“Also, regard the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our dear brother Paul has written to you according to the wisdom given to him. He speaks about these things in all his letters. There are some things hard to understand in them. The untaught and unstable will twist them to their own destruction, as they also do with the rest of the Scriptures.”
Peter ends his letter with another reminder to remember God’s patience. He had written a very similar thing earlier in the letter. “The Lord does not delay his promise, as some understand delay, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish but all to come to repentance” (3:9). Now Peter uses this phrase, “Regard the patience of our lord as salvation…” I think that is beautiful. Sometimes I look around me and wonder why Jesus hasn’t come back yet. And then I read these verses. “Regard the patience of the Lord as salvation…” How many people have been saved just today because God has delayed?
Peter finishes that phrase with “… just as our dear brother Paul has written…” The readers of Peter’s letters would have also received letters from Paul. Perhaps he is referring to Paul’s letter to Rome where he writes, “Or do you despise the riches of his kindness, restraint, and patience, not recognizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance?” (Romans 2:4).
Peter calls Paul “our dear brother.” The word “dear” is agapetos in Greek, which is “beloved.” Several years earlier, Paul had called Peter out in his letter to the church at Galatia for separating himself from the Gentiles because he feared those from the circumcision party. These were the converted Jewish Christians who were trying to compel the Gentiles to live under the law. You can read about it in Galatians 2. What I love about this in 2 Peter is that we see that Peter has corrected his behavior and he calls Paul his beloved or dear brother. He sets an example for us. How do we accept correction? Do we get resentful? Angry? Or do we learn what God is teaching us and not let our pride get in the way? One of the verses from our Life Group this week is from Colossians. It says, “Let the word of Christ dwell richly among you, in all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another through psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts” (3:16). We are to teach and admonish one another, just as Paul did with Peter. Peter accepted Paul’s admonishment and corrected his behavior.
As I am thinking about this, it makes me realize that even Peter needed correcting in his behavior. This was not the Peter who denied Jesus three times-technically it was, but what I mean is that Peter had matured so much by this point. He had boldly preached the gospel throughout the book of Acts, had been imprisoned, and yet in Paul’s letter to Galatia, he had to be admonished. We are all capable of falling into sin, no matter where we are in our walk. These verses came to my mind while I was writing this. “Therefore, since we also have such a large cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us lay aside every hindrance and the sin that so easily ensnares us. Let us run with endurance the race that lies before us, keeping our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. For the joy that lay before him, he endured the cross, despising the shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:1-2). The phrase “the sin that so easily ensnares us” is the one that kept coming into my head. Sin trips us up. We need to keep our eyes on Jesus. I went a little off topic here, but it was important. Back to our verses!
Peter goes on in verse 16 to refer to Paul’s letters. He says, “He speaks about these things in all his letters. There are some things hard to understand in them.” We do not know if Peter had access to every one of Paul’s letters at this time, or if he is just saying all of the letters that they have read so far. Either way, there are some difficult things to understand in Paul’s letters. Douglas Moo, in The NIV Application Commentary writes “Many of us feel relieved and comforted when we read Peter’s words here. We do not feel so badly about our problems in interpreting Paul if Peter, a fellow apostle, had the same difficulty! But the context suggests that Peter is making a slightly different point. It is not so much that what Paul wrote was obscure; rather, it could be easy, by looking at what Paul said in the wrong context or in an unbalanced way, to get the wrong meaning out of it.”
That leads to the next part of the verse. Peter writes, “The untaught and unstable will twist them to their own destruction, as they also do with the rest of the Scriptures.” Peter has already addressed these false teachers earlier in his letter. As a reminder, let’s look at what he had to say. First, he reminded them, “Above all, you know this: No prophecy of Scripture comes from the prophet’s own interpretation, because no prophecy ever came by the will of man; instead, men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (1:20-21). Apparently, these false teachers were taking the Scriptures and giving them their own or a new meaning. I just gave a talk to our women at church on how to read the Bible and this was something I talked about. You can read it here: How to Read Your Bible – Abundant Joy. Next, he called them false prophets and false teachers. “There were indeed false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, and will bring swift destruction on themselves” (2:1). Peter uses this word destruction here and in that first verse. It is not a good thought! And then, “They have eyes full of adultery that never stop looking for sin. They seduce unstable people and have hearts trained in greed. Children under a curse!” (2:14). These are harsh words. We would do well to heed them, and to be aware of anyone who twists the word of God to make it say what it does not say. I am thinking of prosperity preachers and progressive pastors among others right now who twist the gospel to make it fit the message they are teaching even when it goes against the clear teaching of the Bible.
The last thing I want to cover today is the very last thing Peter says in verse 16. Did you catch the phrase “so they also do with the rest of the Scriptures?” Peter is equating Paul’s letters with the Scriptures. They were already part of the sacred writings of the early church! During Jesus’s time on earth, what we think of today as the Old Testament was already considered a complete collection known as “the Scripture.” According to Paul Little in his book Know What You Believe, “According to careful calculation, approximately 31 percent- nearly one third- of the New Testament is composed of Old Testament quotations and allusions.” The writers might designate them as “the Scripture” as Peter does here in this verse. Often the writer introduces their quote with the phrase “it is written.” Sometimes, it is just a reference to people from the Old Testament as Peter did when he referred to Noah. Here, with this verse, we get a glimpse of how the New Testament canon of Scriptures was formed. Douglas Moo writes, “Peter therefore implies that the letters of Paul have a status equivalent to that of the canon of the Old Testament itself.”
The final canon of the New Testament was not established until AD 367 when Athanasius, who is considered the father of orthodoxy, listed the twenty-seven books we use today in his 39th Paschal letter. These are the criteria used in recognizing canonicity: 1.) Was the book apostolic in origin? 2.) Was the book used and recognized by the churches? 3.) Did the book teach sound doctrine? Although this seems like a late date, Paul’s letters and the four Gospels were being read among the churches from a much earlier date. Neil R. Lightfoot writes in his book How We Got our Bible, “It is no later than the middle of the 2nd century when the apostles letters became widely read in public meetings, it is no later than the last half of that century when substantial lists of the New Testament books appear.” There are only a few books which were in question at that time and that the church identified as being inspired scripture. There are books such as the ones I listed that explain how we got our Bible, the ancient manuscripts, and how translations work. I encourage you to find out these things for yourself, especially if we believe that “All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” 2 Timothy 3:16-17.
Grace be with you!
Abundant Joy 