Greeting

1:1  The opening of 2 Peter is along the conventional lines of a NT letter, giving sender, addressees, greeting (see commentary on Jude 1 and Additional Notes on Jude 1–2). The sender identifies himself as Simon Peter. Most Greek MSS of 2 Peter transliterate the sender’s first name as Symeōn, the Hebrew form applied to Simon Peter elsewhere in the NT only in Acts 15:14, in the appropriate Jewish-Christian setting of the Council of Jerusalem.

The author further calls himself a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ. The term apostle was used alone in the opening of 1 Peter (see Additional Note on 1 Pet. 1:1). Here, the writer adds the humbler description servant (doulos), bondslave, as do Paul (Rom. 1:1; Gal. 1:10; Titus 1:1), James (1:1), and Jude (1), i.e., one who has been bound to s…