Living in a World That Has Been Shaken | Apostolic Wisdom Daily Manna

"Since all these things will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You should live holy and godly lives as you await and hasten the coming of the day of God. That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat." (2 Peter 3:11-12, BSB)

Imagine a house everyone has lived in for generations. One day the landlord says, "This building is coming down, and a new one is ready." You don't cling to the old walls. You pack light and look to the new home. Peter writes to first-century believers, many of them Jewish. They lived beside a temple that seemed permanent. But Jesus had said its stones would be thrown down (Matthew 24:2). Peter says the same kind of shaking is coming, and he uses the old prophets' language: "heavens", "earth", "elements". In Scripture, "heavens and earth" often means the covenant world, the whole order God had set up around Israel (Isaiah 51:15-16). And "elements" (stoicheia) is Paul's word for the basic rules of the old system (Galatians 4:3, 9). Hebrews says the same: "once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens...