The Epistles of St. Peter and St. Jude provide a critical and exegetical commentary on the foundation of faith by Martin Luther. On the great subject of justification by faith alone, Luther is here full and emphatic. The relation of faith to works is clearly and carefully defined, while the subjects presented in the text afford full opportunity for discussing the great questions that concern the relative duties of civil and social life.

This eBook has been formatted to the highest digital standards and adjusted for readability on all devices. The Epistles of St. Peter and St. Jude provide a critical and exegetical commentary on the foundation of faith by Martin Luther. On the great subject of justification by faith alone, Luther is here full and emphatic. The relation of faith to works is clearly and carefully defined, while the subjects presented in the text afford full opportunity for discussing the great questions that concern the relative duties of civil and social life.

The second volume in Travis B. Williams' and David G. Horrell's magisterial ICC commentary on first Peter. Williams and Horrell bring together all the relevant aids to exegesis - linguistic, textual, archaeological, historical, literary, and theological - to help the reader understand the letter. This second covers the major part of the letter, providing commentary on 2.11 to the end of the letter. The exegesis provides for each passage sections on bibliography, text-criticism, literary introduction, detailed exegesis, and overall summary. The volume concludes with a comprehensive bibliography, which covers the whole epistle.

The structural approach facilitates exposure of the elements of eschatological teaching characteristic of 2 Peter's author with its correct or incorrect interpretation. Narratives drawn from Jewish tradition aim to show two attitudes towards the announcement of destruction: a positive attitude, signifying salvation, and a negative attitude, signifying annihilation. This pattern is transferred to the attitude towards prophetic and apostolic eschatological teaching. Part 1 of the commentary (2 Pet 1–2) focuses on the misinterpretation of this teaching by false teachers and their followers. Their eschatological scepticism is ridiculed and their grim fate described. As the starting point for this description and Peter's whole line of argumentation 2 Pet 2:3b is taken – the thesis is that God's inaction is only apparent, while judgment and punishment are inevitable, although only God knows when they will be executed. Part 2 of the commentary (2 Pet 3) focuses on the proper interpretation of this teaching and on laying out the principles of the letter author's hermeneutics. This hermeneutic construes texts from Jewish tradition as foreshadowing and typologies of eschatological events. In explaining the principles of his hermeneutic, the letter's author drew on the creation story, which Jewish apocalypticism read inversely, to mark that the eschatological hermeneutics is rooted in tradition. The starting point of Peter's line of argumentation was taken to be 2 Pet 3:5.7 with its thesis of God's creative and destructive word and God's sovereign will regarding the preservation of creation and the appointment of the time of judgement. This thesis explains the apparent lack of divine action, which was also a major concern in Part 1 of the commentary (2 Pet 1–2).