Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Evening Sermon Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/ev/ev20120122.htm

THRU THE BIBLE EXPOSITION
2 Peter: Effective Christian Growth For Combating Spiritual Apostasy
Part IX: Heeding The Apostles' Teachings Versus Our Era's False Teachings
(2 Peter 3:15b-18)
  1. Introduction
    1. Though Peter wrote in 2 Peter 3:15a with 3:9 that the long time the earth has functioned without divine miraculous intervention since the creation and Noah's flood did not mean God was slack concerning His promise of Christ's Second Coming, but that He was longsuffering, wanting men to repent and be saved, scoffers holding to uniformitarianism behind Darwinian evolution claim Peter's words err, that they are not true. (Bolton Davidheiser, Evolution and the Christian Faith , 1976, Forward by Charles C. Ryrie)
    2. Peter counters this, and 2 Peter 3:15b-18 shows the importance of heeding the teachings of all of written Scripture versus today's errant denials of the Bible's divine inspiration (as follows):
  2. Heeding The Apostles' Teachings Versus Our Era's False Teachings, 2 Peter 3:15b-18.
    1. After repeating his claim that the longsuffering of the Lord in not repeating mass divine miracles on earth since the Creation and Noahic Flood did not mean God was slack about His promise of Christ's Second Coming as uniformitarians scoff (2 Peter 3:15a with 3:9), Peter asserted that the Church's beloved brother Paul, with the wisdom given him by God, had written the same truth to Peter's readers, 2 Peter 3:15b.
    2. In fact, not only in the epistle to Peter's readers, but in all of Paul's epistles to various Christians and Christian churches, Peter claimed that Paul had taught this same truth, 2 Peter 3:16a.
    3. Peter noted that some of what Paul had written was hard to understand (2 Peter 3:16b), but that those who had such confusion were "ignorant" and "unstable" folk who "distorted" Paul's claims on these matters, as they also did the "other" Scriptures to their own destruction, 2 Peter 3:16c NIV.
    4. This statement shows Paul's writings were considered divinely inspired by the Church in Peter's era:
      1. Peter's words were announced by Jesus in John 17:20 to be canonical, for there He acknowledged people would believe and be saved through faith in the word of His disciples, of whom Peter was one!
      2. Peter then claimed here in 2 Peter 3:16c that Paul's words were true, on the equal of the Old Testament Scriptures that Jesus Himself held to be divinely, verbally inspired:
        1. In Matthew 5:17-18, Jesus had already declared that not the smallest Hebrew letter, the letter yodh, the meaning of "jot" (KJV), and not the smallest "extension or protrusion on several Hebrew letters which distinguish these letters from similar ones," the meaning of "tittle" (KJV), would pass from the Word of God until was all fulfilled, Ryrie Study Bible, KJV, 1978, ftn. to Matthew 5:18.
        2. With this Old Testament being seen as divinely inspired Scripture, when Peter claimed Paul's letters were classed with "the other Scriptures" in 2 Peter 3:16c, he put Paul's epistles on par with the verbally divinely inspired Old Testament Scriptures: (1) the Greek word for "other" here is loipos, "remaining, the rest," as opposed to heteros, which means "another, different," Arndt & Gingrich, A Greek-English Lex. of the N. T., 1967, p. 481, 315; U. B. S. Greek N. T., 1966, p. 812. (2) Thus, Peter did not claim Paul's writings were a different kind of writing, but that they were divinely inspired Scripture as were the "rest" of the same kind of writings, the Old Testament Scriptures!
      3. Paul's epistles comprise about half of the New Testament (Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon and maybe Hebrews), a big part of the New Testament is thus fully divinely inspired via Peter's testimony!
    5. Accordingly, Peter urged his readers who knew of the mishandling of both the Old Testament and Paul's inspired Scripture writings to be on their guard so as to avoid being carried away by the error of lawless men who deny or distort them so as to fall from their secure position of heeding the truth, 2 Pet. 3:17 NIV.
    6. They were also to grow in grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, 2 Peter 3:18, to whom be glory both now and for ever, a typically Pauline phrase (cf. Romans 11:36b; 16:27).
Lesson: Peter's words versus scoffers who hold to uniformitarianism agree with Paul's epistles in theology, including the words of all Christ's Apostles by further examination, so we must hold firmly to the Apostle's teachings as we do the God inspired Old Testament versus the false teachings of our era.

Application: May we hold firmly to the truths of the written Bible versus our era's false teachings!