experience is overrated

The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.

Isaiah 40:8

Peter begins his second letter candidly: his death would soon leave a vacuum of authority in the fragile church communities that depended on him. The letter, brimming with exhortations, opens with a word intended to shape how these early Christians thought about sources of spiritual authority. Peter, eyewitness to the events of the gospels, would soon to be gone; an authoritative basis for confidence in the faith would be needed. Peter responds to this challenge with one of the most profound insights in Scripture.

In our day more than ever, personal experience is the locus of authority in the lives of most people; though this a matter of degree and not anything new. Experience has always been important to people, giving them confidence in what they know. And it is not evil in itself. Experience aids us when crossing a street, choosing a ripened peach, and so on. Our dependence, however, can sometimes blind us to how woefully inadequate experience can be.

Peter had witnessed the healing of the lame, the deaf, and the blind. He had seen the Lord Jesus transfigured before his very eyes in a moment that must have rendered him breathless. In recounting this event to his fellow believers, he writes:

For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For when he received honor and glory from God the Father, and the voice was borne to him by the Majestic Glory, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased,” we ourselves heard this very voice borne from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain.

2 Peter 1:16-18

As with the other apostles, Peter’s credibility as an authority was clearly established by his experience. But it is the next phrase which is so remarkable.

And we have something more sure, the prophetic word, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, 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.

2 Peter 1:19-21

Some translations dampen the impact of verse 19, phrasing it to mean nearly the opposite of the flow, not only of the text, but also Peter’s purpose (e.g. And we have the prophetic word strongly confirmed). As creatures who crave experience, what Peter actually says flies in the face of every assumption we make about experience. He tells believers that the Word of God written supersedes even an experience as rattling as being eyewitness to the transfiguration. In other words, the Word of God is more illuminating, more certain, and more authoritative than even the personal experience of the events it describes!

Some might say this is impossible or absurd. And yet other Scriptures confirm Peter’s insight and expose the crumbly foundation of experience. The Israelites experience a fiery pillar, water parted and suspended in space, food falling from the sky, and just a few verses later, they clamor to return to life in Egypt. Experience is overrated.