Word Magazine 91: 2 Peter 3:10

Note: I recorded and posted today Word Magazine 91: 2 Peter 3:10 (listen here).

In this episode I give an overview of textual disputes relating that have arisen related to this verse in recent years and offer some reflections why this textual matter is significant.

My notes for this episode:

Since the release of the NA 28, 2 Peter 3:10 has become one of the most contested verses in the NT.

Though I have made mention of 2 Peter 3:10 in several other WMs (see especially WM 27: Rejoinder: James White and 2 Peter 3:10), I wanted to do a WM that focuses primarily on the text issues related to this verse. I did a blog post on this back in September 19, 2014, but never did an audio version of that article, so I will be drawing upon (reading) it in this edition.

The background to this dispute is found in the fact that the NA editors, for the first time, applied the so-called Coherence-based Genealogical Method (CBGM), which has been used in the scholarly edition of the Bible known as the Editio Critica Maior (ECM), in the NA28 handbook edition of the modern critical Greek NT but only in the catholic epistles.

The NA28 (2012) lists 33 verses in the catholic epistles in which changes were made from the NA27 (1993) (see pp. 50*-51*).

The most significant of these changes are found here in 2 Peter 3:10 and in Jude 5 (change from “Lord” to “Jesus”).

See:

WM 73: The Coherence-Based Genealogical Method (CBGM)

WM 77: Jude 5

Here is the text study of 2 Peter 3:10:

I.  The Issue:

There is dispute about the ending of 2 Peter 3:10.

The traditional text (as reflected in the KJV below) reads (I have put in bold the English words for which I have supplied a transliteration of the Greek):

KJV 2 Peter 3:10 But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up [kai ge kai ta en aute erga katakaesetai].”

The NA 27^th edition of the modern critical text (as reflected in the NIV and ESV below) reads (again, I have put in bold the English words for which I have supplied a transliteration in Greek):

NIV 2 Peter 3:10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare [kai ge kai ta en aute erga eurethesetai].

ESV 2 Peter 3:10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed [kai ge kai ta en aute erga eurethesetai].

The difference between the two texts regards the final verb.  Should it read, as the traditional text does, that the works in the earth “shall be burned [katakaesetai, the third person singular, future passive of katakaio, to burn up or to consume]” or should it read, as the NA 27^th does, that the works of the earth “will be laid bare [eurethesetai, the third person singular, future passive form of heurisko, to discover or to find]?

There is, however, yet another major issue that emerges from this text which relates to the matter of conjectural emendation.  This issue, in fact, led to a change in the NA 28^th edition of the critical text.

The conjectural emendation is the insertion of the negative particle ouch.  The insertion of ouch is listed in the critical apparatus of the NA27 (see external evidence below) as a conjecture based on versional evidence.  In NA28, however, the conjecture moves from the apparatus to the text, so that a potential translation based upon the NA 28 would read (translation based on NIV; changes from NA 28 in bold and underlined):

2 Peter 3:10:  But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will not be laid bare [kai ge kai ta en aute erga ouch eurethesetai].

II.  External Evidence:

Here I will draw on the critical apparatus of both the NA27 and NA 28.

The traditional text is supported by the following:  A, 048, 33, 1739 (varia lectio), 2464 (with minor differences), and the vast majority of extant Greek manuscripts.  In addition, this reading is also reflected in the following versions:  The Clementine Vulgate, the Harklean Syriac, and the Bohairic Coptic.

The NA 27 reading is supported by:  Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, K, P, 0156 (possibly), 323, 1241, 1739 (as one alternative).  It is also found in a few Philoxenian Syriac manuscripts and a marginal reading in some Harklean Syriac manuscripts.

The NA 28 reading, which conjectures the inclusion of the negative particle ouchis not, of course, found in any extant Greek manuscripts.  It is, however, found only in the Sahidic Coptic, some manuscripts of the Philoxenian Syriac, and perhaps  in Dialect V of the Coptic (only probable coming from a citation from a Father).

There are also several other independent readings:

Eurethesetai luomena (will be found dissolved):  p72

Aphanisthesantai (will be ruined or destroyed):  C

katakaesontai (they will be burned):  5, 1243, 1735, 2492 [note:  This would apparently be a grammatical error, however, since the neuter plural would not take a plural verb.] 

Additional Note:  The NA27 also lists a number of other conjectures that have been made by various scholars for understanding the ending of v.10:

Bradschaw suggests that the adjective arga [the neuter nominative plural adjective from argos, -e, -on, meaning idle or useless) be inserted after the worderga in v. 10 so that the ending would read: “the earth and the things in it will be found useless.”

Other references in the NA 27 apparatus simply suggest a change for the final word:

rhysetai (to be saved or delivered):  Westcott/Hort

syrryesetai (to be swept away):  Naber

ekpyrothesetai (to be burn up):  Olivier

arthesetai (to be removed):  Mayor

krithesetai (to be judged):  E. Nestle

Metzger in his Textual Commentary notes these and a few others (see pp. 705-706; citations here and below are from the Corrected Edition, 1975).

III.  Internal evidence:

Metzger observes: “In view of the difficulty of extracting any acceptable sense from the passage, it is not strange that copyists and translators introduced a variety of modifications” (p. 706).

It is not altogether clear, however, why the traditional text would not be considered just as legitimate as the others.  In fact, it seems likely from the alternative suggestions that they are theologically motivated, attempting to offer an alternative to a reading suggesting that the earth will be burned or destroyed at the end of the ages.

IV.  Conclusion:

The traditional text rendering has ancient support.  It was the reading eventually adopted by the majority.  Even though the NA27 reading is supported by the twin heavyweight of Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, Metzger gives it only a “D” rating and despairs that none of the existing readings “seems to be original” (p. 705).

The NA 28 editors simply followed Metzger’s trajectory by offering a conjecturally emended reading which inserts the negative particle ouch, even though it is found in no extant Greek manuscripts and only weakly attested in the versional witnesses.

Some Further reflections:

1.    On theological factors:

The abandonment of the traditional reading in the 19^th century was primarily based upon adherence to the uncials (Aleph and B). One wonders, however, if it did not also have something to do with lack of comfort with the language of fiery destruction and judgment.

2.    On conjectural emendation:

This variant demonstrates that the current modern critical editors are willing to make conjectural emendations to supply what they believe to be the best readings. They are now guided by the CBGM and not by adherence to the uncials (or even the papyri, for that matter).

As I have pointed out before: It would be hypocritical to reject TR readings (like the CJ) simply based on weak ms. attestation if one has adopted a method that allows for conjectured readings based on no extant ms. evidence.

3.    On the modern critical text(s) of the NT:

One interesting phenomenon that seems to be taking place on a limited level is the emergence of multiple modern critical texts of the NT.

With the NA 26 (1979) there began a unified modern critical text, as the text (though not the apparatus) was brought into agreement with the UBS edition, both being under the same editorial control.

This period of unity (extending from 1979-2012) may be fracturing. There is no available the Greek NT SBL edition (2010) edited by Michael W. Holmes and, more recently, the THGNT (2017). The latter notably does not follow the CBGM reading at 2 Peter 3:10.

4.    Implications for translations:

No modern English translation of which I am aware has chosen, as yet, to adopt the NA28 reading in 2 Peter 3:10 with its conjectured “not.”

I think the first major translation to do so will likely be the “new” NRSV, which is being revised under the oversight of the SBL (see this post).

Finally:

Textual study of this single verse makes clear the contrast between the confessional view of text and the modern critical view. In the former there is textual stability and in the latter there is constant instability.

Garnet Howard Milne in the conclusion to Has the Bible been kept pure? (2017) makes clear that the problem is one of epistemology:

Although these textual critics and their supporters will proclaim they are fairly confident that they possess a mostly accurate text, their own presuppositions mean that they can never acquire complete certainty. Who knows what other ancient manuscripts might be located in the Jordanian desert which will now need to be added to the mix? (p. 301).

There is an alternative: the confessional text.

JTR  

The Vision: How knoweth this man letters?

Image: William Carey baptizes Krishna Pal, the first Indian convert to the faith.

Note: Devotion taken from last Sunday's sermon on John 7:14-24.

And the Jews marveled, saying, How knoweth this man letters, having never learned? (John 5:15).

Every so often a skeptic of Christ will arise who will claim that Christ was illiterate, and they will even point to this passage. But that is clearly misguided. This verse affirms that Christ was fluent in reading and writing. John says they marveled that Christ knew “letters [grammata],” an idiom to describe one who was able to read and write with fluency.

And we have other passages to support this as well, like:

Consider Luke 4 when Christ reads from Isaiah in the synagogue (cf. v. 17: “And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written”). This is not to mention all the other times when he quoted or made reference to the OT Scriptures, which he clearly knew well.

John 8:8 will speak of him writing on the ground.

Clearly Jesus knew Biblical Hebrew. He also knew Aramaic the language spoken by the Jews of his day (cf. Mark 15:34). And he likely also knew Greek and Latin, as well.

As the incarnate Son of God, truly a man, he had learned these languages in the ordinary manner. Cf. Luke 2:52: “And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.”

They did not marvel that Jesus was literate. They wondered at the source of his authority, because, to their knowledge, he had “never learned [the verb is matheteuo, which has as its root the noun mathete, disciple].” He had not been a disciple of one of the leading rabbis in Jerusalem, or, perhaps, even a disciple or student in a school of Greek rhetoric, and yet he had a natural, an innate ability to speak with authority.

This had been known by those around him from the time he was twelve and was found “in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them, and asking them questions” (Luke 2:46). Luke 2:47 adds: “And all that heard him were astonished at this understanding and his answers.”

What was there in the boy is here in the man.

We can draw here a point of application: As Christ had a preparation from the Father, which the unbelievers around him did not comprehend, so he is often pleased to grant ability to his humble disciples.

Consider Luke’s account of the apostles:

Acts 4:13 Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned [agrammatoi] and ignorant men [idiotai], they marvelled; and they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus.

Consider many years later the life and ministry of John Bunyan, the author of the spiritual classic Pilgrim’s Progress. Before his conversion and call to the ministry Bunyan had been a humble tinker with little formal education. John Owen, however, who had his degree from Oxford, would say that he would trade all his learning to be able to preach like Bunyan.

Consider William Cary, the first “foreign” missionary to India, who had been a cobbler. He would translate the Bible for the first time into Bengali, Hindi, Sanskrit, and several other Indian language and dialects.

Even as he himself came in humility, Christ uses humble men, that he might gain all the more the glory.

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle

Note: For a related topic: See WM 12: Was Jesus Illiterate?

Augustine on Scripture like a Firmament Spread Over Us

In Book XIII, Chapter XV on his Confessions, Augustine meditates on the nature and role of Scripture for believers.

He begins with a somewhat strange analogy between Scripture as being like the firmament of the heavens and like the skins that covered Adam and Eve after the fall (Gen 3:21):

Now who but thee, our God, didst make for us the firmament of the authority of thy divine Scripture to be over us?

In something of the same way, thou hast stretched out the firmament of thy Book as a skin—that is to say, thou hast spread thy harmonious words over us through the ministry of mortal men.

He then exults:

For we know no other books that so destroy man’s pride, that so break down the adversary and the self-defender who resists thy reconciliation by an effort to justify his own sins. I do not know, O Lord, I do not know any other such pure words that so persuade me to confession and make my neck submissive to thy yoke, and invite me to serve thee for nothing else than thy own sake. Let me understand these things, O good Father. Grant this to me, since I am placed under them; for thou hast established these things for those placed under them.

Finally, he reflects on the enduring nature of the Word:

The preachers of thy Word pass away from this life into another; but thy Scripture is spread abroad over the people, even to the end of the world. Indeed, both heaven and earth shall pass away, but they words will never pass away.

JTR

Augustine on God's Eternality and Time

In Book XI of the Confessions, Augustine meditates on the eternality of God and his relation to time. He answers skeptics who scornfully ask: What did God do before the creation of the word? Augustine’s answer is that God is eternal. He created time and is not within it. Every moment in time is equally accessible to him.

He cites the skeptics in chapter X:

Now, are not those still full of their old carnal nature who ask us: “What was God doing before he made the heavens and earth? For if he was idle” they say, “and doing nothing, then why did he not continue in that state forever—doing nothing, as he had always done?”

Augustine recognizes this as a challenge to the immutability of God, continuing to quote the skeptic:

“If any new motion has arisen in God, and a new will to form a creature, which he had never before formed, how can that be a true eternity in which an act of will occurs that was not there before?”

Augustine’s defense of God’s immutability is in his affirmation of God’s eternality. Of the skeptics, he says:

They endeavor to comprehend eternal things, but their heart still flies about in the past and future motions of created things, and is still unstable.

If the skeptics would rightly understand God and his creation of time, then they must distinguish between divine eternality and the temporal process. If they would make this distinction:

They would see that a long time does not become long, except from the many separate events that occur in its passage, which cannot be simultaneous. In the Eternal, on the other hand, nothing passes away, but the whole is simultaneously present….

Who will hold the heart of man that it may stand still and see how the eternity which always stands still is itself neither future nor past but expresses itself in the times that are future and past?

As for the skeptic who scornfully asks, “What was God doing before he made heaven and earth?” Augustine suggests one might answer: “He was preparing hell … for those who pry too deep.”!

In chapter XIII, he continues the theme:

For thou madest that very time itself, and periods could not pass by before thou madest the whole temporal procession. But if there was no time before heaven and earth, how, then, can it be asked, “What wast thou doing then?” For there was no “then” when there was no time….

In the eminence of thy ever-present eternity, thou precedest all times past, and extendest beyond all future times, for they are still to come—and when they have come, they will be past….

Thy years neither go nor come; but ours both go and come in order that all separate moments may come to pass….

Thy “today” is eternity…. Thou madest all time and before all times thou art, and there was never a time when there was not time.

And in chapter XIV:

There was no time, therefore, when thou hadst not made anything, because thou hadst made time itself. And there are not times coeternal with thee, because thou dost abide forever….

JTR

Christianity in the slave culture of ancient Rome

Image: Roman era mosaic from Tunisia, depicting slaves, c. AD second century

I’ve been reading aloud William Stearns Davis’ A Day in Old Rome (Allyn and Bacon, 1925, 1966) at the Latin table with my boys on Mondays. We recently covered a section on slavery in ancient Rome.

Davis notes that Roman farming handbooks solemnly classified farm implements in three categories (125):

I.                Dumb tools—plows, mattocks, shovels, etc.;

II.              Semi-speaking tools—oxen, asses, etc. that can bellow or bray;

III.            Speaking tools—slaves useful as farm hands.

He notes that under the emperor Hadrian an edict was issued “that a slave could not be killed outright by his master without some kind of consent by a magistrate,” a law which made “every owner of human bipeds” grumble. The edict, however, provided slaves “little practical help,” considering that a master could still order “a punishment so brutal that death is certain, and if he should murder a servant, slave witnesses can given no valid testimony, and almost no citizen will turn traitor to his class and prosecute. Half of Rome, therefore, continues in the absolute power and possession of the other half” (125).

Davis describes an imagined upper-class household (of the Calvus family). He notes that while the master and mistress might act kindly toward a few personal slaves, they ordinarily treat their servants “absolutely impersonally.” He says: “their presence is taken for granted like articles of furniture, and their personal problems are ignored” (132). And he adds that it is considered “good breeding to speak to ordinary slaves as seldom and then as curtly as possible, just as one should not waste words addressing a yoke of oxen” (133).

Reading this I thought of how strange the early churches must have appeared in such an environment.

Consider the household codes of Paul in Ephesians 6:5-9 and Colossians 3:22—4:1, which assumes slaves and masters worship Christ together.  Not only does Paul exhort slaves to “obey in all things your masters according to the flesh” but also masters to give to their servants “what is just and equal; knowing that ye have a Master in heaven” (Col 3:22; 4:1).

What of Paul’s admonition to Christians slaves to remember that whatever their outward estate they are “the Lord’s freeman” (1 Cor 7:22)? Or of his meditation in Galatians 3:28 that in Christ “there is neither bond nor free”? Or of his reminder to Philemon that the newly converted runaway slave Onesimus returned to him “not now as a servant, but above a servant, a brother beloved” (Philemon 1:16)?

It is no wonder then in Acts when Luke records an occasion when a Christian named Jason and other brethren were brought before the city fathers in Thessalonika, and their accusers cried out, “These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also” (Acts 17:6).

JTR

The Vision (1.26.18): The World's Hatred of Christ

Note: Devotion taken from last Sunday's sermon on John 7:1-13.

John 7:7: The world cannot hate you; but me it hateth, because I testify of it, that the works thereof are evil.

Notice three points here in Christ’s words to his unbelieving brethren:

First: The world cannot hate his brethren. Why? They were unconverted. The world’s wrath is not wasted on its own. Its true hostility is reserved for Christ and those who love him.

John has already given us this frank assessment of the spiritual state of Christ’s brethren: “For neither did his brethren believe him” (7:5).

Calvin notes that Christ’s experience with his brethren anticipates what will often happen in the daily experience of believers, “that the children of God suffer under greater annoyance from their nearer relations than from strangers; for they are instruments of Satan which tempt, sometimes to ambition, and sometimes to [greed], those who desire to serve God purely and faithfully.”

Second: The world hates Christ: “but me it hateth.” The world does not take a neutral stance toward Christ. It does not mildly dislike him but is filled with animus against him. And because it hates Christ, it hates those who are his own (his body). Consider Christ’s words to his disciples in John 15:19: “If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.”

Calvin says that the world (kosmos) here “denotes men who are not born again, who retain their natural disposition; and accordingly he declares that all who have not yet been regenerated by the Spirit are Christ’s adversaries.”

Third: The world’s hatred of Christ comes, because he testifies of it that its works are evil. The world hates Christ, because he exposes their sinful hearts. Consider Christ’s words in John 3:19: “And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.” Unconverted men love darkness rather than light. They love to have their sin covered up and covered over, even from their own consciences.

We should not, therefore, expect that Christ will receive universal adoration among men, nor should we expect the same. The world is hostile to Christ.

We are left to ask: With whom am I going to align myself? Who is going to be my ally? Whose opinion am I going to value?

Am I going to seek the world’s approval or Christ’s? Is my stance going to gain me the world’s friendship or its enmity?

Let the world stand against him, but we will stand with Christ.

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle

WM 90: Revew: The Sin of Certainty by Peter Enns

I just posted WM 90: Review: The Sin of Certainty by Peter Enns (find it here).

This is an audio version of a review I’ve written on this work:

Peter Enns, The Sin of Certainty: Why God Desires Our Trust More Than Our “Correct” Beliefs (New York: HarperCollins, 2016): 230 pp.

At the end, I suggest that this book illustrates at least three significant challenges within modern “evangelicalism”:

1.   The problem of inerrancy as a theological concept to the define the nature and authority of Scripture.

Many modern evangelicals have either stretched the term “inerrancy” so broadly or twisted it so perversely that it hardly means what earlier men meant by it.

2.    The dangers of the desire for academic respectability.

3.    The problem of epistemology.

Enns elevates uncertainty, doubt, and mysticism, rather than certainty, faith, and reason.

I hear the same sentiments expressed in Biblical studies by those who want a canon of books but not canonical texts, who want Bibles with multiple suggested variants but no certain text. Is the quest for certainty necessarily sinful?

JTR

Augustine on Ambrose's Practice of Pastoral Care

In the last post, I noted Augustine’s high esteem for Ambrose, expressed in his Confessions, Book V, Chapter XIII.

He returns to Ambrose in Book VI, Chapter III, noting that he esteemed him to be “a happy man, as the world counts happiness, because great personages held him in honor.” He adds: “Only his celibacy appeared to me to be a painful burden.”

Augustine also describes, however, how the great pastor seemed sometimes to be aloof, indifferent to him and others, or too busy to bother with him.

So he writes of Ambrose:

But what hope he cherished, what stuggles he had against the temptations that beset his high station, what solace in adversity, and what savory joys thy bread possessed for the hidden mouth of his heart when feeding on it, I could neither conjecture nor experience.

Nor did he know my own frustrations, nor the pit of my danger. For I could not request of him what I wanted as I wanted it, because I was debarred from hearing and speaking to him by crowds of busy people to whose infirmities he devoted himself. And when he was not engaged with them—which was never for long at a time—he was either refreshing his body with necessary food or his mind with reading.

Augustine notes how Ambrose (apparently strange for the times) would often sit and read in silence (as opposed to reading aloud): “Now, as he read, his eyes glanced over the pages and his heart searched out the sense, but his voice and tongue were silent.”

He recalls how he and some friends often went to Ambrose’s room “for no one was forbidden to enter” only to find the esteemed bishop reading to himself in silence. He then says:

After we had sat a long time in silence—for who would dare interrupt one so intent?—we would then depart, realizing that he was unwilling to be distracted in the little time he could gain from for the recruiting of his mind, free from the clamor of other men’s business.

Augustine confides: “But actually I could find no opportunity of putting the questions I desired to that holy oracle of thine in his heart, unless it could be dealt with briefly. However, those surgings in me required that he should give me his full leisure so that I might pour them out to him; but I never found him so.”

Though he did not get the personal, pastoral attention he desired, Augustine notes that still, “I heard him, indeed, every Lord’s Day, ‘rightly dividing the word of truth’ among the people.” This proved adequate slowly to unravel “all those knots of crafty calumnies” which the Manicheans “had knit together against the divine books.”

Though one might not necessarily commend Ambrose’s pastoral care methods, one can at least perhaps surmise that while there might not always be adequate time or opportunity for personal work, the public ministry of the Word can still prove effective.

JTR

Augustine on Ambrose: Friendly and Eloquent

In his Confessions, Augustine describes how, as a young man, he bounced from Carthage to Rome to Milan, picking up work teaching rhetoric along the way and dabbling in philosophy and Manichean theology.

In Milan he encountered the preaching ministry of Ambrose (c. 340-397), which eventually led to his conversion. Here is Augustine’s first description of Ambrose in Book V, Chapter XIII:

And to Milan I came, to Ambrose the bishop, famed through the whole world as one of the best of men, thy devoted servant. His eloquent discourse in those times abundantly provided thy people with the flour of thy wheat, the gladness of thy oil, and the sober intoxication of thy wine. To him I was led by thee without my knowledge, that by him I might be led to thee in full knowledge. The man of God received me as a father would, and welcomed my coming as a good bishop should. And I began to love him, of course, not at the first as a teacher of the truth, for I had entirely despaired of finding that in thy Church—but as a friendly man. And I studiously listened to him—though not with the right motive—as he preached to the people. I was trying to discover whether his eloquence came up to his reputation, and whether it flowed fuller or thinner than others said it did. And thus I hung on his words intently, but, as to his subject matter, I was only a careless and contemptuous listener.

This is a reminder to Christian preachers to strive for friendliness and eloquence as we conduct our public ministry. We never know how God might be pleased to be working among our hearers.

JTR

WM 89: Review: White and Kruger on Canon and Text @ G3

I just posted WM 89: Review: White and Kruger on Canon and Text @ G3 (listen here).

In this episode I offer some ex tempore comments on a few segments from a dialogue between RB apologist James White and NT scholar Dr. Michael J. Kruger on the topic of Canon. This dialogue was held on Friday, January 19, 2018 as part of the recent G3 Conference held in Atlanta, GA.

I begin by citing a quotation from Carl E. Amerding which I used in my recent paper on the ending of Mark: "Moreover, the development of an authoritative text is a natural corollary to an authoritative list of books."

White and Kruger argue that we must not conflate canon and text, but I try to point out that canon and text must necessarily be correlated to one another.

What good is accomplished if we affirm an authoritative canon of books but do not, in correlation, also affirm an authoritative text for those books?

Episode corrections/clarifications (One of the dangers of an ex tempore episode is getting a name, date, or fact incorrect.): Dr Kruger has a PhD from the University of Edinburgh (not Aberdeen; at least they're both in Scotland!); The 39th Festal Letter of Athanasius which listed the 27 canonical NT books, was written in 367, so it is from the fourth century, not the fifth.

JTR

The Vision (1.19.18): Lord, to whom shall we go?

Note: Devotion taken from last Sunday's sermon on John 6:59-71.

From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked with him no more (John 6:66).

Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life (John 6:68).

Reading this, you are left to ask: Which kind of “disciple” are you going to be?

Are you going to be the type who follows for a season, looking to get your stomach filled, but who then turns back when you don’t get everything you thought you were going to get from Jesus?

Or, are you going to be the type who says, Lord, if we did not have you, to whom else would we go? You have the words of eternal life.

The false disciples say, Jesus we can’t follow you!

The true disciples, however, say, Jesus we can’t NOT follow you. We have no other choice. We have no other option. We have no one else to whom we can turn. You are not one option among many for us. You are the only option for us.

The skeptic asks: How can you possibly follow Jesus? We say: How can we NOT follow him?

There is a saying among those called to ministry: If you can do anything else, do it.

This statement can be modified and applied to all believers: If you can follow anyone other than Jesus, follow him. But if you see in the Lord Jesus Christ the only one you could possibly follow, if you can’t NOT follow him, then follow him.

Profess your faith in him among men as Peter did: “And we believe and are sure that thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God” (John 6:69). Profess your faith in obedience in baptism as the Ethiopian Eunuch did: “And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God” (Acts 8:37). Finally, live for him who died for you.

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle