Why Read the Bible? / 2 Peter 1:20-2:10

The Most Owned, Least Read Book

If you would, go ahead and pick up your Bibles and turn to 2 Peter chapter one. We’re going to be looking at verses 20 and 21, and then we’re going to go into the first ten verses of chapter two. That’s where we are headed tonight as we continue our series through 2 Peter.

As you’re turning there—speaking of the Bible—I recently read a stat from a survey showing that at least 88% of Americans own a Bible. It’s probably even higher than that. In fact, the majority of people who own a Bible have way more than one—the average household has something like 4.5 Bibles. I don’t know how you get half a Bible, but there you go. Yet, in that exact same survey, only 37% of people read it even once a week.

When I saw that, I thought, Man, 37%. On one hand, I wasn’t that surprised. But on the other hand, it’s shocking. And honestly, if somebody calls me up for a survey and asks, “Hey, do you read your Bible?” I almost feel tempted to lie and say, “Oh yeah, absolutely!” So I wonder if the real number is even lower than 37%. And for those who say they read it once a week, do they just mean what we’re doing right here on Sunday? Opening it up for church, and that’s it?

Why don’t we get into God’s Word on a regular basis on our own? It is God’s Word, right? We all know that. This isn’t just a book written by good men with nice ideas. It’s not a collection of people writing what they thought God should say. These are God’s actual words. When I think about it like that, I have to ask myself: Why am I not reading this more? Why are only 37% of us opening it during the week?

Peter was addressing this very issue. Last week, we looked at how Peter closed out the first chapter by telling his first-century audience how crucial God’s Word is. They struggled with getting into Scripture too, relying instead on other voices and directions in life. Peter reminded them that they would do well to pay close attention to it, because Scripture is like a lamp shining in a dark place.

2 Peter 1:19 (NASB)

[So] we have the prophetic word [made] more sure, to which you do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star arises in your hearts.

In a dark world, God’s Word is the light that reveals truth to us.

Divine Inspiration: Not Human Will, but God-Breathed

Peter immediately follows that up in verse 20 by explaining just how unique and incredible this book really is.

2 Peter 1:20 (NASB)

But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is [a matter] of one’s own interpretation,

These are not just the thoughts of human authors to be interpreted however anyone feels like interpreting them. Scripture isn’t meant to merely spark an idea in us so we can sit around and figure out what we subjectively think about it.

Now, don’t get me wrong—application is vital. But application is entirely different from interpretation. We can sit in a circle and say, “We just read this truth from God’s Word. How is that truth working out in your life?” One person might apply it in their workplace, and another in their marriage. That’s application.

However, some of us cross the line from application into interpretation. Instead of applying the truth God has revealed, we start arguing about the truth itself: “Did God really mean that? Is that actually true? It looks like that’s what He said, but surely He couldn’t mean that.”

We do this all the time. I’ve fallen into this trap myself. We want advice, so we go to a Christian we respect and ask, “What do you think God’s Word says about this situation in my life?” They tell us the biblical answer, and we don’t like it. So what do we do? We do our own polling. We go find somebody else. They give us a similar answer, but we keep asking until we find that one person who finally says, “You know what? In your situation, God totally understands. He’s forgiving anyway, so it’s fine.” And we think, I love that answer!

We keep asking everyone else what they think God thinks, when we hold in our hands the actual words of God. Scripture is not open to our personal spin. It’s not about hunting down a verse out of context and wiggling it around until it fits our lifestyle. There is objective truth that God has revealed, and we are called to lay our own will aside and accept His.

2 Peter 1:21 (NASB)

for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.

Do you see what Peter is saying? This book was not produced by human will. Men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.

How the Bible was delivered to us is utterly miraculous. How did it happen? When Peter or Paul sat down to write, did they suddenly go into a trance, black out, and wake up with a pen in hand saying, “Whoa, look what I just wrote!”? No, Scripture says they were moved—literally carried along by the Holy Spirit.

When you read Paul’s letters or Peter’s letters, you see their distinct personalities, their passions, and their individual writing styles. So when Peter wrote to the churches in Asia Minor, was it a letter from Peter or a letter from God? The answer is a resounding yes. God worked through human authors without erasing their unique personalities, ensuring that every word was precisely what He intended.

Paul writes about this in his second letter to Timothy.

2 Timothy 3:16 (NASB)

All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness;

When we hear the word “inspired” today, we think of being influenced by someone. But the Greek word Paul uses literally means God-breathed. Right now, as I am speaking, you are hearing “PJ-breathed” words. To speak, I have to take air into my lungs and push it past my vocal cords and lips. In the same way, the Scriptures have come from the very mouth of God. They are not merely human words; they are God-breathed.

The Miraculous Preservation of Scripture

It is mind-blowing how God used diverse authors across centuries and continents to write this unified book. But you know what might be even more mind-blowing? The preservation of Scripture.

If you’re anything like me, you have a critical mind. For a long time, I wondered: Okay, I believe it was God’s Word when originally written, but hasn’t it become corrupted over thousands of years? After all, it was copied by hand over and over. Couldn’t someone have accidentally left something out or deliberately changed it to fit their agenda?

People often claim that history or religious institutions corrupted the text. But when you look at the historical evidence, it completely destroys that claim.

Consider Julius Caesar. He is one of the most well-documented figures in ancient history. We know he was assassinated on the Ides of March in 44 BC by Brutus and the Roman senators. How do we know that? We rely on ancient manuscripts. The earliest manuscript we have documenting Julius Caesar dates to about 1,000 years after his death. And do you know how many ancient copies exist? Around ten. In ancient historical terms, ten copies within a thousand years is considered remarkably good evidence.

The second most reliable ancient document in history is Homer’s Iliad. It was composed around 900 BC. The earliest manuscripts we have date to about 500 years after it was written, and historians have cataloged 643 ancient manuscripts. Scholars are confident that what we read in the Iliad represents the original work.

Now consider the New Testament. It was written in the first century AD. The earliest manuscript fragments we possess date to within 25 to 50 years of the original writings. And while Homer has 643 manuscripts, the New Testament has over 24,600 ancient Greek and early translation manuscripts! When you compare the earliest fragments to copies made centuries later, the text is overwhelmingly consistent. It has not been corrupted.

The Old Testament evidence is just as astonishing. Prior to the 1940s, our oldest complete Old Testament Hebrew manuscripts dated to around 900 AD—roughly a thousand years after the Old Testament was completed. Critics claimed the text must have evolved over that millennium. But in 1947, the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in the caves of Qumran, containing manuscripts dating back to 100 to 200 BC.

When scholars compared the Dead Sea Scrolls with the manuscripts from 1,000 years later, they matched with breathtaking precision. Aside from minor spelling and grammatical variations, the text was identical. Statistically, the mathematical probability of that degree of copying accuracy over a thousand years is calculated at roughly 1 in 750 sextillion. It is a historical miracle. The same Holy Spirit who inspired the Scriptures has supernaturally preserved them for us today.

Moving Beyond Being Spoon-Fed

Why was Peter emphasizing this so strongly to his readers?

Historically, Peter was nearing the end of his life. The apostle Paul had already been martyred. The believers in Asia Minor had leaned heavily on Paul, and now they were leaning on Peter. But Peter knew he wouldn’t be around much longer. He wanted to anchor them to something that would never die, never change, and never fail: the Word of God.

Peter was telling them, “You cannot keep living on a spoon-fed faith. You cannot simply rely on godly leaders to tell you what God says. You have to eat for yourself.”

Mentors, pastors, and Life Group leaders will not always be there. If our faith is anchored only in a human leader, when that leader is gone, our faith collapses. But if our faith is rooted in the eternal Word of God, we have an immovable foundation.

Are you relying on God’s Word because you read it yourself, or are you just relying on other people to read it for you?

I’ll be honest: I am not a natural reader. People in the office tease me about it all the time. My wife, on the other hand, loves to read. She’ll read a book, tell me all about it, and then I’ll walk into a meeting and reference it like I read the whole thing! But there’s a huge difference between knowing about a book through someone else and actually engaging the book yourself.

Many Christians do that with the Bible. We read books about the Bible, listen to podcasts about the Bible, and talk to people who know the Bible, but we don’t read the Bible itself. Devotionals and Christian books can be great, but they are human words. The Bible is God’s actual voice.

Guarding Against False Teachers and Exploitation

We must know the Word for ourselves because false teachers are constantly trying to distort the truth.

2 Peter 2:1 (NASB)

But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will also be false teachers among you, who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves.

Peter warns that false teachers will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even redefining who Jesus is. And people will follow them.

2 Peter 2:2-3 (NASB)

Many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of the truth will be maligned; and in [their] greed they will exploit you with false words; their judgment from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.

Peter says they will “exploit” you with false words. In the original language, that word “exploit” is a commercial trading term meaning to cheat, swindle, or make merchandise of someone.

Have you ever bought something thinking you got an incredible deal, only to realize later that you got completely ripped off? That happens when we don’t know the product. A salesman hypes it up, tells us it’s rare and valuable, and because we haven’t done our research, we buy into the lie.

That is exactly what false teachers do to Christians who don’t know God’s Word. We know just enough scripture to get into trouble, but not enough to spot a counterfeit. Someone comes along with a message that sounds spiritual and appealing, and because we don’t know the authentic product, we get swindled.

God’s Faithful Judgment and Rescue

When we see false teaching and ungodliness spreading, we naturally wonder: Why doesn’t God put an end to this? Why does He let them get away with it?

Peter assures us that God is not asleep. He gives three historical examples to prove that God always judges unrighteousness and rescues His people in His perfect timing.

2 Peter 2:4-6 (NASB)

For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness, reserved for judgment; and did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, with seven others, when He brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; and [if] He condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction by reducing [them] to ashes, having made them an example to those who would live ungodly [lives] thereafter;

First, God judged the fallen angels who rebelled against Him, committing them to darkness until the day of judgment.

Second, God brought the flood upon the ancient world, but He preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, along with seven others.

Third, God turned the corrupt cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, demonstrating His judgment against ungodliness.

Notice that in every case, judgment was certain, but it did not happen overnight. God was patient. Yet, when His judgment fell, it was decisive. Alongside His judgment, God demonstrated His faithfulness to rescue the righteous.

2 Peter 2:7-8 (NASB)

and [if] He rescued righteous Lot, oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men (for by what he saw and heard [that] righteous man, while living among them, felt [his] righteous soul tormented day after day by [their] lawless deeds),

Lot lived in Sodom, surrounded by immorality and corruption. Scripture says his righteous soul was tormented day after day by what he saw and heard. Yet God delivered him.

2 Peter 2:9-10 (NASB)

[then] the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment, and especially those who indulge the flesh in [its] corrupt desires and despise authority. Daring, self-willed, they do not tremble when they revile angelic majesties,

God knows how to rescue the godly, and He knows how to hold the unrighteous for judgment. He will make all things right in His time.

Engaging the World with God’s Truth

Like Noah and Lot, do we know God’s truth well enough to recognize the darkness around us and stand firm in it?

I want to leave you with three practical takeaways:

1. Know the Word so you cannot be swindled. The only way to spot a counterfeit is to be intimately familiar with the real thing. Read Scripture for yourself so you can immediately discern false teaching.

2. See the culture through God’s eyes. Like Lot, when you know God’s holiness, you will recognize the brokenness and self-centeredness of the world. It shouldn’t make us arrogant or judgmental, but it should cause our hearts to ache for a culture that has lost its way.

3. Speak righteousness into the darkness. Like Noah, who was a preacher of righteousness, we are called to hold up the torch of God’s Word in a dark world. We must engage our culture with grace, love, and unapologetic truth.

The only way we can faithfully represent God to the world is if we know His heart, and the only way to know His heart is to open this book. Let’s read God’s Word. Let’s study it and treasure it above every other voice in our lives.

Closing Prayer

Lord, thank You for Your Word. Thank You that You did not leave us in the dark, but You gave us Your breathed-out, infallible truth. Thank You for supernaturally preserving it throughout generations so that we can hold it in our hands today.

Give us a hunger for Scripture. Help us not to be content with being spoon-fed by others, but teach us to feed ourselves on Your truth. Protect us from being deceived by false ideas, and give us the courage to be lights in a dark world, speaking Your righteousness with grace and love.

We commit ourselves to knowing and living Your Word. In Jesus’ name, Amen.