Trail Guide to the Scriptures: 2 Peter

By Shane L. Bishop

Trail Guide to the Scriptures: 2 Peter is your step-by-step guide to traveling the path of 2 Peter and uncovering the treasures it holds: traveling its twists and turns, climbing its challenging sections, being awed by its breathtaking views, and letting it form and inspire you.

With Reverend Shane Bishop - pastor, history nerd, r

• Language: English
• Publisher: Invite Press
• Release date: Feb 6, 2024
• ISBN: 9781953495983

Shane L. Bishop

Shane L. Bishop has served as the Senior Pastor of Christ Church in Fairview Heights, Illinois, since 1997. With his strengths of vision casting, preaching, teaching, soul winning and leadership, Christ Church weekend worship attendance has increased under his leadership from 200 in 1997 to over 3,000 each week in 2021. Shane graduated cum laude in 1992from Candler School of Theology at Emory University.

Book preview

WELCOME TO THE TRAIL

The inspiration for this series of books began with a single prompting of the Holy Spirit. I had been teaching verse-by-verse studies of entire books of the Bible in our Wednesday evening services at Christ Church in Fairview Heights, Illinois, when a question emerged: Why not turn these studies into a series of books? Why not turn these messages into a set of commentaries for regular people? Is it possible to write a series of books that are so engaging that folks can’t put them down? These books could be used as personal devotionals, group studies, churchwide studies, and background research for preachers and teachers.

I next went in search of a metaphor, and all I had to do was look outdoors! Hiking in wild places is one of the simple pleasures of life. In our younger days, my wife Melissa and I would take day trips almost every weekend in our Jeep Wrangler. Our vacations were spent in the Smoky Mountains. We would choose a place to hike, pack a cooler, set out from the trailhead, and launch out to see what we saw. We viewed some wonderous things and continue to have unforgettable experiences! Every vista, bubbling brook, surging waterfall, and wildlife sighting was exciting! And it was great! Until it wasn’t. After a few years, we had hiked so many of the familiar trails so many times that some of the luster had diminished. Even in the most beautiful of places, what has become predictable can also become invisible.

Then we discovered the transforming power of a trail guide. Trail guide in hand, familiar paths once again became unexplored as the hills and mountains offered previously unseen sights, just off the trail overlooks, almost hidden scars from the past, and echoes of previous lives. These new wonders offered testimony to both devastating forest fires and clear-cutting and to the healing and restorative power of God’s Creation. These guides enabled us to see familiar things with new eyes and offered context that truly made old things new! Our times on the trail have become even more rewarding because we now know something of the forgotten people who have walked these trails, played in these streams, lived off of this hard land, and worked these fields before us. Hearing their stories and singing their songs, walking into their remaining cabins and churches, and feeling their struggles continue to enrich us and flood our imaginations.

The Bible is very much like a mountain trail. You can simply read Scripture and the Holy Spirit will speak, if your heart is open. But after a while, reading the same material over and over from the same point of view can fail to engage us. We know we should read the Bible, but too often it becomes a dutiful chore rather than a faith adventure. What should be in full view becomes increasingly invisible to us. Might I be so bold as to request the honor of being your trail guide to the Scriptures? I would be thrilled to walk alongside you as you encounter God’s Word and to share my experience spanning four decades of preaching, academic study, historical research, and challenging insights and my many pilgrimages in the land of the Bible. Let me give you some tips for your journey, show you some magnificent views, and open a world before you that you may have only suspected to have existed at all!

Welcome to the Trail Guide to the Scriptures!

I pray the narrative that sprawls before you will offer tremendous rewards for both the novice and experienced Bible reader. I hope to sweep you up in the narrative, tell a few stories of my own, offer some lessons for living, and relay the author’s intent. I will treat each book as a single unit, place it in a historical context, and respect the fact that biblical authors wrote the way they wrote and what they wrote for a reason. We will simply walk the trail in front of us and do so until we come to the end. Then we will open the cooler, grab some cold drinks and sandwiches, and reflect upon our collective journey.

In the first book of this Trail Guide to the Scriptures series, we traversed 1 Peter verse by verse. In this edition, we will turn our attention to 2 Peter. I will warn you at the outset, it is a much steeper trail. I pray that when we have completed our journey, not only will you better understand 2 Peter, but you will strengthen your connection with Jesus Christ.

Are you ready?

I am.

Let’s go!

TRAILHEAD: 2 PETER

Every adventure worth taking involves risk. When we read the Bible, we dare to believe that God, the creator of everything, would speak to us. The risk associated with God is that he will change our entire world. By drawing us closer to Jesus Christ, we risk relationships, profession, hobbies, and our identity.

However, every adventure worth taking involves substantial reward. As we open our hearts to the word of God, we allow ourselves to accept love, peace, and joy. We begin to see the world through fresh eyes because our perspective shifts. It’s in these moments we realize what used to be scary is now exhilarating.

Trail Guide to the Book of 2 Peter is an adventure worth the risk. Rev. Shane Bishop will guide you along the well-worn trail of the Apostle Peter. The trail of Peter presents many challenges, but with the direction of your trail guide, you will be able to withstand and even appreciate the tests. As you navigate 2 Peter, write your thoughts on the events in each chapter and how the Scripture affects you. Answer the questions that are presented with honesty and sincerity and copy or memorize your favorite verses. The goal of any journey is not simply to finish but to be changed along the way.

Also, I would recommend traveling this journey with someone else. Peter did not serve or evangelize alone, and neither should we. Invite a friend, co-worker, family member, or spouse and make memories together. Discuss the scenery as you traverse the book of 2 Peter, and you will be surprised that your viewpoint is unique compared to that of your traveling companion.

Finally, open your heart to the word of God and the experience of Rev. Shane. If you do, you will not end this adventure the same way you began. In the words of Peter, you will face many trials, but if you endure them, your faith will be proven genuine. Welcome to the trail.

Kevin Siddle, Director of Adult Education, Christ Church,

Fairview Heights, Illinois

2 PETER TRAIL INSTRUCTIONS

LENGTH: SHORT

DIFFICULTY: DIFFICULT

My first task when approaching a book of the Bible is to place it in a historical and geographical context. If possible, it is of benefit to know who wrote it, why they wrote it, and to whom it was written. By engaging these presenting issues from the outset, we are reminded that the Bible didn’t happen once upon a time in a land far away, it happened in a specific time and in places we can still visit today. Some books come with excellent historical markers while others offer far fewer clues. In the end, you do your best research, pray a lot, make your best hypothesis, then pick a side and play.

We will do just that!

I believe 2 Peter was written soon after 1 Peter and just before the traditional date of his martyrdom in AD 64. This would land our proposed date of the writing two or three years before the First Jewish Revolt in AD 66. I will work from this assumption knowing that if I am wrong, I am not wrong by much.

Let’s get our heads around Peter’s world. The Romans ruled the Mediterranean and all that surrounded it. The region of Israel, then known as Judea, served as a troublesome but minor province to the extreme east. All roads led to Rome. On July 19, AD 64, a fire began in the city of Rome. The fire raged for six days, then reignited and burned for another three days. Two thirds of the city burned to the ground. The Emperor, Nero, may have burned the city down himself because he wanted to rebuild it and could never have gained the political support he needed to do so. With Rome still smoldering and rumors flying, Nero needed a scapegoat to divert attention from the fact that he had motive, all circumstantial evidence pointed to him, and the fire touched neither his property nor the property of the people closest to him.

Enter the Christians. This fledgling movement had emerged from Judea some thirty years prior and centered upon the life and reported resurrection of a Jew named Jesus of Nazareth. The Roman Governor Pontius Pilate had crucified Jesus in Jerusalem to shut down a perceived revolutionary movement but this situation proved particularly problematic. The central claim of his followers was that Jesus of Nazareth had risen from the dead, and there were still plenty of living eyewitnesses. His disciples, led by Peter and John, his brothers, and emerging leaders like the apostle Paul, had started a sect within Judaism. It soon developed a theology too distinct to be Jewish and too potent to be contained. Its adherents claimed the movement to be fueled by an invisible and irresistible force they called the Holy Spirit. Though burgeoning, Christianity was unpopular, even scandalous, among those not adhering to it. Like Jesus of Nazareth himself, this movement was a threat to both Judaism and Rome. As Christianity distanced itself from Judaism, it forfeited specific legal protections that the Romans had exclusively offered the Jews. From the Roman point of view, Christians refused to worship the emperor, refused to pledge ultimate allegiance to the Empire, wouldn’t worship Roman gods, and flatly repudiated the lucrative pagan temple-industrial complex. Christians were perceived as unpatriotic, civilly disobedient, bad for commerce, and bad for morale, and that made them vulnerable. It was a perfect storm.

Persecution of Christians in the aftermath of the great fire intensified and spread from Rome to the provinces. It amped up from limited to sporadic to relentless to sadistic. It was reported that Nero rolled Christians in pitch and used them in his garden as human torches. In addition, some Christians were exposed to wild, starving animals for public entertainment in the coliseum. To most Romans, Christians seemed much