God’s Word for You
2 Peter 3:15-16 About Paul and the other Scriptures
by Pastor Timothy Smith on Saturday, September 3, 2022
15 Regard the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, 16 as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.
When did Paul write to the people Peter is now writing to? Since we take this letter to be written to the same audience as 1 Peter, we can say very generally, “the Galatians” since the first letter is addressed to the Galatians and other Christians of Asia Minor. So either Peter means that Paul wrote about salvation to the Galatians (written around 51 AD), or else we can conclude, as some of our Lutheran Fathers did, that Peter means that Paul wrote Hebrews (to believing Jews a few years after Galatians), since many of the same subjects of Hebrews are taken up in Paul’s letters, and also since the Christians of Asia Minor were, for the most part, converted Jews.
Peter warns that “ignorant and unstable people” will twist certain things in Paul’s letters “to their own destruction.” Some things Paul wrote about are certainly challenging for many people, because Paul did not shrink away from answering hard questions. But the truly remarkable statement here is that Peter recognizes the letters of Paul as being Scripture, because he says that unbelievers twist Paul’s words the same way that they do “the other Scriptures.”
The teachings of the Bible don’t always agree with our fallen human reason. But “we demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5). Some things are beyond our comprehension entirely, as Paul says: “Oh, the depth of the riches and the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!” (Romans 11:33). Such things as God’s holiness and grace are among these things. The sinful mind “is hostile to God” (Romans 8:7) and cannot submit to God’s law. Sometimes we can’t understand perfectly because we don’t know the details or the circumstances of a specific passage. For example, is the immoral brother who committed incest with his stepmother in 1 Corinthians 5:1 the same man whose “punishment was sufficient for him” in 2 Corinthians 2:6? But truly, what can be harder to understand and take to heart than the teaching that “man is justified by faith apart from works” (Romans 3:28)? People who read those words are easily tempted to “twist them to their own destruction.” People are easily tempted to think that their works have to count for something. Otherwise, they muse, I would be tempted to just sit around doing nothing, showing no love to my neighbor! Am I then still saved? They hold up one sentence of the Bible as if they’ve ripped it from a notebook, with jagged edges and more words showing at the top and bottom that they’re ignoring completely. The doctrine of justification, or being saved, is that we can do nothing to deserve salvation, and Christ has done it all for us in our place. But we still do good works. Those works of loving our neighbor are done out of thanks, not to merit anything. Do not think you are saved by anything you do, otherwise you will lose sight of Christ and be tempted to look to yourself. So if that is the danger you face, either looking to myself or looking to Christ, then by all means do nothing but sit on your couch and know that Christ’s blood covers over your sins. But after a time, when you snap out of your foolishness, you will see that it pleases God for us to help and to love one another, and such grateful acts that do not save nevertheless are accepted by God as good, and he uses such things in the work of his kingdom.
He waits for us to learn this, and Peter reminds us that God’s patient waiting is also part of our salvation, since he wants “all of us to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4). If we have difficulty understanding some of the things in his word, that isn’t because they’re not clearly taught. The more important the doctrine, the more clearly the Bible presents that truth to us. This clarity in God’s word convinces us that the whole Bible is true. So we bow to God, and we bow in submission to his word. Jesus says: “Whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life” (John 5:24), and David prays three times in the Great Psalm: “Preserve my live according to your word” (Psalm 119:25,37,107). In his word we have forgiveness, strength, comfort, and everlasting life. This is the message of Peter, of Paul, and all the rest of Scripture.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in New Ulm, Minnesota. To receive God’s Word for You via e-mail, please visit the St. Paul’s Lutheran Church website.