2 Peter 3

The third and final chapter goes apocalyptic. It still speaks directly to our age. Peter the eye witness to Jesus prepares the church for a very long period of wondering if it was real.

Paul was similar as his death loomed, very aware of the many ways the church could lose its message. Aware of the threat of self serving false teachers as Peter was in chapter 2. Also, as here, aware of fatigue, when the promises of justice and the true perspective of god’s rule gets lost and seems increasingly irrelevant as years roll by and the concerns of everyday life seem bigger. It’s like Jesus’ parable of the weeds. Some things steal the word and others strangle it.

Peter reminds them of god’s time scale …1000 years are like a day to God… Then vividly describes the day of the lord in terms straight from the prophets. The promise of a new heaven and a new earth implies the destruction of the old.

This day of the lord is such a powerful concept, a constant reminder that God is in control, with the harsh irony that chaos can reign. The best and worst day of your life is a day of the lord. When disasters strike, they are days of the lord, and we take encouragement in that to believe we can get past them.

But it is also the end of time. To describe the day of the lord, the prophets hold in unresolved tension dread and a joyous time in which there is no more fear. They are both always present. It is terrible and wonderful.

It is the eternal truth that God loves all of us even when it does not seem so. Believers are on the side of the angels: be sure you stay there for the long haul, Peter is saying.

Amen!

Kelly’s mediation at work was epic (5 hours!), and not very satisfactory. They listened to her, seemed to really understand what the issues were, but in their attempt to negotiate a win for all they effectively demoted her. She was recruited as the assistant manager. That role, it turns out, doesn’t really exist. It’s more a tradition.

Kelly did question why she would want to be assistant manager if it doesn’t pay any more, back when she started. Her boss said no one is ever a manager unless they have been an assistant manager. It’s meant she has the second set of keys to the shop and could open up, close up, and run it to relieve the manager.

End result: Kelly complains of bullying, she gets demoted. Then told to carry on working with her bullies as an equal, stripped of the authority she has had for a year. She also got what she wanted: sharing of work on the till, which she had been made to do all day every day, except a strict half hour for lunch. So everyone gets a win. Good result?

We’ve had a bad run. But they are days of the Lord, right? It certainly does help, regular contact with god’s word. Peter is right about that. The scriptures, the prophets, constantly in drip feed, in church, at home group, in this blog. It does help counter the constant pull in the other direction to get lost in the plans, problems, temptations and immediacy of this world.

Praying for Kelly, walking into a workplace where her bullies are doing a victory dance.

2 Peter 2

A long rant against false prophets. Talk of judgement and hell in the bible is so often reserved especially for those who should know better. Church leaders, members elders and teachers who betray God’s message.

It’s partly a word of encouragement. God knows about it, God will sort it out. Don’t despair that the wrong people seem to be thriving in church. Peter piles on scriptural precedents of the few being saved and destruction coming to those who refuse their revelation.

Noah in the ark. Lot, protected from the fire that rained on Sodom and Gomorrah. Fallen angels chained in hell awaiting judgement. God punishes, and spares, as appropriate.

I liked the verse “They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of depravity—for “people are slaves to whatever has mastered them.” It’s a picture of teachers who bring people down again just as they are being freed by the truth.

In my experience all of the church is a bit wrong, a bit slave to the evils of whatever cultural context it’s in. But it’s not often as lacking in sincerity as what Peter describes, so this is a warning away from the path of corruption, as well as a stark condemnation to comfort those who are suffering from evil in the name of the church. 

The people running the salvos stores should be more ahead of some of the stuff that goes on there. Kelly has acted with the best intentions and been hated for it. It’s so unfair and such a bullying environment.

It might come to a head today in a mediation between her and a staff member. It all got too much last Friday and Kelly left in tears. I just hope it goes well. She has already reached a place of some peace about it, which is good.

I pray for her, for some relief from the pressure she’s been under. That may mean leaving her job or not, it’s all good.

2 Peter 1

First up, what we can do. Accepting the gospel truth starts us off with faith, but there’s more stuff we can do.

Peter explains it as realising promises to participate in God’s divine nature. That takes it out of a sense of us working away at our salvation, this is us knowing the grace of going deeper into God’s saving power and creator vision for us. Peter says doing this stuff will make us effective and productive, and not nearsighted. Able to see forward to god’s kingdom.

What to actually do, what to increase in, is quite easy to understand: Goodness, knowledge, self control, perseverance, godliness, mutual affection and love.

Like the last letter, he’s more about the journey than the destination. These are values and ways of interacting, challenges in the moment. Not milestones or destinations that can be ticked off like KPI’s.

The second half of the chapter is about hope, and reveals a personal purpose for the letter.

He’s aware his death will come soon. He wants to assure us one last time of the authenticity of his eye witness of Jesus.  He’s documenting his experience and thoughts so we have them after he’s gone.

It ends with a reminder of the value of the prophets, something I’ve been struggling with a bit as I try to write songs based on the minor prophets. He assures me that those human words are of God, carried along by the holy spirit:

“you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.”

v19

Our family could use some light.

Lewes has fallen into a pit of despair after he made an effort for Centrelink and it came to nothing. It’s hard to describe how rare hope is for him. He had a glimmer of it, I want to work and pray to get it back.

Daisy is very unhappy.  And hard to help, because she’s focused a lot of her anger over it on us. We just make it worse at the moment, but she’s suffering and suffering, and it feels like there’s virtually no path for us to do anything that would make it better.

Kelly has had a blow up at work on Friday and has a mediation tomorrow that is likely to mean continuing is untenable. She has to front up for the first time again today, Monday. If the mediation is unsatisfactory, it would be a victory for quite terrible bullying. I’ll be praying for that one today and overnight.

And I keep doing my care work, more and more of it is coming in. I’m taking a fairly punishing schedule over these two weeks, but then I’ll try to actively manage it to suit me. It’s easy to burn out in this kind of work. It can get intense. And I’ll continue to look longingly at the el Dorado of a better paid desk job somewhere, but good money and easy work looks increasingly out of reach for me.

Rennie is relatively happy, but hedonistic. Happiness is good though, it will do me for now!

I love church, but I need to balance all this up against it too, care for family.

So I try to take to heart once again this message of letting go my nearsighted desires and destinations and focussing on the quality of my interactions in the moment, to bring forward God’s Kingdom. The present and the far are where we should live, according to the bible. The medium term has many distractions.

God tells Job that the morning stars sang together at creation. Job may be suffering, but there is a purpose to the universe, which someone more almighty than him set in place before time immemorial.

Peter says that the prophets’ words of justice and truth are rays of light that start to shine into dark places and strengthen over time to the rising of the morning star in our hearts. My actions can deepen my faith and open God’s grace up to me like that dawning of hope.

I hope so!