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Introduction
What Is the Best Way to Discover Truth?
What is the best way to discover and verify truth? That’s an age-old question. It’s a whole branch of philosophy known as epistemology—the study of knowing. And it’s important because knowing is what connects you to reality. And connection with reality is the difference between being sane or insane. Insanity is when the world you’re living in isn’t the real world. The things you see, the voices you hear, the things you believe—they aren’t real. The more your beliefs and perceptions and experience match up with what’s actually out there, the more sane you are. So the question is, how do you move in the direction of sanity—true knowledge?
Some ways of gaining knowledge are sketchy—you don’t know how trustworthy they are. Other methods are more reliable—but what’s the most reliable method of all?
Science?
Ask that question in our society and a million people jump up and say, “That’s easy—science!” Science is great for some things but it’s very limited. Science can’t tell you anything about realities that can’t be tested or observed, like morality or God or anything in the spiritual realm. Science can’t tell you if kidnapping and slavery or stealing or murder are immoral. It can study the effects of those things, but not the morality. Science can’t even tell you why the scientific method is a good approach.
Sometimes people try to overuse science as if it were useful for every category of knowledge. If someone says, “Prove to me scientifically that God exists,” that’s kind of like if your spouse says, “I love you” and you say, “Oh, really? Prove that using mathematics.” It’s the wrong category. You can’t prove you love someone with a calculator, and science is out of its depth when it comes to knowledge about spiritual things.
Philosophy?
What about philosophy? Philosophy is when you just try to find truth about the non-physical world just by figuring it out. Apply logic and reason and human wisdom to figure out spiritual truth.
The problem with that is, how can you know whether what you figured out is actually true? One culture figures out that slavery is wrong and another culture figures out it’s perfectly okay. Someone figures out there are demons; someone else figures out there is no such thing—how can you know who’s right?
Philosophy can raise some interesting questions, but it can’t figure out spiritual truth.
Mythology?
For spiritual truths, people very often turn to mythology to discover truth. Mythology is when you interpret religious stories as parables or allegories that teach a moral lesson. Like Aesop's fables. Made-up stories from which you can draw life lessons.
And when you do that, there’s no right or wrong answer on what the moral lesson is—just whatever you find helpful. That’s why people like it—you’re the boss. You sit in judgment on each principle in the philosophy. If you think it will be helpful, great—adopt it as part of your worldview. If not, then toss it aside. That’s the approach most people like because it makes you the source of your own truth, and no one can tell you you’re wrong.
And there are a lot of people who want to make Christianity a myth-based religion. These are the eggheads and academic types who can’t bring themselves to believe in miracles but they still want to be able to say they believe the Bible. So whenever they see a miracle story in the Bible, they say, “That was never meant to be taken literally. It’s a myth. Those stories about creation and miracles and resurrections and the Second Coming of Christ—those aren’t history. They’re like parables or metaphors that teach a lesson.”
Are there parables and allegories in the Bible? Yes. But are all the stories in the Bible parables and metaphors and myths? What about the promise of the Second Coming of Christ? That’s what Peter has in mind in this passage. All that stuff about Jesus returning someday... , coming in the clouds... , showing up with all the spectacular glory and power... , Judgment Day—is all that language literal? Literal clouds? A real trumpet blast... , actual bright, blinding light that you can see with your physical eyes... , literal resurrections from the dead—physical bodies coming out of graves... —are we to understand these to be real events or is it mythical, metaphorical, parable-type stuff? Peter begins today’s passage by answering that question definitively.
We Didn’t Follow Myths
2 Peter 1:16 We did not follow sophisticated myths when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ
When you read a religious story, how can you tell if it’s intended to be taken literally or as a myth? Well, one way you can know is if the person telling you the story says, “This is not a myth! What we told you about Christ’s power and coming were not myths.”
Literal Glorious Coming
The word translated “coming” is parousia, which always refers to Christ’s Second Coming, not his first coming. And that’s confirmed by Peter adding the word “power,” which points to the supernatural, miraculous events connected with the Second Coming. Peter says, “All that language about miracles and divine power and all the supernatural events connected with the Second Coming—that’s all literal, not mythology.”
That’s one way you can tell something isn’t intended as a myth. Another way is if there are eyewitness accounts.
2 Peter 1:16 ... we were eyewitnesses
What did you witness Peter?
18 We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with him on the sacred mountain.
The voice of God.
Divine Revelation
What is the absolute best way of discovering truth? Which method leads to the best kind of knowing—the deepest sanity, the most perfect connection to the real world? Divine revelation. You know what’s true when God tells you.
That’s not only the best way to come to know spiritual truth; it’s the only way. Human wisdom could never, ever figure out anything about God without God revealing it.
Agnostics will often say, “It’s arrogant for a puny human being to think he could know truth about an infinite God.” That statement is almost true. It would be arrogant for a human being to think he could figure out truth about God with his puny brain. But there’s nothing arrogant about assuming an infinite God is capable of communication. If he created the universe, created DNA, created the human brain—is it so unthinkable that a God who could do all that would also be capable of communication? If there’s a supreme being, of course he’s at least as capable as we are. Of course he can communicate.
How Do You Know It’s God’s Voice?
So the best way of coming to know spiritual truth is if God says it. But then the question is, how do you know if it’s God’s voice? Lots of people claim to speak for God. That’s what a prophet is—someone God uses to speak his exact words.
21 For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God
God reveals truth to us through prophets. But how do you know if it’s a legit prophet or if it’s a false prophet who didn’t really hear from God?
That’s the question Peter wants to answer for us in this book. It’s such an important question because Peter knows if we don’t hear from God, we’ll die. Jesus taught that when he quoted Deuteronomy 8:3—Man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God. We absolutely must hear from God. And when there is a message from God, it’s essential that we can know for sure that it’s from God. And so Peter’s going to help us with that so that by the time we get to v.19:
2 Peter 1:19 We have the word of the prophets made more certain
We must hear from God through his prophets, we must be able to know with certainty it’s God’s Word, and we must also discern when a prophet is not from God.
2 Peter 2:1 But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you.
Miracles
So, how does God make it clear that it’s him who is speaking? Answer: miracles. That’s the purpose of miracles. In Deuteronomy 13:1-5, God taught his people how to spot a false prophet. He said, “If what they say about the future doesn’t take place with 100% accuracy, stone him to death—he’s a false prophet.” The ability to announce the future with perfect accuracy and never get a single thing wrong is miraculous. Only God knows the future so it’s proof the person speaks for God.
When Moses said, “God, what if the people don’t believe me that you sent me?” God said, “I’m going to give you the ability to do awesome miracles” (Exodus 4:1-9). Jesus pointed to his own miracles as proof that he was from God.
John 10:25 ... The miracles I do in my Father's name speak for me,
John 14:11 Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves.
Hebrews 2:3 ... This salvation, which was first announced by the Lord ... 4 God also testified to it by signs, wonders and various miracles
God never expects anybody to just take a prophet’s word for it that he’s truly speaking for God. He provides proof through miracles—no miracles, then don’t believe him. The miracles are the proof.
And by the way, that’s another way to know if a story in the Bible is intended as a parable or as a literal historical account. If the Bible points to that story as proof that a message or messenger is from God, that only makes sense if it’s a real historical event. The liberal theologians who want to make the Bible a book of myths... —the stories they always take as myths are the miracle stories, because other scholars will laugh at them if they believe in miracles. So they say, “Those stories are the myths.”
But the Bible presents the miracle stories as literal history. We know that because the Bible writers point to them as proof that the message is from God. If I told you a parable about how I could jump over tall buildings with a single bound, you wouldn’t say, “Wow! Darrell must be a prophet from God if he has the ability to do that in his parable.” That would be silly—anyone can do anything if it’s just a made up story. Jumping over a building doesn’t prove anything unless it actually happens in the real world.
Christianity Depends on History
This is why the Christian religion is totally dependent on history. That’s not the case with other religions. Most religions are really just philosophies, so the history doesn’t matter. If you could prove that Gautama Buddha never existed, that wouldn’t affect Buddhism at all. If a Confucianist found out Confucius was a fictional character, it wouldn’t matter. You either like the philosophies of Confucius or you don’t.
But Christianity is different. Christianity is one of only three world religions that are based on historical claims—Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. The entire Christian religion is completely dependent on the historical fact of Jesus actually, physically rising from the dead in history. And if that didn’t actually happen, the Bible itself says that Christianity is completely invalid. The Bible says you are a moron to be a Christian if it turns out our history is wrong.
1 Corinthians 15:17 If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. 19 ... we are to be pitied more than all men.
We’re the most pathetic people in the world if that event didn’t actually happen in history because everything in our religion depends on it. The other two historical religions, Judaism and Islam, depend on Jesus not dying and rising from the dead in order for them to be valid. So it all hinges on Jesus. Everything in religion depends on what did or didn’t happen with Jesus.
So Peter begins this section with a crystal clear statement:... “When we told you about the Second Coming—not myth. If you ever want to irritate one of the authors of Scripture, just interpret his literal words as parables. That happened all the way back in Ezekiel’s time and it drove Ezekiel crazy.
Ezekiel 20:49 Then I said, "Ah, Sovereign Lord! They are saying of me, 'Isn't he just telling parables?'"
Testimony Is the Best Method
Okay, so if everything stands or falls based on certain historical events, how can we know for sure what took place in history? Back to our question—what’s the best way to know truth? The best way to know spiritual truth is by divine revelation, but in order to know if a message was really from God... , we have to know whether there were miracles that verified it. So now the question is, how do we know historical truth?
And this is another area where science is out of its depth. Science can only observe things that exist in the present. It’s based on observation, and you can’t observe the past. Science can’t discover something as simple as whether you drove here tonight, because it’s in the past so it can’t be observed.
Not even the most advanced science can discover that, but I can. How? By asking you, “Hey, did you drive here tonight?” I have no reason to think you’re lying or mistaken, so if you tell me you drove here, there is a 99.99% chance it’s true.
The best way to discover not only historical truth, but every kind of truth in the natural realm is not science, it’s not philosophy, it’s not human wisdom—it’s testimony. The best way to find out what’s true is by having someone tell you. That’s how you found almost everything you know—someone told you.
It’s how I know where my wife works. It’s how I know the capital of Texas is Austin. It’s how I know there’s no sugar in Diet Dr. Pepper. It’s how I know the moon isn’t made of cheese. I haven’t verified any of those with direct observation. I know it all from reliable testimony.
This is even true with things science can study. When scientists conduct experiments and do studies, how do we know what the outcome was? Only from their testimony—you weren’t there in the lab. If you get a scientific journal and read the results of some study, you’re not doing science. You’re listening to testimony. If the weatherman tells you what the high was today at DIA, that’s testimony. If your waiter tells you the total with tax is $46.81, that’s testimony. Almost everything you know came from testimony.
And literally everything you know about history came from testimony. 100% of our knowledge of history comes from what people in the past wrote down. You believe George Washington lived, not because of anything scientific, but just because reliable sources have told you he lived. And that’s the only way we can know if Jesus’ miracles really happened—through the testimony of the people who were there.
How Do We Know Their Testimony Is Reliable?
So you know what you know because people told you, but you don’t believe everything people tell you, right? It’s not just about testimony; it has to be reliable testimony.
The critical thinker might hear all this and say, “Okay... , I can see that when the Apostles preached about the miracles and Jesus’ resurrection and the Second Coming, it was all literal. Not myth, not metaphor, not allegory—they are claiming these are real, literal events in space and time. Fine. That’s what they’re claiming. But how do we know their claims are true?
Maybe the best way to discover truth is through testimony, but not all testimony is reliable. We know there are liars, we know people are often mistaken, we know people make things up. In fact, Peter himself brings up that very point in ch.2 when he warns us about the false prophets who exploit people with stories they have made up. So yes, there's such a thing as an unreliable witness, and the Bible doesn't ask you to believe it's true just because it claims to be true.
Discerning Reliability
Peter gives us his credentials as a reliable witness in this passage.
2 Peter 1:16 We did not follow sophisticated myths when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.
Skip down to v.18.
18 We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with him on the sacred mountain.
They were eyewitnesses and they were earwitnesses. This whole passage is structured as a testimony sandwich. “We witnessed it, this is what we witnessed,” then he repeats, “we witnessed it.”
Why make such a big point about being eyewitnesses? It’s to establish their credibility. Peter is inviting us to consider whether or not the Apostles are credible witnesses. He doesn’t say, “Just trust me and don’t ask any questions.” He wants us to test him and the other Apostles and discern how credible they are as reporters of history.
God never calls us to believe on blind faith.
Tests for Credibility
So let’s do that. How do you judge the reliability of a witness? It’s actually something you do every day. How many times a day do you have to make a judgment on whether to believe what someone tells you? A guy on the street tells you a story about why you should give him money, and you have to make a determination of how trustworthy his words are. You read something in an encyclopedia, the weatherman tells you it’s going to snow tomorrow, your friend tells you he’s low on sleep, a sign says, “Road closed ahead,” a politician makes a campaign promise, you read something in the NY Times about President Trump... —all day long you are assigning different levels of credibility to people who are telling you things. You can’t just disregard it all, or you couldn’t live your life. But you can’t just believe it all or your life would be a train wreck.
It’s no different with ancient witnesses. If you throw it all out, then you can never know any history. But you can’t blindly accept everything, so how do you discern which testimony is reliable?
That’s a question that mankind has been working on for the whole history of mankind. Ever since there have been lawcourts, judges have had to figure out how who to believe. It’s a whole area of study you could get a degree in. It’s called forensic psychology and all evidence law is based on it.
I asked ChatGPT to list some of the most basic principles for determining how credible a witness is... , and it gave me a list of the same principles I’ve heard before (and I didn’t edit these at all. Both the titles and the explanations are word for word what came up). Let’s read each one and then see how the Apostles stack up. First, how do you know if a witness is being honest?
Judging Honesty
1) Level of Detail – Truthful accounts often contain natural, incidental detail, while fabricated ones tend to be vague or overly rehearsed.
2)
Even secular critical scholars have noted that when you read the Apostles’ accounts... , they are very much characterized by that kind of natural, incidental detail. Scholars are sophisticated enough now where they can read something and say... , “These incidental details about this building or that street or that title for the governor—that’s all from the 2nd Century, not the first Century.” In the NT writings, there are references that scholars used to question, but very recent archeological finds have confirmed them. The Pool of Bethesda with its 5 porticoes in John 5:2. They used to say that was made up until they found it just 100 years ago. Pontius Pilate’s title in Luke 3:1, John 19:1-6 matches the first-century lingo that likely wouldn’t have been known 100 years later when the language had changed. The same goes for the term “tetrarch” to describe Herod Antipas. Synagogue at Capernaum in Luke 7:5, the place called “the Pavement” in John 19:13. The various forms and pronunciation of names and places, customs that existed in the 1st Century but not later—it all matches up.
3) Demeanor – Calm, candid, thoughtful answers tend to indicate credibility more than excessively emotional responses.
4)
If you were making up some miracle accounts and trying to convince the world they really happened, you’d be dramatic about it. Lots of adjectives and adverbs. “The day Jesus stilled the storm was amazing. Jesus stood up and said, “Watch this:” and he lifted his arms, waved them back and forth... , and gave an earth-rattling shout and bolts of lightning shot out from his arms and the whole sea looked like it turned to fire. The sound of it was deafening. The whole Sea of Galilee shook. And then—total stillness. I know this sounds hard to believe, but I swear on my mother’s grave. As sure as I’m standing here, I promise that’s what happened.”
That’s how people talk when they’re trying to get you to believe a story they made up. But when it’s something that actually happened, a credible witness will just tell you what he saw.
Here’s Matthew’s account:
Matthew 8:26 ... He got up and rebuked the winds and the sea. And there was a great calm.
And that’s the whole description. Here’s the walking on the water miracle:
John 6:19 ... They saw Jesus approaching the boat, walking on the water.
That’s it. Here’s a resurrection:
Mark 5:41 He took her by the hand and said to her, "Talitha koum!" (which means, "Little girl, I say to you, get up!"). 42 Immediately the girl stood up and walked around.
Experts in forensic testimony read study those accounts and say, “That’s not the way people talk when they’re making stuff up.” It’s the way people talk when they’re just reporting. The NT accounts very much have the feel of that slogan, “We report; you decide.”
5) Independence from External Influence – Whether the witness seems free from coaching, suggestion, or group pressure that could shape their account.
6)
That’s one of the most remarkable aspects of the gospels. They’re so different, it’s very clear there wasn’t collusion. One writer will say the Transfiguration was 6 days later and another says 8 days later. It’s not a contradiction because one counts the partial day on either end and the other counts only the full days in between. But if they were colluding, you wouldn’t see differences like that. When police are interviewing witnesses, that’s what they look for—different stories from different perspectives but not contradictory. That’s a sign of truthful witnesses.
7) Possible Motive to Lie or Exaggerate – Any personal, financial, or relational benefit from the testimony.
8)
Beware of the religious person who is getting rich off telling all his amazing stories. What about the Apostles? Did they get rich? No, they got tortured and killed. The authorities told them, “You can believe whatever you want—just stop claiming you saw Jesus rise from the dead. Otherwise we’re going to do to you what we did to Jesus.” And the disciples said, “Yeah, we’re not going to stop.” There are people who will suffer and die for something that isn’t true, but no one will suffer and die for something they know isn’t true.
9) Response to Contradiction or Challenge – Honest witnesses usually acknowledge uncertainty or error when confronted, while deceptive ones double down or deflect.
10)
If you’re making up a story, you don’t include details that make it hard for people to believe your story. The gospel accounts are loaded with details like that. In that culture, women weren’t allowed to testify in a court of law because they were considered too emotional and unreliable. If you’re making up a story in a culture like that, you wouldn’t have all the witnesses of Jesus’ burial and the first witnesses to the empty tomb of Jesus be women. But that’s how it happened, so that’s what they recorded.
If you’re trying to convince people Jesus is God and his miracles were real, you wouldn’t include a story about how his brothers and his own mother thought he was insane. The fact that Jesus was rejected in his hometown, the lowly status of Jesus’ followers, Jesus’ weakness the night before he died, Jesus being baptized by John—all evidence of honest reporting. If you’re fudging the story to try to make it more believable, you don’t include that stuff.
11) Internal Consistency – Whether the witness’s story remains the same throughout different tellings and under questioning.
12)
When you’re lying, it’s hard to keep all your lies straight. There is a huge amount of material in the NT addressing hundreds of difficult topics in complex ways... , and yet the message is totally consistent all the way through—even though the books were written over a period of decades.
13) Past Inconsistent Statements or Deception – Prior dishonesty, especially in related contexts, can reduce credibility.
14)
Were the Apostles truthful men in general, or were they known liars? Think of how they portray themselves in the gospels. In every story they come off as buffoons. Never heroes. What did Jesus call them all the time? “Oh ye of little faith—why are you so slow to believe?” They always misunderstood what Jesus was saying. They argued about who was the greatest. Peter got so far off track Jesus ended up calling him Satan. Then even at the very end, Peter denied he even knew Jesus. How do we know all that bad stuff about them? From their own testimony. They were incredibly honest men. I think of myself as an honest person, but I’m sure, if that had been me in those stories, I would have left a lot of that part out.
Judging Accuracy
So all scholars, secular and Christian, agree that the writers of the NT were remarkably honest men. No reason to doubt their truthfulness. But it’s possible for an honest person to still be wrong. You can be misinformed, remember something wrong, get confused—it’s possible for the most honest person to still be mistaken. So how can we judge that? The last 3 principles ChatGPT gave me address the issue of judging accuracy.
15) External Consistency – Whether their account aligns with other reliable evidence.
16)
Can it be corroborated? The Apostles’ accounts are corroborated by each other. Notice the abrupt change Peter makes from the singular to the plural when he starts this section. That previous paragraph was all singular.
2 Peter 1:12 So I will always remind you of these things ... 13 I think it is right to refresh your memory as long as I live in the tent of this body, 14 because I know that I will soon put it aside ... 15 And I will make every effort to see that after my departure you will always be able to remember these things. 16 We did not follow sophisticated myths when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses ... 18 We ourselves heard this voice
It was all the Apostles, and they were unanimous in their testimony. They argued a lot during Jesus’ ministry, but there is no argument at all about their historical accounts of Jesus’ life and teaching.
They were truthful eyewitnesses, but sometimes you’re eyes play tricks on you. We’ve all experienced that—you were sure you saw something, but it turned out to be different from what you thought. So how do we know that didn’t happen when the Apostles thought they saw Jesus doing miracles? Well, your eyes might play tricks on you, but 12 sets of eyes don’t all play the same trick at the same time. People have dreams, false memories, hallucinations—but groups of people don’t all have the same hallucination simultaneously.
The Disciples were just like us—they knew their eyes sometimes played tricks on them which is why they were so skeptical and constantly doubting what they had seen and heard with their own eyes and ears. These were not gullible men. If you think they were, go back and look at how often they doubted. They were incredibly hard to persuade. After they discovered the empty tomb, they still didn’t believe. Then something happened and they went from hiding in fear to being willing to suffer and die for the message that Jesus rose from the dead.
So what did they do? What would you do if you saw something unbelievable? If your eyes can play tricks on you, how can you ever be sure of anything you see? By verifying it. You’re walking down the sidewalk in downtown Denver, and out of the corner of your eye it seems like you saw an elephant down at the end of an alley. What do you do? “What? What in the world did I just see?” You step back to the alley and look.
Maybe then you see it was a giant balloon or a mural. “I knew it couldn’t be a real elephant.”
Or, maybe it is. You say to your friend, “What in the world? Are you seeing this?”
“I sure am. Why is there an elephant walking around downtown Denver?” You walk down the alley and talk to the guy and he explains there is a circus and they had to bring this elephant around to the truck or whatever.
You walk away saying, “That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever seen. No one’s going to believe me.” But you believe it. Why? Because you verified it. Your friend saw it, the guy with the elephant verified it. Maybe you touched the elephant. You smelled it. You might have even stepped in something that verified the elephant’s existence.
And if you tell your friends and they don’t believe you, what do you say to convince them? “Just ask so-and-so. He was there.” You appeal to the very things that verified it for you.
That’s what we have with the gospel accounts. What if you see the elephant and it’s not just one friend—there’s a dozen of you there? Or more than a dozen (Jesus had other followers who traveled with him beyond just the 12). In many cases, it was whole crowds. When Paul was testifying in court before Agrippa talking about Jesus, he said,
Acts 26:26 The king is familiar with these things, and I can speak freely to him. I am convinced that none of this has escaped his notice, because it was not done in a corner.
This stuff happened right out in the open and lots of people saw them. You can talk to them compare accounts—check with others—very easy to verify.
17) Opportunity to Observe – Whether the witness was in a position (physically and temporally) to actually perceive the events they describe.
18)
If you weren’t there, you don’t have firsthand knowledge. The Apostles were there with Jesus—not just once or twice, but for years. When other people wrote accounts of Jesus’ life, the early church said, “This is great, but it didn’t come from someone who was with Jesus, so it doesn’t make the cut for Scripture.” That was going on even while the NT was being written.
Revelation 2:2 I know your deeds ... that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false.
A lot of modern eggheads think they know better, but the people who lived back then and knew the Apostles personally affirmed the New Testament was in fact the teaching of men who walked with Jesus. For example, we have the writings of Polycarp who was a disciple of the Apostle John. We have the writings of Irenaeus, who knew Polycarp personally. We have documentation from people very close to the Apostles verifying they were the true authors of the NT.
19) Corroboration by Independent Evidence – Whether other evidence or witnesses independently confirm parts of their story.
20)
Other historical writings from the time and archeological finds are constantly corroborating the NT accounts. That’s especially the case with Luke. Luke is regarded even by secular historians as remarkably reliable. He puts in these details about times and dates and places and rulers that end up being corroborated again and again by other historical sources and by archeology.
Other Evidences
Now, there are other evidences that point to the Bible as the Word of God. The power it has shown over the centuries to transform lives, to transform whole cultures, fulfilled prophecy, etc. But tonight I just wanted to focus on the reliability of the Apostles because that’s the focus of this passage.
Why not Better Evidence?
When I chat with atheists online very often they will say, “If God is all powerful and wants me to believe, why doesn’t he provide better evidence?” And when I ask them what evidence would be better, they usually have no idea. But sometimes they’ll say, “A voice from heaven” or “a big miracle” or something like that. But would that be better evidence?
If God did miracles for every person all the time, then by definition, they wouldn’t be miracles. They would be commonplace occurrences and we wouldn’t think anything of them. There are all kinds of things that happen in the world every day that science can’t explain, but no one thinks anything of it because they are commonplace. The definition of a miracle is something that’s radically different from what God normally does every day. So private miracles on demand for everyone wouldn’t be good evidence for anything.
And no matter what you saw or experienced, you wouldn’t know if you could believe your eyes unless it were corroborated by others. And you wouldn’t know if it would stand the test of time. And you wouldn’t know right away if the message was consistent with what God had said previously.
And even if you were 100% sure it was a message from God, over time, your memory would fade.
There simply is no better form of evidence than the evidence God provided. He appeared in glory, he spoke audibly, he performed undeniable miracles before large numbers of people... , he had them recorded by unusually honest, humble men... , verified by others and by history and archeology... , he put it in permanent written form that never changes and that you can access day or night whenever you want... , he moved thousands of people all around the world to make their own copies very early on so that if there were any changes or errors we could check the documents against all the others so we’d know exactly what the originals said.
You can trust what you read in this book.
Conclusion
Peter’s reason for writing this book is to keep us from being deceived and falling away. So after his introductory sermon, the very first thing he wants to establish is the reliability of Scripture because without that, we’ll fall for sure. We’ll take our time on this section because the way the enemy will try to destroy your faith is to undermine your confidence in the Word of God. So Peter’s first priority is to fortify our confidence so we have the word of the prophets made more certain so we keep our attention on it as to a light shining in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.
Summary
The sermon explores the best way to discover and verify spiritual truth, arguing that divine revelation, supported by reliable eyewitness testimony, surpasses science, philosophy, and mythology. Using 2 Peter 1:16-19, it emphasizes that the apostles’ accounts of Jesus’ power and Second Coming are not myths but historical events, corroborated by incidental details like the Pool of Bethesda and Pilate’s title, confirmed through archaeology. The sermon highlights that miracles validate true prophets, and the apostles’ honest, unembellished testimony—marked by embarrassing details like Peter’s denial or Jesus’ anguish—demonstrates their credibility. Unlike other religions, Christianity’s validity hinges on historical events like the resurrection, making trustworthy testimony the cornerstone of knowing truth and connecting to reality.
