2 Peter 1:14-15: Said to You More Than Once

because I know that I will soon put it aside, as our Lord Jesus Christ has made clear to me. And I will make every effort to see that after my departure you will always be able to remember these things.

2 Peter 1:14-15 (NIV)

Said to You More Than Once

An old man spends an afternoon at the desk in his front room, labeling keys with masking tape and a marker. This one opens the shed. This one used to open the back door, before the lock was changed and the old key stayed on the ring anyway. There is nothing morbid in it. He just doesn’t want the next person in that house standing on the porch with a ring of keys and no idea.

This letter comes from a man doing the same work. Jesus has made it clear to him that he will soon put aside the tent of his body, so he tells the believers he has taught that he will make every effort to see that after his departure they will always be able to remember these things.

They know all this already, and they are firmly established in the truth they have. He says he will keep reminding them regardless. He keeps at it because they knew it, and knowing a thing has never been the same as holding on to it.

Most of us are on the other end of that. The two or three things you actually have about God, the ones still there at the end of a bad week, were all said to you more than once. An aunt ended every phone call the same way for years, and you could hear it coming before she said it.

Peter says he will work so that they will be able to remember after he is gone. He warns those same readers that false teachers are coming, so he has no illusions about how much of this will hold.

The old man at the desk wrote the shed key twice, on two pieces of tape, because tape comes loose in a drawer. His daughter saw him do it and told him he’d already labeled that one. He said he knew.