The Story:Peter’s three-faceted orientation is crisply summarized here. The Christian looks backat what God has promised. Those precious and very great promises (1.4) can help us to partake of the very nature of God, as we pursue them faithfully and come to know more of the righteousness of Christ at work in and through us. The Christian, banking on those promises, also looks forwardto the coming new world – a new heavens and new earth where sin is banished, death and sorrow are no more, tears are only of joy and rejoicing, and the light of God’s glory illuminates everything and everyone in a perpetual banquet of worship and fully human living. Thus, in the present, the Christians “waits” or “looks.” This is not a passive waiting, but an active one – as when the apostles “waited” for the promise of the Father in that upper room after the resurrection and ascension of Christ. It is a waiting and looking of prayer, mutual service, outreach to the world, personal sanctification, and pleading with the Lord to come again soon and take us unto Himself.

The Structure:In a sense human history is a kind of “waiting room.” We’re all “waiting” for the doctor to call us in and bring us to full health. What are we doing? Are we just lolling around the waiting room of history, mindlessly watching television, grousing about this and that, moaning and complaining, looking impatiently at our watches for this thing to be over with soon? Or are we engaging the people around us in friendly and perhaps Gospel conversation? Have we brought something to work on while we wait? Are we enriching our souls by reading or study as we linger in the waiting room? Do we help a mother with her baby? An old man who needs a seat? Or are we just content to sit and wait?

In your life, what does a typical day of “waiting” and “looking” for the new heavens and new earth entail?

Each week’s studies in our Scriptorium column are available in a free PDF form, suitable for personal or group use. For this week’s study, “Until He Comes: 2 Peter 3.11-18,” simply click here.

T. M. Moore

Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.