Sunday, July 3, 2011

Bible Study 2Peter 3 Discussion

Continuing from  Bible Study 2 Peter 3 Living in End-Times , the discussion is: 

a. watch out fro scoffers who would laugh at our teaching
b. God's delay of judgment is due to His love to have more people saved.
c. There is surely a judgment by fire coming to punish and remove the evils.
d. In the mean time, we are to prepare well for His coming.

Peter's world view on the creation and ending did not have the millennium of Revelation. Paul did not see that either. The key message of Peter is not about the absolute certainty of God's judgment on the evil, the wiping out and the establishment of a New Heaven and New Earth where only righteousness dwells. This is an answer and a warning to the false teachers and scoffers who claimed there is no God or God is not interested. 

Most people argued that if there were to be a God then He must be asleep or blind or cruel to allow the evil at the present. Peter told us that God will definitely punish the evil (he did with flood in the last time of Noah and will do with fire in future) and is not slow in coming. It is just that God wants as many to be saved as possible, there seems to be a threshold that will trigger the 2nd coming. God timing could be long 1 day as thousand years or could be sudden 1000 years as one day.

Some asked why the wait. Isn't there more people being borne and going to hell than going to heaven. Perhaps, we can say that God only count those that are saved. Or may be if you take the view that children before age of accountability will go to heaven. 

Nevertheless, we just have to trust God and do our part in the mean time. 

We are in fact to hasten the coming of God. Christ 2nd coming could be  hastened by us in the work of bringing more souls into heaven. Jesus did shared that a sign of of His coming will be the gospels being preached to the rest of the world. 

Preparation for His Coming
The mind map below summarized how we should prepare:






No comments: