2 Peter 3:15-16
So also our beloved brother Paul wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, speaking of this as he does in all his letters. There are some things in them hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other scriptures.
I value honesty in another person before anything else. I love it when a person comes to me and says plainly what’s going on in them. Sometimes, because I’m a pastor, people are less than honest around me, putting on a front, pretending to be something they’re not. So I learn to treasure those moments when people around me are being unguarded, because I know that means they will let me be my unguarded self too.
This verse of Scripture is precious precisely because it is unguarded. Peter says plainly and honestly what many of us think as we wade through Paul’s writing, and indeed all of Scripture: “Some of this is hard to understand!” Paul is important—after all, he is “our beloved brother”—but interpreting his words can be difficult work. As we wade through ethical issue after ethical issue in our lives, often Paul can be our most important—and most confounding—source of authority on the issues. And if you read Greek, it’s even worse. Paul’s sentences are quite complex—you begin to wonder if they will ever end.
Yet this Scripture is honest in other ways too. It is brutally honest, in fact. It suggests that while Scripture can be hard to understand, we dare not twist its meaning to suit ourselves. Peter says that doing this shows that we are “ignorant” and “unstable” and that to twist the meaning of Scripture to suit ourselves will result in our destruction. Peter brings out one of the classic difficulties about the Bible: compared to the hard work of interpreting the Bible responsibly, twisting it is very easy—but it will have disastrous results.
We are more tempted than ever to twist Scripture today. Why? Modern western culture emphasizes the rights of the individual to the extent that we have a hard time limiting our rights. Yet the call of the sixty-six difficult documents that we call the Bible is not to throw our hands up and believe whatever the rest of the world believes. No, our task is to live in the Scriptures, to saturate ourselves in them, to learn about them and to learn from them. Yes, it is hard work; but it leads to life, not to destruction.
I value honesty in another person before anything else. I love it when a person comes to me and says plainly what’s going on in them. Sometimes, because I’m a pastor, people are less than honest around me, putting on a front, pretending to be something they’re not. So I learn to treasure those moments when people around me are being unguarded, because I know that means they will let me be my unguarded self too.
This verse of Scripture is precious precisely because it is unguarded. Peter says plainly and honestly what many of us think as we wade through Paul’s writing, and indeed all of Scripture: “Some of this is hard to understand!” Paul is important—after all, he is “our beloved brother”—but interpreting his words can be difficult work. As we wade through ethical issue after ethical issue in our lives, often Paul can be our most important—and most confounding—source of authority on the issues. And if you read Greek, it’s even worse. Paul’s sentences are quite complex—you begin to wonder if they will ever end.
Yet this Scripture is honest in other ways too. It is brutally honest, in fact. It suggests that while Scripture can be hard to understand, we dare not twist its meaning to suit ourselves. Peter says that doing this shows that we are “ignorant” and “unstable” and that to twist the meaning of Scripture to suit ourselves will result in our destruction. Peter brings out one of the classic difficulties about the Bible: compared to the hard work of interpreting the Bible responsibly, twisting it is very easy—but it will have disastrous results.
We are more tempted than ever to twist Scripture today. Why? Modern western culture emphasizes the rights of the individual to the extent that we have a hard time limiting our rights. Yet the call of the sixty-six difficult documents that we call the Bible is not to throw our hands up and believe whatever the rest of the world believes. No, our task is to live in the Scriptures, to saturate ourselves in them, to learn about them and to learn from them. Yes, it is hard work; but it leads to life, not to destruction.
posted by Rev. Michael Jordan at 2:52 PM
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