“For this reason I will not be negligent to remind you always of these things, though you know and are established in the present truth. Yes, I think it is right, as long as I am in this tent, to stir you up by reminding you, knowing that shortly I must put off my tent, just as our Lord Jesus Christ showed me. Moreover I will be careful to ensure that you always have a reminder of these things after my decease.” (2 Peter 1:12-15)
Pocket calendars, sticky notes, and smart phone apps are just some of the many tools we use to make necessary reminders to ourselves. We live in a sea of busy-ness, and it can often feel like we’re drowning in our many daily tasks. Therefore, we set reminders to pay the bills, to set out the garbage, to take the children to school and sporting events, to keep business appointments—the list seems endless! These are all things we know need to get done, and the reminders help ensure we don’t forget to do them. Forgetting often comes with painful consequences such as late fees on bills, loss of playing time on a sports team, or even loss of employment.
Three times in our text Peter mentions “reminding” or “reminders.” As long as he was in his tent (his body), Peter’s heart was set on giving his readers reminders of important truths they already knew so as to further establish them and fix their hearts on Jesus, lest the constant buffeting of the devil and the world cause them to forget. Given Peter’s threefold denial of Jesus, he knew firsthand how easily the Christian could lose the struggle against the devil’s and the world’s cunning pressures. Peter also knew that the best remedy for sin’s daily struggle was the many reminders provided by the precious promises of God in His Word. Therefore, his deathbed promise to his readers was this: “I will be careful to ensure that you always have a reminder of these things after my decease.” (verse 15)
Peter wasn’t the only one to stress the importance of such reminders. The apostle Paul wrote to the Philippians, “For me to write the same things to you is not tedious, but for you it is safe.” (Philippians 3:1) In Deuteronomy, Moses told the people, “And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” (Deuteronomy 6:6-9)
Day by day, we live surrounded in the world’s sea of sin and unbelief. We can often feel ourselves being pulled along by the rip currents of doubt and temptation, for in our sinful flesh we have an active participant who wants us to forget every truth we’ve ever learned from God’s Word. Such forgetting, though, brings with it the painful consequence of eternal death in hell. Reminders of God’s saving truths are necessary lifelines to pull us out of the world’s dangerous rip tides, for such reminders tell us about God’s love for us in Christ Jesus and that our salvation is in Him alone. Those kinds of reminders are worthy of pursuit our whole life long. As long as we are in this tent (body), may we seek God’s reminders for ourselves and each other as we hear them preached from the pulpit, read and study them in our Bibles, and share them with one another.
Peter’s heart was set on giving his readers reminders of important truths they already knew so as to further establish them and fix their hearts on Jesus.
is pastor of a quad parish that includes Morning Star Lutheran Church in Fairchild, Trinity Lutheran Church in Millston, St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Melrose, and Peace with God Evangelical Lutheran Church in Onalaska; all in Wisconsin.