40 Fun Facts About 2 Peter

Which animal does 2 Peter 2:16 say spoke with a human voice to restrain a prophet's madness?

A donkey, normally without speech, rebuked its own rider, and the King James Version puts it more bluntly: the dumb ass forbade the madness of the prophet.

According to 2 Peter 3:8, one day with the Lord is like what length of time, a fact readers must not overlook?

A thousand years are like a day to the Lord, the verse adds in reverse, and the next verse draws the point: the delay is patience, not slowness.

To what does 2 Peter 3:10 compare the coming of the day of the Lord, an image also found in 1 Thessalonians?

A thief gives no warning, and the verse goes on to say the heavens will vanish with a roar and the earth and its works will be laid bare.

Which two cities does 2 Peter 2:6 say God reduced to ashes as an example of what awaits the ungodly?

Sodom and Gomorrah are the last of three ancient judgments the chapter lists in a row, each one set beside the point that God still knows how to rescue the godly.

In the saying quoted at 2 Peter 2:22, which animal goes back to its own vomit?

A dog going back to what it threw up is the letter's picture of people who learned the right way and then turned their backs on it.

Which figure does 2 Peter 2:5 call a preacher, kept safe with seven others when the ancient world fell?

Noah is called the eighth person in the King James Version, a literal rendering that many newer translations smooth into Noah and seven others.

Which Gospel event does the writer of 2 Peter recall when he says he heard a voice from heaven on a mountain?

The Transfiguration is told in Matthew, Mark and Luke, and 2 Peter 1:16-18 cites it as proof that the apostles had seen Christ's majesty for themselves.

Which fellow apostle does 2 Peter 3:15 call a dear brother who wrote to the same readers with God-given wisdom?

Paul's letters, the next verse adds, contain passages that unstable people distort as they do the rest of the Scriptures, a sign his writing already ranked beside them.

Under which Roman emperor does Christian tradition place the death of Peter, which 2 Peter 1:14 says is near?

Nero's reign in the 60s is when tradition says Peter was martyred, so a literal reading dates the letter to about AD 64 to 68.

Which Greek word stands behind the brotherly kindness that 2 Peter 1:7 tells believers to add to godliness?

Philadelphia, the word later given to an American city, appears six times in the New Testament, and two of them fall in this single verse.

The opening verse of 2 Peter names its writer as Peter with which other name placed in front?

Simon becomes Simeon in some translations of this verse, an older spelling of the apostle's name that also turns up in Acts 15:14.

According to 2 Peter 1:4, believers who receive God's great promises become partakers of what?

The divine nature is shared, the verse says, by people who have escaped the corruption that evil desires cause in the world.

Which quality does 2 Peter 1:5 tell believers to add to their faith first, before knowledge and the rest?

Virtue heads a ladder of seven qualities, each one added to the one before, and some translations call it excellence instead.

Which quality does 2 Peter 1:6 place between knowledge and perseverance in its chain of things to add to faith?

Self-control is temperance in the King James Version, which also has patience where newer translations say perseverance.

Which quality crowns the list in 2 Peter 1:5-7, the last one added, straight after brotherly kindness?

Love is charity in the King James Version, and the next verse promises that these qualities keep a believer from being ineffective and unproductive.

How does 2 Peter 1:9 describe a believer who lacks the letter's chain of qualities and forgets being cleansed from sin?

Blind is the verse's verdict, sharpened with a word for nearsighted: such a person sees only what is close and cannot see far off.

Which image does the writer of 2 Peter use for his own body, saying it will soon be laid aside?

A tent, or tabernacle in the King James Version, is the writer's picture of a body he expects to leave soon, as Christ had made clear to him.

Which light does 2 Peter 1:19 say will rise in believers' hearts, after likening prophecy to a lamp in the dark?

The morning star is the day star in the King James Version, and readers are told to hold to the prophetic word until that day dawns.

2 Peter 1:16 insists the apostles did not follow cleverly devised what when preaching Christ's coming?

Fables is the King James Version's word too, there called cunningly devised, and the writer sets against them what he saw as an eyewitness.

According to 2 Peter 1:21, prophets spoke from God, not by human will, as they were carried along by whom?

The Holy Spirit is the Holy Ghost in the King James Version, and the verse before warns that no prophecy of Scripture comes from one's own interpretation.

According to 2 Peter 2:1, what will false teachers secretly bring in, earning themselves swift destruction?

Heresies, called destructive here and damnable in the King James Version, go as far as denying the Master who bought the teachers themselves.

Whom does 2 Peter 2:4 say God did not spare when they sinned, keeping them in chains of darkness for judgment?

Angels come first in a run of three warnings from the distant past, the argument being that if even they were not spared, false teachers will not be.

Which abyss of Greek myth lies behind the verb that 2 Peter 2:4 uses for casting sinners into hell?

Tartarus is where the Titans were thrown down in classical myth; the letter turns the name into a verb, which the King James Version renders simply as hell.

Which man does 2 Peter 2:7 say God rescued, tormented day after day by the lawless deeds he saw and heard?

Lot is described as living among lawless people day after day, and his rescue is the letter's proof that God can pull the godly out of trials.

Which phrase does the King James Version of 2 Peter 2:12 use for false teachers, made to be taken and destroyed?

Brute beasts, or irrational animals in newer translations, are creatures of instinct, and the verse says the teachers will perish as such creatures do.

Which son of Beor does 2 Peter 2:15 say false teachers follow, a man who chased the wages of wickedness?

Balaam was hired in the Book of Numbers by the king of Moab to curse Israel, and the King James Version calls his father Bosor rather than Beor.

What do the false teachers of 2 Peter 2:19 promise the people they entice with lofty but empty words?

Freedom is liberty in the King James Version, and the verse ends with a maxim: a person is a slave to whatever has mastered him.

Which animal, in the second saying quoted at 2 Peter 2:22, is washed and then goes back to its old ways?

A sow returns to the mire in the King James Version, and the letter aims the image at people who knew the way and then turned from the commandment handed to them.

Which church father first suggested Peter used different secretaries, explaining why 1 and 2 Peter differ in style?

Jerome's idea is one that defenders of Peter as author often appeal to, though most critical scholars think a later writer composed the letter in his name.

2 Peter ends at 3:18 by urging readers to grow in the knowledge of Christ and in what else?

Grace opens the letter as well, in a greeting that asks for it to be multiplied, and the last line gives glory to Christ now and to the day of eternity.

Which group does 2 Peter 3:3 say will come in the last days, following their own evil desires?

Scoffers, the next verse says, will ask where the promised coming is, since everything has gone on unchanged from the beginning of creation.

By what means does 2 Peter 3:6 say the world of long ago perished, a fact the doubters deliberately overlook?

A flood shows, the writer argues, that the world has not simply carried on unchanged, since the earth itself was formed out of water by God's word.

For which element does 2 Peter 3:7 say the present heavens and earth are reserved, awaiting the day of judgment?

Fire returns in verse 10, where the heavens vanish with a roar and the elements themselves are destroyed by it.

According to 2 Peter 3:9, the Lord is patient, not slow, because he wants everyone to come to what?

Repentance for all is the stated reason for the delay: the Lord, the verse says, does not want anyone to perish.

What does 2 Peter 3:13 say dwells in the new heavens and new earth that believers are looking forward to?

Righteousness has a home there, the verse says, and that hope is given as the reason to be found spotless, blameless and at peace.

Which short letter overlaps so closely with 2 Peter chapter 2 that scholars agree the two are connected?

Jude is usually judged the earlier of the two, partly because it is much shorter, so most scholars think 2 Peter did the borrowing.

Which Alexandria-born theologian made the earliest undisputed mention of 2 Peter, while calling it doubtful?

Origen wrote that Peter left one letter of acknowledged genuineness and perhaps a second, which he called doubtful without saying why.

Which label covers 2 Peter and six other New Testament letters, among them James and 1 John?

Catholic epistles carry a word that originally just meant general, which is why some Bibles call them the general letters instead.

Which Old Testament book holds the farewell speech of Moses, a model for a genre some scholars see in 2 Peter?

Deuteronomy's farewell of Moses is a model for the testament, a genre in which a dying leader warns and foretells; Bo Reicke argued in 1964 that 2 Peter belongs to it.

Which standard Bible of the Syriac churches leaves 2 Peter out of its New Testament?

The Peshitta leaves out five books in all, Revelation among them, and they appear in Syriac only in later versions such as the Harklean of 616.