessly. And the implication is that he was ready to do so because we are all basically remedial learners who will forget it, ignore it or twist spiritual truth between hearings. At the very least we fail to apply it. We need to be exhorted, encouraged and, yes, rebuked and reproved to stick with what we have learned and to live it out.

The most terrifying charge that can be laid at the foot of any pastor or teacher is that he failed to keep on repeating accurately the whole counsel of God to those in his charge. He can be the most loving, the most gentle, the most gracious, the most kind person under the sun by mere human standards, but if a person accepting responsibility for God’s flock fails to feed them, then he is in terrible danger of God’s severest chastisement.

How do we know this? What was the Lord’s last recorded conversation with this very same Peter who write this epistle? "Do you love Me? Feed my sheep...feed my lambs...feed my sheep!" Did Peter start out that way and then sort of say, "You know what I’ve been feeding them for the last 20 years or so and I can take it easy now. They’ve all got it straight." No! He heard Christ say three times what he must do, and he never ever forgot it. Three times! Three assertions of an item signifies great importance, since three is the heavenly number most closely associated with God Almighty.

He is saying that until his dying day he will not stop reminding and exhorting them to grow in grace through the putting on of Christ. Virtue, knowledge, self-control, endurance, godliness, brotherly affection and love - all leading to godly wisdom. And all of this comes through applying the knowledge of the Word by the grace of God through the obedience of faith.