Jensens survey of the old testament adam 588
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222 Peter: True and False Prophecy
About three years after Peter penned his
rst letter to saints in exile, the Spirit moved
him to write again. The second epistle is
shorter, but no less important.
I. BACKGROUND
There are not as many personal references
in 2 Peter as there are in 1 Peter.
Nevertheless, a fairly accurate picture can
be composed concerning the epistle’s
background.
A. AUTHOR
The opening verse of the epistle identi es
the author as Simon Peter, an apostle of
Christ. This Petrine authorship has been
challenged by critics, who have maintained,
among other things, that internal evidence
points to a date later than Peter’s lifetime,
and that the style of the second epistle
differs from that of the first.
External evidences of the church’s early
acceptance of 2 Peter as one of the inspired
books of the New Testament canon are
relatively scanty. For example, the epistle is
not quoted directly by any of the church
fathers before Origen (c. A.D. 250).1 By the
end of the fourth century, however, the
book’s rightful place in the canon was
recognized by the Christian church. The
arguments favoring Petrine authorship are
strong. Consider these internal evidences:
1. The name of Simon Peter appears in the
text (1:1).2
2. The writer is identi ed as an apostle of
Jesus Christ in 1:1.
3. The writer refers to an earlier epistle
having been written by him to the same
readers (3:1).
4. The writer was a close friend of Paul
and had read many if not all of Paul’s
epistles (3:15-16).3
5. Autobiographical references in the
epistle are about Peter. Read these:
a. Mount of Trans guration experience
(1:16-18; cf. Mark 9:2-9).
b. Christ’s foretelling Peter’s death (1:1315; cf. John 21:18-19).
B. DATE AND PLACE WRITTEN
Peter wrote this letter from Rome around
A.D. 67, when his death was imminent (1:14;
cf. 2 Tim. 4:6, concerning Paul).
C. DESTINATION
From 3:1 we conclude that the Christian
exiles addressed in 1 Peter also received this
letter. Others besides them may have been
addressed in the second epistle, however.
D. OCCASION AND PURPOSE
In his rst epistle Peter had much to say
about opposition to Christians originating
outside the group, in the form of
persecution. In this epistle he refers mostly
to the more serious danger originating
inside the group, namely, apostasy and false
teaching. Thus his purpose in writing the
epistle was to expose the false teachers and
instruct the Christians on what they should
do to combat the ugly threat of apostasy.
The following further comparisons of 1
and 2 Peter reveal more of the purposes of
this second letter of Peter.4
