At the end of Peter’s second letter, in the midst of a final reminder of the growth of piety, we find two memorable verses that help form a Christian doctrine of the scriptures.
Somehow, in these two verses, Peter simply says, “Paul agrees with me on this theme of holiness, not with false teachers. “But in saying this, Peter declares some crucial truths about the scriptures. We’ll highlight four.
- 1.
- We see that apostolic writings were placed next to the Old Testament canon as authorized scripture.
- Verse 16 says that some people distorted Paul’s letters.
- Just as they did with the rest of the scriptures.
- It’s graphic.
- This happens 49 times in the New Testament.
- And in each of them it refers to the scriptures of the Old Testament.
- It is remarkable that Peter.
- Writing around 60 AD.
- Places Paul’s writings together with the Old Testament as well as authorized.
Moreover, Peter does not even try to defend this strong affirmation, in his mind he raises the obvious. This is not debatable, Peter did not need to convince these churches that Paul’s writings had as much authority as the scriptures of the Old Testament; apparently, they have already recognized, assumed, and treated Paul’s writings in this way, so when Peter refers to the verse As to the wisdom given to Paul, he probably speaks of divine inspiration, not that Tarsus’ man was an intelligent man.
2. The scriptures can be difficult to understand. Christians over the centuries have found great comfort in verse 16, where Peter admits that there are things in Paul’s writings that are difficult to understand. Even Peter, the great Apostle, the first among many in the early Church, recognized that there are difficult parts of the Bible. It’s not all simple.
Christians have always believed in what is called “the insight of the scriptures. “Does this mean that the scriptures are clear? But the doctrine of insight has never meant that all parts of the scriptures are equally obvious or equally important. parts are the most obvious parts. This means that the message of salvation is clear. This means that the most basic and central themes of the biblical narrative are clear, even if you are not the smartest, even if you have not received much education, even if you are a child. We can all understand that Jesus is the Messiah, that we must repent, believe in Christ, and obey His commandments. This is all very clear. But that doesn’t mean everything is clear, some parts require a lot of study. Some parties require special attention; some doctrines are complicated. Some parts of the Bible are very difficult. Ask Peter about Paul.
3. The flip side of this second point is that even the difficult parts of the Bible have correct and incorrect interpretations. Notice, Peter doesn’t say, some things in Paul are hard to understand. So who am I to say what is right and what is wrong? We all have an interpretation. No, he said, “some things are difficult to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction. ” Pedro did not think that just because something was difficult there could not be a correct answer to this problem. Some Christians are mentally lazy. Do they dishonor the Word and the God of the Word with their swift lodging in the land of? I do not know? and “it’s not a question of salvation, so who cares. ” They say: understanding the doctrine of election is difficult. It is difficult to come to a conclusion about homosexuality. It is impossible to know the roles of men and women. So we give up and accept that no interpretation can be better than another. Pedro, on the other hand, is not afraid to say that the presence of certain difficult texts does not exclude the presence of correct and erroneous interpretations.
4. Some misinterpretations can kill you. There is some room for disagreement among Christians on certain issues; We see it clearly in Romans 14; we don’t need to be caught up in a questionable question; but in some cases, misinterpreted interpretations are not only incorrect, but also deadly. The false teachers of Peter’s day distorted the scriptures for their own destruction. They quoted the scriptures, but not correctly.
I participated in discussions in which both sides used the Bible. And sometimes good people get confused and think, “Well, if you both use the Bible, you should both be right. “But Peter suggests that the scriptures can be used, but using them in a deceptive, unfaithful and distorted way actually leads you to fall. Not all problems are so serious, but it is true that when we discuss whether or not God’s people should seek a holy life, or whether sexual sin should be taken seriously or not (2 Peter 2), we discuss a central theme of Christianity. . . So, we distort the Bible to allow us to call sin a blessing and call those who oppose sin with all sorts of names that end in?Phobic? It is to twist Scripture to its own destruction.