10. Peter - 1 Peter - and Canon
This is an odd “lesson” in our “Studies in Peter.” I do have these specific things I need to write for the JS2 and it is helpful to me to write them for the Zoom session. First, we want to consider Peter as a writer. Then, I need a brief description of 1 Peter, where it fits. I also have a page explaining why I do not include 2 Peter and Jude. The topic, there, is the “canon” of the New Testament. Two men ONLY decided what books are in our New Testament and what books are not, Jerome and Martin Luther.
In the layout of this lesson, I will first discuss each topic inside our overall study of suffering and the salvation of our souls, and then present the whole portion completed.
Peter’s Personality. What kind of a person was Peter? Peter is not the kind of personality I typically connect with. For that reason, I have rarely considered him. This study, however, has enabled me to appreciate him much more. You see, Paul, Peter, John, and Matthew, these men had very different personalities, yet they had one thing held deeply in common. They each loved Jesus.
Peter and Judas naturally conflicted with each other, and both acted very wrongfully in the same time of trial. But Judas was deeply cruel and calculating whereas Peter was a bit shallow, acting impulsively and thinking about it later. Regardless of any mistakes, however, Peter’s heart belonged to Jesus, and he swallowed his injured pride to follow Him.
Peter’s Greatest Test. The most significant test of Peter’s life, however, was not when he denied Jesus, but when Paul wrote Galatians. Peter could have denounced Paul and told everyone that Paul was teaching false doctrine. So many have done just that. It would have split the church. But Peter did not do that.
Paul’s words would have been deeply embarrassing to Peter, especially since his actions in Antioch were now being discussed by all Christians everywhere. Neither he nor John actually understood what Paul meant. Paul did not yet fully understand his gospel, either. But whereas Paul’s rebuke went deep into John, Peter had no such depths. Yet Peter’s decision came out from his heart, out from his love for Jesus. Peter just let it go.
Submission. In his response to Paul’s rebuke, Peter gave himself as an example to the entire church. Peter submitted to the Lord Jesus inside that rebuke. Peter justified God and found Him right and True. And Peter whispered in his heart, “Yes, Lord, You are right; I am wrong.”
All who become part of the Love of God made visible through His Church give this response to personal rebuke. With Peter, the rebuke was public, first, and then spread throughout the Churches. Typically, rebuke, according to Paul, should be gentle, personal, and private, seeking only to restore. But Peter was a leader in the Church; there could be no other approach when it came to the Gospel. This was not a spear, as Saul against David; it was the “bony finger” of God.
Suffering Produces Wisdom. It was through Peter that the gospel first came to those who were not Judaic, through a profound word and the demonstration of the Spirit. And Peter’s great failure when he denied the Lord, while its condemnation had been washed away by the Spirit long before, yet its wisdom remained. Now, we can see that Peter had been shallow and impulsive, yet 1 Peter Chapter 1 is almost the most profound and impactive presentation of the Gospel in the Bible, second only to Romans 8.
We now know, however, where to place the remainder of 1 Peter, which seems very negative at first glance. Inside of Chapter 1, the remainder becomes the same as James, not as defining the gospel, but as wisdom for the Christian life.
Peter as a Writer. Peter was the visible leader of the group of disciples, mostly because of his sometimes brash outspokenness. We think of Peter inside the interaction of the other disciples swirling around him. He would charge forward into faith as quickly as into unbelief and rejection. He was generally liked by most, but often conflicted with Judas who was cruel and calculating in contrast. More than that, Jesus respected Peter and honored his boldness, calling him a ‘Rock.’
All Judean boys were taught to read and write and to study the Scriptures. Thus, by world standards, Peter was ‘highly educated.’ Some think that the gospel of Mark, written early on, was by Peter’s direction. He did not write his letter, however, until just before his death.
Peter’s greatest test in life would have been when Paul wrote Galatians. Having all Christians read about his actions in Antioch and then asking him why Paul claimed that he, Peter, was not teaching the “real” gospel, would have been deeply conflictive. A leader who loved Jesus less would have denounced Paul and split the church; many have.
Paul’s rebuke went deep into John, for decades, but Peter would have, in the end, let it go. Why? Because Peter loved Jesus more. And because the great mistakes he had made in the past had given him a priceless treasure – wisdom.
Peter’s Chapter 1 is a profound exposition of the Gospel, yet the remainder of his book seems negative. Yet, when we speak Christ with Peter’s wisdom, our souls become whole. Peter’s wisdom came out from his own deep suffering. And we receive that wisdom with tears, from the heart of a man who, though he made big mistakes, like we have done, yet he always put Jesus first.
Under Persecution. We now need a description of 1 Peter that is not a repetition, but must still draw from his life and character.
Reece’s chronology puts 1 Peter at AD 64, around the same time that Titus and Hebrews were written. Reece then places Peter and Paul’s martyrdoms as happening together, either AD 67 or 68. This would have been under Nero. When Peter wrote his letter, Christians were being persecuted throughout the Roman Empire like never before. Christians were suffering. Word would have gone out that Philip and James the brother of Jesus had been stoned to death. Barnabas and Mark were about to be burned to death. Yet we know also that the love of God, poured out from each local assembly, was resulting in a rapid expansion of the knowledge and embrace of the Gospel.
In other words, when Peter said “the trial of your faith,” and “whom not having seen, you love,” he was speaking into that which was very real in the lives of many.
The piece describing 1 Peter need not be long. After I write it, I will add an outline of 1 Peter based on the headings of the major statements of faith. I will not include that outline here. It will be followed by a Jesus Secret box which I will include.
1 Peter. During the time Peter wrote his letter to the churches, Christians everywhere were suffering persecution. Many Christian leaders had already been martyred at this point. Philip and James the brother of Jesus had been stoned, and soon after Peter wrote, Barnabas and Mark were burned to death.
Yet at the same time, the church was growing rapidly out from the great love found among believers in Jesus. When Peter wrote about our faith proven through the fires of suffering and about our deep love for a Jesus we have not seen outwardly, he was speaking into the very real experience of his readers.
The first chapter of 1 Peter is a profound exposition of the gospel, second only to Romans 8. Peter’s intense purpose is to impart hope into his readers. Then, as we continue to read, we place all that Peter shares about suffering and about the dealings of God in our lives into the Gospel expressed in Chapter 1, the proving of our faith inside the unveiling of Jesus Christ.
Much of Peter’s letter then, we place in a similar vein as the letter written by James, that which imparts deep wisdom for the Christian life. All of which wisdom is found only inside the wondrous Gospel of the salvation of our souls as found in Chapter 1.
The Jesus Secret. My Beloved, keep your eyes always upon me. You do not see me outwardly, but you see Me through the eyes of faith, My own faith which I have given freely to you. As you see Me, so I impart Myself to you that you might become just like Me. In this way, you follow Me; in this way, I am revealed through you as others see the Love of our Father. Do not be afraid of any suffering or difficulty, for My grace carries you. In the midst of your joy, care for your brothers and sisters, for they belong to you, even as they belong to Me. Feed them, take care of them, and I will take all care of you.
My Anguish. I have completed the page on 2 Peter and Jude, and I have included it in this lesson, coming up. I do want to add some thoughts here that expand on what I share in that.
I have lived my whole adult life in anguish over my Bible. This anguish comes from five directions always together. The first anguish is my desperate desire to know God my Father at Home in my heart, that I might live. The second anguish is that the Bible itself is filled with two opposing words, a word of Life and a word of knowing good and evil. The third anguish is that the Bible is contradictory and confusing. If I am to live and not die, how can I know it, especially when God forbade me any attempt at “figuring it out.” More than that, Paul, who said, “My gospel,” is the most confusing and contradictory writer of all.
Lying about the Bible. The fourth anguish is that I hear and read people lying about the Bible ALL THE TIME. “The Bible says, the Bible says.” Yet I can see with my own eyes that it says the opposite. And so I have sought to know what God actually says, not that I might “figure it out,” but so that I might hide His True Words in my heart, in the desperate hope that God Himself would cause me to know Him by those words.
Yet I have sat there so many times, listening to preachers twist the words on the page to fit their agenda or to fit the theology they want to force on God or on us. This caused so much distress, yet I had no answer. The last time I sat under a preacher, the word was a modern Pentecostal paraphrase of the serpent’s words in the garden. I was filled with unbearable pain without escape.
Accusing God of Evil. The fifth anguish was there all along, but I did not recognize it until recent years. That anguish was the accusation against God, coming from every human direction, including Christians, that He knows evil. My heart always lived inside of Grace, but every other part of me lived in the awfulness created by such accusation.
I have sat under so much word, all of it anointed of the Spirit. Some of that Word was Life, but much of it was death. Some of it connected me with Jesus, but much of it turned me to see only sin in the flesh. Yet the terrible thing about all of it is this. No preaching by others over fifty years ever took me where I will go, into knowing my Father at Home in my heart.
The Grace of Asperger’s. It is no little thing for me to “translate” from the Bible myself, especially when I have had no professional training to do so. Yet I have looked at the Greek and then turned to look at the KJV and to listen to the Calvinist and Pentecostal preachers, and I see that they have LIED.
God gave me the GRACE of being Asperger’s. That means that I cannot bear to hear lies. It means that I don’t see myself as being anything “above” others. And it means that I don’t give a fig. (It also means I must often repeat myself .) 😊I will know and I will declare what God says to me through His Word without any deference to the Bible thumpers or to those who declare that God does not hear my cry. The “emperor has no clothes.” They are dishonest.
The Words of My Father. Because I have only my Bible that I might know God my Father, that I might live, I receive stewardship over what it says with great sobriety. I know the fear of God; I tremble when He speaks to me.
Because God also gave me a literary mind of reasonable ability, I remember much of the thousands of hours of word preached and much of the thousands of hours of reading and writing my Bible, that I might know God’s words. And I sift all of it carefully, not in my intellect, but out from my heart, that I might hear those words that are my Father arising as Springs of living Water inside of me as I write. Inside that same heart, I share my careful reasons why I do not include 2 Peter and Jude in the JSV.
2 Peter and Jude. I must here give an account of why I have not included 2 Peter and Jude as books of the New Testament canon. It is no light thing to treat with the Word of God, yet our Bibles are neither magical books nor the actual Word, which is Jesus Himself written in our hearts.
Yet we have been lied to about the Bible all our Christian lives. And we know that the enemy has sown his deceit even into the modern text, particularly in the KJV, as Jesus warned. Separating between tares and wheat is an impossible task, until now, the time of the harvest. Yet that separation must be accomplished only out from putting God’s desire first.
There are three reasons for my decision. The first reason was that no one accepted 2 Peter and Jude in any New Testament canon including Augustine. It was Jerome who inserted these two books, even though Augustine asked him not to do so. Then, Martin Luther, who did remove several books Jerome had included, chose to keep these as well, not knowing their actual history.
The second reason is that the Greek dialect in which these two books were written is mid-second century, about one hundred years after Peter and the brother of Jesus had died. This actuality is confirmed by more than one distinct and substantial source. This would be similar to the difference in comparing a letter penned by someone in 1921 with one written in 2021. They would share the same language, but be worded quite differently. In fact, whereas the reader in 2021 could understand fully the letter written in 1921, a person in 1921 would have a hard time understanding the letter written in 2021.
This means that Peter, the disciple of Jesus, and Jude, the brother of Jesus, could not have written those books any more than a man in 1921 could have written the 2021 letter.
The third reason is that both 2 Peter and Jude include a number of dark and fantastical things that contradict the gospel and do not fit the tenor of Scripture. The horror of this dark thinking together with the popular anti-Gospel interpretation of John’s vision, have worked destructive ideas and practices throughout church history.
The thing is, God can and does speak to us through anything. If Jesus reveals Himself truly to someone through the written words of 2 Peter or Jude, that is God-speaking. The problem is the lust of the human heart to exalt the flesh. And both of these books do exactly that.
I know from years of experience that the Calvinist mind draws much of its argument out from 2 Peter and Jude. Both books denounce Christians inside the fellowship, and their dark pronouncements were used to cause us to be suspicious of one another, to see “the flesh” in our brother and not Christ Jesus. I spent years in distress that I was most likely one of these “spots in the love feasts,” unless I “got my act together.”
This kind of preaching then takes this line from Jude, “But others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment defiled by the flesh,” to exalt the flesh as something far greater than Jesus. This becomes an utter rejection of Paul’s gospel that Jesus shares our flesh with us, that we are one flesh and one Spirit together. These lines were then used, directly, to teach us how Paul’s gospel was false.
Here’s the thing. The ruling verses of the Gospel are all we need to fill us with God forever. I have no interest in attempting to know a “God” who contradicts the Gospel of our Salvation by pursuing all the “books of Enoch” and whatever else is on offer. I know that I will spend ages to come writing about the ruling verses, seeking to know them, ages filled with overflowing Joy.
A Few Bright Points. As I read through Jude now, and Chapters 2 and 3 of 2 Peter, I find only the agony of the very Christian hell in which I lived for many years, that I was most probably one of those dark people being spoken against.
It’s not that there are not a few bright points. The last two verses of Jude are a wondrous declaration of Life. And I still retain the concept from 2 Peter that a “day” is a metaphor of a “thousand years.” At the same time, I have re-assessed the declaration that the earth will be cleansed by fire and realized how much we NEED that to happen, literally. But you see, I can sit and watch a movie and hear God speaking to me so many wondrous things out from particular things in that movie, without turning it into “the Bible.”
Calvinist Disobedience. God’s Word is Jesus written on our hearts by the Spirit, not words of ink on pages of paper accessed by our intellects. Here is the difference. Arthur W. Pink in his text, The Total Depravity of Man, took Paul’s list of Old Testament quotes in Romans 3, with more besides, and used those lines to weave such a web of darkness and despair. I glance across that same list, see Paul’s point – shut up about yourself, not one more word – and RUN into the God of my Salvation with all confidence and Joy.
Arthur W. Pink disobeyed Paul and the Gospel, for he not only refused to close his mouth concerning himself, but even more, he taught Calvinists everywhere to declare themselves to be EVIL in the very presence of the Father.
Into All Salvation. Sadly, too much of that declaration of evil in the presence of Salvation, comes out from the abuse of 2 Peter and Jude. There is a fundamental difference between 1 and 2 Peter. In Peter’s letter, we find a heart that loves Jesus. Although he could be negative, we find such wisdom regarding how we are just like the Lord Jesus Christ when we receive those words through the speaking of Christ. In the second Peter’s letter, we do not find the same quality.
Here’s the thing. There is enough power in 1 Peter to keep us, power to fill us with Grace inside the unveiling of Jesus Christ. And that Grace enables us to run with God through whatever difficulties we face, into all Salvation Revealed.
Reading for Next Time. We have two more lessons to complete our study of Peter, “I Set Forth My Soul for Others” and “I Care for My Brethren.” The more the Lord has taught us through this study, the more I have seen just how much the final lesson titles fit.
However, before finishing those last two pages in the JS2, which I don’t need to order the second proof copy, we must switch over to Symmorphy VII: Completion because the urgency of the Spirit has brought to me the fitting next part of that text, for we are in the last days. Next time, then, will be a Bridge titled “Operations of War.” For that you need to read Lesson 16.3, “How Power Works.” We are at war, and our war is for the sake of the Church.
Let’s Pray Together. “God, our Father, You have saved us and brought us into Yourself. Here, inside of You, You have turned us around that You might go forth as Salvation through us into all creation.
“We are willing, Lord Jesus, in the Day of Your Power, be the revelation of the Father through us. Our eyes are fixed upon the Church, our Christian brethren all across the earth, that she might be covered, that she might be clothed with You, Lord Jesus, that she might bring forth the knowledge of God into the knowledge of all.
“We know, Father, that it is through the faith of Jesus given to us that Michael and his angels are unleashed, that they might drive every single angel of false theology out from the minds of all whom You have given to Jesus.
“Father, teach us all that You mean by being Your highway, that we might be Your channel to enter into the knowledge of all who Love Jesus. Father, give us Your Word as Life and Light that Your people might know what is True, the moment the false is cast down. Enable us to impart that Word in power to our brethren.
“Father, we will not hold our peace, we will give You no rest, until You have made the Church of Jesus Christ, our Jerusalem, to be a praise and a wonder throughout the whole earth, that everyone will say, ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, that we might be taught of God.’ Be justified in all the You speak, Oh God, that Jesus might be shown Faithful and True in our lives given wholly to You. We know, Father, that You have indeed answered us.”