Thursday, March 26, 2026
Scripture Readings
- Primary Reading: 2 Peter 2-3
Key Verse
2 Peter 2:21 — “For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them.”
Devotional Thought
Peter writes his second letter to believers who are about to lose their apostolic shepherds, and he spends most of it warning them about voices that will rise up after he is gone. False teachers will slip in “privily,” with “feigned words,” promising liberty while they themselves are “servants of corruption.” Peter is not vague about their character: they despise authority, their eyes are “full of adultery,” they “cannot cease from sin,” and like Balaam they love “the wages of unrighteousness.” He is equally specific about their end. God did not spare the angels that sinned, nor the old world in Noah’s day, nor Sodom and Gomorrha, which He turned “into ashes.” Yet in the same breath Peter holds out Lot, a righteous man whose soul was “vexed from day to day” by the filthy conversation around him, and declares, “The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations.” Judgment is certain, but so is deliverance.
Then Peter lifts his eyes to the horizon. Scoffers will come in the last days asking, “Where is the promise of his coming?” They assume that because the world has continued unchanged, it always will. Peter answers with the flood that already happened and with fire that is yet to come. The delay is not slackness; it is longsuffering, “not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” And the day will arrive “as a thief in the night,” when the heavens pass away with a great noise and the elements melt with fervent heat. “Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be?”
Late March is a fitting season for such a question. The last patches of snow are shrinking, the ground is softening, and gardeners are turning over soil in preparation. Peter is doing the same work in us: turning over the ground of the heart before the Day comes. His final charge is not frantic but steady — “be diligent that ye may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless.” And then the last verse, the one that gives the whole letter its upward tilt: “But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.” Guard against error, yes. But guarding is not enough. The best defense against false teaching is a soul that is actually growing in the true knowledge of Christ.
Reflection
- Peter describes false teachers as “wells without water” — promising refreshment but delivering nothing. Where in your life are you drinking from sources that cannot actually satisfy?
- Peter says the Lord’s delay is longsuffering, “not willing that any should perish.” How does that change the way you pray for and speak to someone who does not yet know Christ?
Prayer
Lord, we live in the last days, and we confess that our hearts are easily drawn aside by swelling words and promises of liberty that only bind. Keep us from being “led away with the error of the wicked.” Teach us to stand steadfast, and more than that, to grow — in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Thank You for Your longsuffering, which is our salvation and the salvation of those we love. Make us diligent to be found of You in peace, without spot and blameless, looking always for the new heavens and new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. To You be glory both now and for ever. Amen.