Michael picks up his ongoing theme: remembrance in Scripture.
Old Testament vs. New Testament remembrance
In the Old Testament, God used physical signs (Sinai’s thunder, tassels, circumcision, Sabbath, feasts, sacrifices) to remind Israel of the covenant. When Christ came, people who saw Him could remember His life and miracles directly. But the New Testament epistles shift the pattern: since most believers (especially Gentiles) never saw Christ, the apostles pointed to their own lived example as the reminder of what Christlike character looks like.
Paul’s example
Building on last session’s look at 1 Corinthians 4:17, Michael turns to 2 Corinthians 6, where Paul catalogs how he and his companions endured afflictions, beatings, imprisonments, and slander — responding not with bitterness but with genuine love, purity, and joy (“as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing”). He connects this to 1 Thessalonians 1–2, where Paul repeatedly says “you know” / “you are witnesses” to remind the Thessalonians how blamelessly he, Silas, and Timothy conducted themselves while among them — becoming a model the believers then imitated.
Peter’s example
In 2 Peter 1, near the end of his life, Peter reminds believers not of Old Testament history but of qualities — faith, virtue, knowledge, self-control, steadfastness, godliness, brotherly affection, love — meant to be lived out. Michael notes Peter’s heavy use of the Greek word anastrophe (“conduct/behavior”) throughout 1 & 2 Peter, reinforcing that genuine faith is proven by conduct, not just belief.
Core thread tying it together
Because the apostles couldn’t rely on people having seen Christ, they became “living epistles” — Hebrews 13:7 (“consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith”) and Colossians 1:24–29 (Paul rejoicing in suffering “for your sake,” to make the word fully known) show the same pattern: godly conduct under trial becomes the reminder and model that draws others to genuine discipleship.