09 Who are the glorious ones and why are they reviled? (2 Peter 2:10-12)

Krisan Marotta: Thank you for joining me today for Wednesday in the Word. I'm Krisan Marotta, and this is the podcast where we explain not only what scripture means, but how we figure it out. This is the ninth talk in our series on the book of 2 Peter. The lecture notes for today's talk are on the link below the podcast, and you can find them on the website wednesdayintheword.com slash 2 Peter 9. And today we are going to cover the third major interpretive challenge in the second chapter of 2 Peter. Let me review where we are. Peter is writing to churches who are troubled by false teachers, and these false teachers are distorting the apostolic gospel. He doesn't tell us exactly what they're teaching, but we can kind of piece it together from the clues. And one of the things they're doing is deceiving believers into leading immoral lives. In chapter one, Peter insisted that the apostolic gospel is a revelation from God, in contrast to the message of the false teachers, which is a message of their own imagination and invention. And then in chapter two, he attacks the false teachers directly, denouncing them, and sometimes his methodology is challenging. Peter says these false teachers claim to be teaching the true gospel when in fact they're rejecting it. It may look like they're prospering now, but God will judge them. In our last podcast we looked at Peter's examples from history of when God responded with judgment and when God responded with mercy, and the overall point he made in that section was that the Lord will rescue the godly, as evidenced by Lot and Noah, and that he will certainly and surely judge evildoers as represented by the fallen angels, Noah's contemporaries, and Sodom and Gomorrah. Peter sounded both a message of warning and a message of encouragement, and his message was yes, God is coming to judge, but God will rescue his people. There's a right way and a wrong way to approach God and to seek his mercy, and the false teachers are leading you astray, teaching you the wrong way to approach him, and you dare not listen to them because eternity is at stake. Even though Peter's main point in this section is relatively clear, sometimes his methodology is challenging. There are three big interpretive problems in this chapter. The first one is the similarity between Peter and Jude, and we talked about why they are so similar and why that might be the case. Then we looked at the problem of why both Peter and Jude appear to quote from a book outside the Bible, a book that is part of the pseudopigrapha. That was in 2 4, and today we're going to look at the last of the really difficult interpretive challenges. Then you'll be happy to know after today's section, the coming material gets a lot easier. I admit I was tempted to skip over the issues in chapter two and just teach the main point and move on, but I decided to wade into the weeds and take you through the challenges. We're going to face today both difficult interpretive questions, that is, what did Peter mean to say? And we're also going to face difficult application questions, that is, what did Peter mean for us to learn? And as with any difficult passage, I may certainly be wrong in my understanding. This is my best guess with the information I have now, and I reserve the right to change my mind as I learn and study more. We're going to start in the middle of verse ten. You'll remember that chapter two, verses four through ten A are one long sentence, and we stopped at the end of that sentence in the last podcast. So we're picking up in the middle of the verse today with a new sentence. Peter has just said that God will surely rescue his people and preserve them through trials, and that he will also keep those who rebel against him for the coming judgment. He will refer to they in this in these verses, and I think that pronoun is those who are marked for judgment, the false teachers he's been talking about. So these false teachers who indulge in defiling passions and despise authority as he just said. So I'm going to read from the middle of verse ten through verse thirteen. Bold and willful, they do not tremble as they blaspheme the glorious ones, whereas angels, though greater in might and power, do not pronounce a blasphemous judgment against them before the Lord. But these, like irrational animals, creatures of instinct, born to be caught and destroyed, blaspheming about matters of which they are ignorant, will also be destroyed in their destruction, suffering wrong as the wages of doing wrong. Verse thirteen goes on, but the sentence stops here, so we're gonna look at the rest of thirteen in the next podcast. Let's talk about the issues we can be fairly certain about, the ones we can have some confidence that we are understanding them properly, and then we're gonna go back and look at the challenges. Peter calls these false teachers bold and willful. That's the ESV. I think the New American Standard has daring and arrogant. They do not tremble when they revile the glorious ones. That's the English Standard Version. The New American Standard has angelic majesties. The word is simply glory in the plural, and we're going to talk about how to understand it in a minute. But what we can say is that whoever these glorious ones are, Peter thinks they are so far above the false teachers that the false teachers should be trembling when they speak against them. This is like the lowly peasant daring to call out the most powerful king of the land. The peasant ought to think twice before sticking his neck out like that, but he's too arrogant, he's too bold and willful to see that he's acting foolishly. So while the false teachers should be in awe of these angelic majesties, the false teachers are blaspheming them instead. The false teachers see themselves as superior, as in a position to criticize when they ought to be trembling. Peter then contrasts the behavior of the false teachers with the behavior of angels who are greater in might and power. So these angels do not act like the false teachers are acting. They don't blaspheme, they don't revile the glorious ones. The false teachers are blaspheming something they shouldn't, whereas the angels of greater might and power do not act this way. And then finally, Peter compares the false teachers to unreasoning animals. So let's talk about what he means there. Human beings are made in the image of God. We can make moral judgments, we can decide complex and delicate ethical issues, we can make distinctions between right and wrong and choose to do what is right even when it costs us. By contrast, these false teachers appear to have abandoned that power to reason morally and to make these kinds of ethical distinctions, and they're just acting like animals, following their instincts without restraint and without thought of the consequences are right and wrong. Now if you've had pets, you've seen this. You know that cats will play with their prey should they happen to catch a mouse, for example. That's just how cats are. And we know that dogs will act a certain way when they're threatened, they may bite someone if they feel like they're cornered. That's what dogs do. But we human beings have this capacity to assess a situation and decide should I act this way or that way? We can decide whether our instincts are leading us in the right direction or the leading us astray. For example, we can pause and reflect and consider whether the anger we feel is right or wrong in a particular situation and whether or not we should act on it. And what Peter is saying is these false teachers have abandoned that ability to reason and they're acting on instinct like animals instead. Now such animals are destined to be captured and destroyed because they present too much danger to others. And that kind of destruction is what's going to happen to the false teachers. That's the comparison Peter's making. I don't think Peter has abandoned the issues of the false teachers reviling the glorious ones. I think he's tying the two issues together here in verse twelve. And the analogy of the unreasoning animals is used to describe the false teachers reviling things of which they have no knowledge. He's repeating the idea he began in verse 10 as of blaspheming the glorious ones, even though they don't really know what they're talking about. So we can say with some confidence that in chapter two verses ten through twelve, Peter is giving another example of the evil of the false teachers which will lead to their destruction, and that example is a bold arrogance shown in the way they revile and mock the glorious ones. They should in fact be trembling to be so bold as to talk this way, especially when the greater angels themselves do not act like this. Now that explanation leaves us with a lot of questions. Primarily, who are the false teachers reviling? Who are these glorious ones, these angelic majesties, and who are the greater angels? And why would the false teachers engage in this behavior anyway? How does Peter know that these greater angels don't practice this kind of behavior? And then finally, what are we supposed to learn from this example? Would I have learned the right lesson from this story if I refrained from saying bad things about angels? Well it sounds like as long as I keep myself from reviling angels, I'm good. I've managed to avoid the problem he's describing. But that seems a bit strange. Bad mouthing angels is not really a problem in our culture today, and it's hard to believe that it would have been a problem in Peter's day, so we have to ask the question, what else could be going on? Now again, I am not claiming to have all the answers here, but at least I can explain some of the choices and the options we have for putting this together. Sometimes we encounter passages that just don't seem to give us enough information to figure out what's going on, and in those passages we have to tread carefully and with a great deal of thought and humility. This is how one of my mentors explained it. Interpreting these kinds of passages is like you're walking down a road and you come to a fork in the road, and now you have a choice, do I take path A or path B? It's not clear which way I should go, but let's say I decide okay, B seems a bit more likely. So I'm going down road B and I come to another fork in the road. And now I have to choose whether I take road number one or road number two. And maybe I'm still not certain about which one is right, but I pick two because something about it makes it seem right. And this kind of choice keeps going. Now I have to choose between X and Y, and maybe this time I pick X. And if I stop and consider where am I, then I would see oh I'm at B two X. But someone else following the same road might have ended up at A1Y, and someone else might end up at B two Y, and someone else might be at B two X. Because we came to these interpretive forks in the road and we made a different choice. And if I make the wrong choice at any one of those forks in the road, I end up in the wrong place. Now I would like to say that Bible students never make the wrong choices when they face these interpretive questions, but the fact is all of us make them all the time. Especially when the passage is really difficult like this one. In any case, we arrive at an interpretive conclusion, but we have to recognize that our conclusion is based on a series of choices that we made along the way, and any one of those choices could be wrong, or all of them could be wrong, or maybe none of them are wrong. This is a process that we ought to take with a great deal of thought and humility, realizing that we have lots of room to make mistakes. We may have good reasons for making the choices we make, or maybe they're just the best we can do with the information we've got at the time. So we have to acknowledge that with passages like this one, it could have gone the other way. Maybe there's one piece of information out there that I missed or that would tip the scales to another choice. So with that in mind, we're gonna take a look at the interpretive forks in the road of this little passage. And I'm gonna tell you which choice I lean to right now, but I hold these conclusions very lightly and I recognize that I could easily be wrong. Before we look at the first choice, let me remind you that the second chapter of Second Peter and the Book of Jude parallel each other very closely, and I have argued that Peter wrote first and that Jude writes later. I think that Jude liberally and intentionally quotes from Peter. Now there are scholars who disagree with me on that, but that's the perspective I'm coming from. So when I look at this passage, I'm gonna look at Jude to help me understand Peter. So I want to bring in Jude verses eight through ten. This is the parallel passage, and it reads Yet in like manner these people also, relying on their dreams, defile the flesh, reject authority, and blaspheme the glorious ones. But when the archangel Michael, contending with the devil, was disputing about the body of Moses, he did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgment, but said The Lord rebuke you. But these people blaspheme all they do not understand, and they are destroyed by all that they, like unreasoning animals, understand instinctively. That's a little confusing on its own, but notice that both Jude and Peter speak about these defiling desires of the flesh, they both speak about the false teachers rejecting authority and blaspheming the glorious ones, and they both talk about their lack of understanding and how they act instinctively like unreasoning animals. So in two hundred eleven, Peter says, Whereas angels, though greater in might and power do not pronounce a blasphemous judgment against them before the Lord, and then Jude, he doesn't say the same thing, but he says something that seems to be related. This is verse nine of Jude. But when the archangel Michael, contending with the devil, was disputing about the body of Moses, he did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgment, but said The Lord rebuke you. Now that sounds to me like Jude is giving an example of the statement that Peter made. So Peter says the angels who are greater did not give a reviling judgment against these glorious ones, and Jude says specifically that the Archangel Michael did not rebuke Satan. Well that sounds like an example of Peter's point. So hopefully we can use Jude's example to understand Peter, but first we have to know where Jude got this story of the Archangel Michael fighting with Satan over the body of Moses. There is no such story in the Old Testament. But there is an ancient book called The Testament of Moses. It's one of those early Jewish writings. It's not part of the Bible, it's not divinely inspired, and no complete copy of the manuscript survives today. We just have fragments of it. To make matters worse, the part that's missing from our copies of this document is the ending, and that seems to be where this story about Michael and Satan and the body of Moses comes from. Other Jewish writers talk about the ending of the book and they say it tells the story of the Archangel Michael and Satan fighting over the body of Moses. Later writers also refer to Jude and tell us that this story comes from the document known as the Testament of Moses. Now we have run into this issue before of what are they doing, these authors of the New Testament, when they are quoting non-biblical sources. We looked at that in earlier in chapter two, where Peter and Jude both seem to quote from the book of Enoch. I'm not going to go through all that again, but I would say, I would answer the same way that they are quoting from popular literature. That Jude by quoting this is not elevating this book of Moses to the level of scripture by quoting it. Rather, he's quoting popular literature of his day, which he expects his readers to be familiar with. Just like I might quote Harry Potter or Star Wars, not because I believe them to be true, but because I believe you listeners will know what I'm talking about because you're familiar with these stories. So keep that in mind as we examine this first fork in the road. So this is fork in the road number one. And that is, is it legitimate for me to use Jude to better understand Peter? That's an interpretive choice. I would answer that yes, it is legitimate, but other scholars might say no. Many people think that Jude wrote first and that Peter later borrowed from him, and if that is true, then Peter has taken Jude's specific statement and summarized it into the general case. And if that's what is going on, it would be better to use Peter to understand Jude than vice versa, because it would appear that Peter had taken Jude's example and said here's the point he's making. Now as you know, I've argued that Peter wrote first and Jude borrowed from him. And if that's the case, then Peter is making the general statement, and Jude is giving us a specific example or an application of Peter's statement, and in that case we would want to use Jude to understand Peter. Now you'll notice in both of these questions I've just given you, I have assumed that Peter and Jude intend to make the same point. Well, that's another interpretive choice. That is in a sense another fork in the road. My contention is that these chapters parallel each other in such a way that the authors intended to make the same points in the same order. But again, that's a choice I've made. That's one of the forks in the road. So far then, we have made three interpretive choices at this first big fork in the road to help us decide which way to go. And those interpretive choices are Peter wrote first and Jude borrowed from him. Number that's number one. Number two, both authors intend to make the same or at least very similar points. And number three, we can use Jude to understand Peter where it's appropriate to do so. So the first fork in the road was can how do we approach Jude and Peter? How do can we use Jude to interpret Peter? And I have answered yes based on those other three interpretive choices. Okay, fork in the road number two. Who are the glorious ones? This is the big issue. The ESV translates this words glorious ones, the NASB translates it angelic majesties. Literally it is the Greek word for glory in the plural. And this seems to be a very unique and a very unusual way to use this word. Both Peter and Jude use the same word and they both seem to use it in the same unusual way. Besides Peter and Jude, there is only one other place in the New Testament where we see this word in the plural, and that happens to be in first Peter. This is in first Peter chapter one verses ten and eleven. Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was yours searched and inquired carefully, inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories. There's our word, and that was the English Standard Version. The NASB says seeking to know what person or time the spirit within them was indicating as he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow. Now in that context it seems fairly clear that Peter means glorious things as opposed to people. He is predicting the glorious consequences that will result from the sufferings of Christ. In our context, in Second Peter two, the word seems to be a personal pronoun, that is referring to beings or persons, not some kind of events or results. It's hard to imagine how you could revile glorious events or consequences in this in this context. It just seems to make more sense that they would be blaspheming or reviling glorious beings. And if Jude is giving an example of Peter's general principle, as I have supposed, then we see Jude giving an example of people or beings, and that adds weight to the choice. Okay, so who are these glorious ones? In the context of both Peter and Jude, it does seem that they are talking about. About supernatural beings or angels. Could you take it another way? Yes, this is one of those forks in the road. And at this fork, I'm going with the NASB with saying it appears to be angelic majesties or angels of some kind. We're talking about supernatural beings that God created who don't share our humanity. Okay, fork in the road number three. Second Peter two eleven, whereas angels who are greater in might and power do not bring a reviling judgment against them before the Lord. Who is them? Who is the them in two hundred eleven? What does this pronoun refer to? Well it's not particularly clear. One choice is that the them, the reviling judgment against them could be the false teachers. And he's saying the angels don't bring a reviling judgment against the false teachers, even though the false teachers are reviling the angels. So we see the angels turning the other cheek, so to speak, and not responding with the same kind of hostility. And that is a valid option. But I think the parallel passage in Jude suggests another option, and remember I have suggested that Jude is giving an example of the statement that Peter makes. Peter says angels who are greater did not give a reviling judgment against these glorious ones, and Jude says specifically that the archangel Michael did not rebuke Satan. Jude one nine reads this way, this is the NASB, but Michael the Archangel, when he disputed with the devil and argued about the body of Moses, did not dare pronounce against him a railing judgment, but said the Lord rebuke you. In Jude's example, Michael did not bring a reviling judgment against Satan. So the pronoun him in Jude is the devil or Satan. The fact that Michael did not condemn Satan is a specific example of these greater angels not condemning the them, as Peter says. So Michael would be a member of the greater angels, and Satan would be a member of the this pronoun them. That understanding then would include Satan, but it would rule out the false teachers because they would not be included in this class of glorious supernatural beings. And in this case they appear to be glorious supernatural beings who have rebelled against God in some way and are now worthy of rejection and judgment. And these rebellious angels would be part of the angelic majesties in two hundred ten and would be the them in two eleven. So this option would understand Peter to be saying that the false teachers don't hesitate to revile supernatural beings, whereas angels who are greater than human beings, greater than these human false teachers, do not revile such supernatural beings. The false teachers are reviling these angelic beings even though other angels dare not make that condemnation. And that would explain the parallelism between Jude and Peter, because Jude says Michael isn't condemning Satan, he's leaving that kind of judgment in the hands of God. And that seems to be his point. That he did not take matters into his own hands and make that judgment, even though Satan was worthy of it, rather he left it to God to pronounce that kind of judgment. Okay, fork in the road. Number four. What are we talking about? When we're talking about false teachers reviling angelic beings, what are the false teachers doing and why would they do such a thing? Satan doesn't exactly have a sterling reputation in the New Testament. In fact, everyone in the New Testament talks negatively about him. He is not ever talked about in a positive light. So what are the false teachers doing that Peter doesn't like and that Jude would give an example like this? One option is that the false teachers don't believe in angels at all and are talking down angels in general. We know from history that the Sadducees held that position, they didn't believe in anything supernatural, and perhaps the false teachers are following their lead, and they don't believe in the existence of angels and thus they are mocking them, and that's one possible interpretation. Another option follows the clues from Jude. In the story Jude's quoting, you have the archangel Michael dealing with another supernatural being who has rebelled against God, and the story tells how Michael dealt with that situation, and in the story he refrains from judging Satan and leaves that judgment to God instead. Perhaps then the false teachers have read the story and concluded that Michael was weak or timid or lacked courage, and that he should have denounced Satan right then and there, and that perhaps they're saying we false teachers certainly would have done that had we been in his place. That would make sense of the bold and arrogant language that Peter uses. If this glorious archangel like Michael would not rush to judgment, what makes you fallen human beings think you're in a position to judge? You're speaking about things that you have no knowledge of. Well, that also fits with what we saw in 2 4, where Peter drew on a popular story of the day about angels who sinned. Maybe the false teachers are expressing contempt for this whole idea of angels because of these silly stories everyone is reading. And Peter and Jude are saying, You're in no position to judge. Even in these silly stories, greater angels like Michael leave judgment in God's hands, and that's the lesson you should take from them. Okay, that's the fork I'm taking. It makes sense of the language of both Peter and Jude, and it fits with what we saw in the larger context. Are there other options? Yes. That's the fork I'm taking at this point. And that brings us to our fifth and last fork in the road. This is two twelve. They are blasphemy about matters of which they are ignorant and will also be destroyed in their destruction. Okay, the question is who is the their in their destruction? They will also be destroyed in their destruction. What destruction are we talking about? Who are these pe these creatures? Remember the context. Peter has just compared the false teachers to unreasoning animals who have abandoned the ability to reason morally and make moral distinctions and they are reacting by instinct instead. He says they're reviling things about which they have no knowledge, and he says in their destruction they will also be destroyed. The New American Standard has for two twelve, but these, like unreasoning animals, born as creatures of instinct to be captured and killed, reviling where they have no knowledge, will in the destruction of those creatures also be destroyed. So the translators there have understood that they're to be the unreasoning animals. When the unreasoning animals are destroyed, the false teachers will be destroyed with them. They have chosen to extend the analogy. The false teachers are acting like unreasoning animals, and the false teachers will be destroyed like unreasoning animals, and that makes a certain amount of sense. Again there's another option. There is a phrase right before this one, which is blasphemy about matters of which they are ignorant, they will be destroyed in their destruction, and that is when the matters about which they are ignorant are destroyed, they will be destroyed. So it sees the there to refer grammatically back to the preceding phrase. What are the matters about which they are ignorant? It's the glorious ones. They are ignorant about these angelic majesties, and when these rebellious angelic majesties face their judgment, the false teachers will face the same judgment. They revile these great supernatural beings which they don't have any understanding of, and when these great supernatural beings are destroyed, the false teachers will also be destroyed. That ties in with two four and it reinforces some of what we've been saying. We learned about supernatural beings being kept for judgment in two four, and now you could see him kind of bringing that full circle. At this point, that's the fork I'm taking. So let me paraphrase then where that gets us. If all these choices are right, and that's a big if, Peter would be saying something like this. The false teachers are daring and arrogant. They do not tremble at their own audacity when they blaspheme the angels because of these stories of fallen angels. But even in these stories, the angels of greater might and power do not revile the fallen angels, but reserve that judgment for God. In behaving this way, these false teachers are not acting from wisdom and moral reason, rather they're acting from instinct like irrational animals, pursuing their desires without restraint. They have no understanding of the great supernatural beings they are reviling, and on the day of judgment when those fallen angels are destroyed, these false teachers will be destroyed also. That leaves us with one more question. If I'm right about all this, and again that is a big if, why would Peter make this point? Is he concerned that we have a proper theology of angels, or is he concerned with something he sees in these false teachers or something else? Notice the language he uses to describe the false teachers. He calls them bold and self-willed or arrogant. They don't tremble when they should be trembling. They behave like irrational animals, they revile what they do not understand. All that language points to a superior arrogant attitude. And I suspect that's what Peter finds offensive. It's not their low view of angels per se, but what they must think about God to hold that kind of a low view of angels. Their casual blaspheming of the angels is indicative of their casual blaspheming attitude toward God. We have seen that they don't take the message of the Old Testament prophets seriously, they don't take the authority of the apostles seriously, they make up their own message instead, and now it seems they don't even take the angels seriously. And all of that suggests that they have set themselves up over and above all other authorities and saying, We're the authority, you listen to us, everyone else is wrong, and that arrogant attitude is the problem. Remember in two ten when he describes them as indulging their sinful desires, he adds that phrase they despise authority. They're indulging themselves regardless of what God thinks. They're rejecting his authority, they're pursuing sin and greed. They portray themselves as followers of Jesus, but they have distorted the picture of who Jesus is and what the apostles teach about him. They disregard the Son of God, they disregard his apostles, and belief in the angels is another symptom of that. It's the arrogance before God and the lack of humility to submit to those he has put in authority. Now we probably don't wrestle with the question of angels today, but we can see this kind of arrogance before God all the time. We see lots of people today who are arrogant and contemptuous about traditional biblical beliefs. They have put themselves above biblical belief and rejected what they view as this old fashioned morality, and they encourage believers to follow them in their way of thinking. Just check out the comments on any Christian blog post and you'll find evidence of people who think they are of superior intellect because they have rejected what the Bible says. And I think that's the arrogant attitude that Peter is warning against. That arrogant attitude toward the things of God is one we dare not follow. We dare not take that on ourselves or follow a teacher who has it. Okay, just to wrap all this up, one more thing. Might I be wrong in my understanding of this passage? Absolutely. This is one of the more difficult passages of the New Testament. I hold all these conclusions lightly, and I would advise you to do the same. These are not ones you want to get into a doctrinal dispute over and start drawing hard and fast lines. New study, new evidence may yet shine a light on our understanding such that we would want to make different choices at each of these interpretive forks in the road. My fear in going through all this detail with you is that you will throw up your hands and say, Bible study's just too hard. If this is what it takes, count me out. And that is the last thing in the world I want to do. Bible study does take work, but the vast majority of passages we run into are not this complicated. In fact, the vast majority of passages are fairly straightforward, and fortunately for us, the Bible is quite repetitive. In fact, it is so repetitive that I sometimes fear I'm teaching the same things over and over again in these podcasts just with different books. That's because the different authors in different books tend to make the same kind of big picture points. We see the same themes emerging over and over again, and those are fairly clear. So Bible study is a lot like learning to read. You know, when you're two years old, you barely know the alphabet. Reading a chapter book is an impossible task, but we don't start there. We start with the alphabet and then we progress to easy readers and then we progress to chapter books and so on. Well, the Bible is like that. The more you study, the better you get at it. The more passages of scriptures you know well and understand, the easier the next one gets because you're building a foundation of knowledge and tools and your understanding just keeps growing. So these aren't the kinds of passages we want to start out with, these are the ones we work our way up to. Now, all of that is true, but I I want to be honest about the difficulties we face. When we come to a passage like this, it is good Bible study skills and methodology that get us through it. This is a process we ought to self-consciously take. We ought to be aware of the choices we're making and thoughtfully considering at each fork in the road which is the best one. What evidence do I have that tips me one way or the other? How do I know what I think I know? It's a process that we don't want to short circuit because shortcuts and snap decisions are going to get us into trouble. So we want to ask each of these questions, but we have to recognize that our answers might be tentative with some passages. With other passages, we'll ask these questions and the best choice will be ridiculously obvious. But we want to keep asking the questions, that's how we learn. For example, in the next podcast, we're going to look at the next passage where Peter actually quotes from an old testament story, and we can go through that story and with a large degree of confidence arrive at answers. So we will ask the same kinds of questions in the next podcast, and you'll see if you join me that we're going to have a lot more confidence in the answers. The stories in the examples are a lot more clear and they make a lot more sense. Now, in most sermons today, it is really popular to read the passage and jump straight to application. And it's not that the application is wrong, it's just that the teacher hasn't shown you any of this process of asking and answering questions. The teachers may have taken all the right interpretive works and all the roads, and they may have perfectly understood and applied each option, and their application may be true and solid and very helpful. But if they never reveal any of that process, if they never say, Hey, these were the choices I made, these were the options I considered, these are the questions this passage raises, then we don't see the process modeled, and then we hit a passage like this one and we're lost. So we need to see this process of working out easy passages to help us tackle these difficult ones. And my personal good for nothing opinion is that we need a lot more teachers to model this process of good Bible study on Sunday mornings. We need more teachers to teach not just here's what the passage means, but here's how I know what it means, and this is how I've reached my application. We learn good Bible study by doing it, but we also learn by having good examples. And if we never have good examples, then it makes the learning by doing a little bit harder because we have to just go through trial and error on our own. So my goal in these podcasts is to model how to tackle a difficult passage like this one, and I hope and pray it encourages you to tackle other passages of scripture. Because, hey, look, we have an understanding. It may be tentative, but it works with the language, it works with the grammar, it works with the context, it works with the flow of thought in the entire book, and it fits with the evidence we have outside the rest of Scripture. And if we can reach that kind of point on this kind of passage, then the others are gonna be easy by comparison. So stick with me, come back to the from the next podcast where we're gonna go through this same process again, but this time the choices are gonna be a lot more clear and straightforward. You've been listening to Wednesday in the Word, the podcast that explains not only what a passage means, but shows you how to figure it out. And if you've been blessed by listening to this podcast, I have three favors to ask: subscribe to it, rate and review it, and tell a friend. And if you can only do one of those things, telling a friend is best. Our theme music is graciously provided by Reggie Coates of heartfeltmusic.org, and I invite you to check out his other music. He is great. Thanks for listening today. I'm Krisan Marotta, and I hope you'll join me next week for Wednesday in the Word.