2 Peter 3:11-18 BibleGateway.com
These verses from 2 Peter are part of the daily-appointed readings for Advent. This text is normally read on the Friday before the third Sunday of Advent—readings of Isaiah’s blooming desert and Matthew’s John the Baptist. The themes of preparation and waiting are what we live in and move through in this season. But 2 Peter’s waiting has an edge to it.
This book, with its apocalyptic attitudes about this world’s corruption and its warnings about the judgment to come, is not sleep-inducing bedtime reading. Instead, these are words that provoke uncertainty, even anxiety, as we read about “[t]he coming day of God, because of which the heavens will be set ablaze and dissolved, and the elements will melt with fire” (v. 12). Many of us resist the theology these verses suggest: The world is corrupt and irredeemable; we can only hope for righteousness and peace in the new heavens and the new earth; we must be watchful lest we be carried away in error. The lectionary system sets these verses next to John the Baptist. John the Baptist is also anxiety producing—announcing the Lord’s winnowing fork and the judgment between wheat and chaff.
At its heart, though, the announcement is still this: The kingdom of heaven has come near. The kingdom of heaven in the person of Jesus Christ comes to the corruption of this world and redeems. Waiting for the day of God, then, is a way of living now according to the reality that God wills for all creation.
Prayer: Stir up the will of all who look to you, Lord God, and strengthen our faith in your coming, that, transformed by grace, we may walk in your way; through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
Amen
Jennifer Lord
Associate Professor of Homiletics
Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary
CLICK HERE to listen to each day's devotional.
These verses from 2 Peter are part of the daily-appointed readings for Advent. This text is normally read on the Friday before the third Sunday of Advent—readings of Isaiah’s blooming desert and Matthew’s John the Baptist. The themes of preparation and waiting are what we live in and move through in this season. But 2 Peter’s waiting has an edge to it.
This book, with its apocalyptic attitudes about this world’s corruption and its warnings about the judgment to come, is not sleep-inducing bedtime reading. Instead, these are words that provoke uncertainty, even anxiety, as we read about “[t]he coming day of God, because of which the heavens will be set ablaze and dissolved, and the elements will melt with fire” (v. 12). Many of us resist the theology these verses suggest: The world is corrupt and irredeemable; we can only hope for righteousness and peace in the new heavens and the new earth; we must be watchful lest we be carried away in error. The lectionary system sets these verses next to John the Baptist. John the Baptist is also anxiety producing—announcing the Lord’s winnowing fork and the judgment between wheat and chaff.
At its heart, though, the announcement is still this: The kingdom of heaven has come near. The kingdom of heaven in the person of Jesus Christ comes to the corruption of this world and redeems. Waiting for the day of God, then, is a way of living now according to the reality that God wills for all creation.
Prayer: Stir up the will of all who look to you, Lord God, and strengthen our faith in your coming, that, transformed by grace, we may walk in your way; through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
Amen
Jennifer Lord
Associate Professor of Homiletics
Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary
CLICK HERE to listen to each day's devotional.
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For the glory of God and to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ, Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary is a seminary in the Presbyterian-Reformed tradition whose mission is to educate and equip individuals for the ordained Christian ministry and other forms of Christian service and leadership; to employ its resources in the service of the church; to promote and engage in critical theological thought and research; and to be a winsome and exemplary community of God's people.CLICK HERE to learn how you can support the mission of Austin Seminary
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