2nd Peter Chapter 3 verse 16 Holy Bible

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 16. - As also in all his Epistles. The true reading is probably ἐν πάσαις ἐπιστολαῖς without the article. The words, therefore, do not imply the existence of a complete collection of St. Paul's Epistles, but mean only "in all Epistles which he writes." Speaking in them of these things; that is, of the day of God, the end of the world, etc. St. Peter was acquainted with other Epistles of St. Paul besides those addressed to the Asiatic Churches. There are evident indications of his knowledge of the Epistles to the Thessalonians and Corinthians, as well as of that to the Romans. In which are some things hard to be understood. The manuscripts vary between ἐν οῖς and ἐν αῖς. The first reading would refer to the words immediately preceding - "these things;" "among the subjects on which St. Paul wrote there are some things," etc. The second would refer to "all his Epistles," and would mean that there are certain difficulties in St. Paul's Epistles generally. St. Peter does not tell us what difficulties were in his thoughts - whether St. Paul's teaching about "the man of sin," and "the day of the Lord," or his doctrine of justification by faith, and his assertion of Christian liberty, which might be perverted into anti-nomianism by such men as the false teachers censured in chapter 2. The word δυσνόητος, "hard to be understood," occurs nowhere else in the New Testament. Which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest; rather, the ignorant and unsteadfast. Both words are peculiar to this Epistle; the last occurs also in 2 Peter 2:14, the first here only in the New Testament. The verb also translated "wrest" (στρεβλοῦσιν) is found only here; it means "to twist with a windlass," and so "to strain, to torture, to distort." As they do also the other Scriptures. This passage is of the greatest interest, as showing that some of St. Paul's Epistles had by this time taken their place in the estimate of Christians by the side of the sacred books of the Old Testament, and were regarded as Holy Scripture. By "the other Scriptures" St. Peter means the Old Testament, and also, perhaps, some of the earlier writings of the New, as the first three Gospels and the Epistle of St. James. St. Paul, in 1 Timothy 5:18, quotes a passage which seems to come from Luke 10:7 as Scripture (comp. 1 Peter 1:12). Unto their own destruction; literally, their own destruction of themselves. The use of both adjective and pronoun intensifies the meaning (comp. chapter 2 Peter 2:1, 12).

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(16) As also in all his epistles.--All those known to the writer. The expression does not necessarily Imply that St. Paul was dead, and that his Epistles had been collected into one volume. That each church made a collection of them as they became known to it, and that in the great centres they became known soon after they were written, are conjectures of great probability.Speaking in them of these things--viz., of the return of Christ and of the destruction of the world. Some, however, understand the words as meaning the exhortations to holiness here given.Some things hard to be understood.--Certainly the difficulties with which 2 Thessalonians 2 bristles are well described by this expression, and they relate to the very point in question--the time of Christ's coming. Moreover, scoffers could easily turn them to account by arguing that "the man of sin" had not yet appeared, and that therefore there was no likelihood of the end of the world coming just yet. But in admitting that 2 Thessalonians 2 is among the passages alluded to here, we are not committed to the theory that 1 and 2 Thess. are alluded to in 2Peter 3:15. Many refer these words to St. Paul's doctrine of justification by faith as wrested to mean "faith without works." So, again, Ephesians 2:5-6, and Colossians 2:12 might be wrested to mean that "the resurrection is past already" (2Timothy 2:18). (See Note on Romans 3:8 respecting perversion of his teaching.) . . .