Only God Knows What The Future Holds…

For a human being, the future can only, at best, be guessed at. It is not within the finite purview of a human being to be able to predict, or to “prophesy” the future with anything like certainty. For human beings, only the past and the brief moment of the present can be known. There are always too many variables, too many circumstances ruled by happenstance and pure luck, for a human being to be able to prophesy the future with absolute certitude. There is only one “eye witness” to all of time. God is the only Being who is present to all of time, all at once.

Peter reminds us here that he and the other Apostles knew Jesus personally. His knowledge of Jesus was both that of a friend and as the result of having been an eyewitness to all of the events of Jesus’ ministry, his passion, death, and resurrection. He also had received the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. He knew that Jesus truly was the Son of God. He had seen, and known, the very Word of God that had been prophesied for centuries with his own eyes.

It is for this reason that he reminds his readers that he and the Apostles were not following any “cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses to his majesty.” Peter is reminding us that the word that the Scriptures pass on to us is from God alone. Because this is so, it deserves our attention. This is why Peter can say about the Scriptures, “knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” (verses 20-21) What we get from Scripture is not a matter of what the human author has devised, but is exactly what the Holy Spirit intended.

Lord, help us to hear your word, and increase in us the humility to pay attention to it. Open our minds and our hearts to understand and accept your word and give us the strength to live in accord with it in our daily lives. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen!

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