Reminders

By Samuel Parrish

“Therefore I intend always to remind you of these qualities [of a godly life], though you know them and are established in the truth that you have. I think it right, as long as I am in this body, to stir you up by way of reminder, since I know that the putting off of my body will be soon, as our Lord Jesus Christ made clear to me. And I will make every effort so that after my departure you may be able at any time to recall these things.”
2 Peter 1:12-15

There is little that grates on my nerves so strongly as a persistent nag: that inescapable voice stuck on replay, pointing out the tasks I have not completed punctually and accurately.  However, as I have grown in Christ, the Holy Spirit has gently revealed to me my overly broad definition and application of the term “nagging”. According to Peter, reminders are a blessing both to give and to receive, not a wearisome rehashing of our failures. So then, what is it about being told something we already know that puts us on the defensive? If we take an honest look at scripture, we will find that it provides us with a clear call to move away from seeing reminders as a burden and instead instructs us to embrace them as a blessing.

On the whole, we find reminders burdensome because we believe them to be boring.  We simply cannot endure the weight of simplicity and repetition, continually seeking stimulation to replace substance. Jeremiah writes in Lamentations 3 that God’s mercies are “new every morning,” and we have taken “newness” to mean “novelty.”  Yet, if we honestly search scripture, we find that God does not equate these two terms. In his work Orthodoxy, G.K. Chesterton says it this way:

“[Children] always say, ‘Do it again’; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, ‘Do it again’ to the sun; and every evening, ‘Do it again’ to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them.”

Have we become so accustomed to inventing new ways to sin that the thought of our Father’s constant, faithful, and steadfast love registers as dull? If so, perhaps we do need a reminder, a reminder of a God who has redeemed us that we might enjoy his pleasures forever more.

Our distain of “nagging,” or godly reminders, can grow further as we give our hearts to a misperception of authority. Even by calling godly counsel a “nag,” we assign ill-motive to the carrier of the message. Often, well-meaning believers treat spiritual authority figures with resistance, assuming that the relationship will consist only of one-sided reprimands that serve to embarrass and belittle. Peter’s words here should arrive as a great comfort to all as he expresses the goal of any godly leader: that God’s people would be healthy even in his absence. He does not shame them because of their forgetfulness. He does not point out where they have to grow. Peter has seen the days of testing ahead for both him and the Church, and wishes nothing more that they stand firm when those days arrive. As we receive and show grace to one another, let us receive these reminders as the blessing of encouragement they are meant to be. 

If we are in Christ, we can indeed heed the wisdom of our leadership free from defensiveness and shame. We are free to confirm our calling with brotherly affection and love, and in doing so, show the world the way to everlasting life.

A Great Lamp Shinning

By Samuel Parrish

“…And we[the apostles] have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.”

2 Peter 1:19-21

An adopted daughter looks for her biological parents; a middle school boy makes a cheat sheet for his final exam; a twenty-something stares into the night sky and wonders if something or someone is looking back. The search for what is true, what is real, stretches from the mundane to the metaphysical. In his second letter, Peter offers one measure of reality that yields the surest path to truth, even in the face of more personal, experiential evidence.

To make his point, Peter briefly takes his audience back in time. During their discipleship with Christ, Peter, James, and John journeyed with Jesus up to what many commentators call the Mount of Transfiguration (see Matthew 17). As Jesus stood between Moses—who represented the law—and Elijah—who represented the prophets—the three disciples experienced Jesus in a measure of his heavenly glory. They fell to their faces as the voice of God the Father spoke words of identity and satisfaction over God the Son. In one moment, the lordship and sonship of Jesus are confirmed miraculously. It is with this experience in mind that Peter addresses his present audience, asserting that even the transfiguration could not surpass the sure standard of reality found in God’s written word.

Although the presence of the glorified Son will one day fill our world with light, God has provided us with another light to guide us until his return: His written word. Peter compares our present age to a persistently dark place. He longingly anticipates the “morning star arising in our hearts,” a clear representation of Christ himself despite the use of this phrase in other passages of scripture to denote other theological concerns. Peter expresses hope for the day when “we will know fully even as he now knows us.” However, until that day, we are led by another light, the light of scripture.

Yet, there is a lesser light many try to travel by, the light of experience. The Mount of Transfiguration happened as Peter says it did. Matthew, Mark, and Luke record the event and other New Testament writers reference it repeatedly. We see no argument against Peter, James, and John that contests the reality of this experience. When we wish to meet with God, this is the “mountain top moment” in the New Testament we frequently reference. And yet, Peter says as real as this experience was, it was as incomplete as it was temporary. The light of this one experience would not be enough to prevent him from denying Christ before the rooster crowed. It would not produce the repentance necessary to bring him back into the fold. It would not confirm him as the voice of the gospel to the Jewish people after the resurrection and ascension. Each of those events points to a light and revelation greater than experience.

That greater light is predictably the light of God’s revealed word. In this persistently dark world, as we long for the dawn of that final, everlasting day, the words of men, and even our real “experiences with God,” are insufficient to light the way. By the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, we have been given God’s word preserved by faithful men and women over thousands of years. It is as authoritative in all that it teaches today as it was when the words were originally spoken and recorded. It is a faithful witness to past events, and an overflowing spring of hope as we look to the future.   When confronted with the darkness of our world, and even the darkness in our own hearts, we have a great light in the great gift of God’s word.