2 Peter 3:4 They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.”
What do these scoffers in the last days mock? We found out in chapter 1 that they were teaching wrong ideas about Jesus. From this point, everything else is down hill. If we do not understand correctly Jesus who is the truth of God, then our ethics and other aspects of theology will be wrong. In this verse, Peter is focusing on another wrong teaching these people have. They do not believe Jesus will come again. They may say that time is cyclical. In our day, people seem to make two major claims. Some people think we are living in the end times, and so they come up with elaborate charts to show where we are in the timeline. At the other extreme are those who deny this and speak of Revelation and other passages as timeless and that Jesus is not coming soon. In between these two ideas are those who live with the expectation but do not try to overly precise. The scoffers about whom Peter is writing say that there nothing has changed, life goes on, Jesus is not coming again. The warning is that we must never lose the sense of urgency and expectancy as believers. Denial is a close cousin to laziness in mission. We must be driven by the hope of Jesus’ coming again. This is one thing that can help us in our difficult times.
For older posts, click here.