Over the years I’ve noticed how many of the verses I’ve highlighted in my Bible are the third chapter and sixteenth verse of a book, the “3:16s”. I know the chapter and verse divisions of the English Bibles are man made, so the 3:16s are either a coincidence or maybe it’s just that all the verses of the Bible are interesting. They’re all inspired (2 Tim. 3:16). They all lead to Christ (John 3:16). Gal. 3:16 tells us the Bible is the best commentary on itself. You get the point.
So, because the 3:16s are interesting to me, I will throw a 3:16 into the mix once in awhile like today:
2 Peter 3:16 “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 the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.”
I chose to start with 2 Peter 3:16 because there’s a lot of stuff in this single verse and should be a good passage to start off this theme.
The verse is speaking of Paul’s letters, and there are several points Peter wants us to see. He tells us sometimes Paul’s letters are difficult to understand. That is an understatement. Most of us have struggled with some of the passages in Paul’s epistles. That said, the most interesting thing to me is Peter knows passages that are not easily understood are easily misunderstood and easily twisted to conform to one’s beliefs.
Let’s look at Peter’s first group, the ignorant. The Greek word for “ignorant” here is amatheis. It means “unschooled” or “unlearned.” The sincere but ignorant Bible student can twist Scripture in a genuine attempt to understand it. After all, we have 66 books made up of 1,189 chapters (31,142 verse)s in the English Standard Version. That’s a lot to take in. As a result, passages can be taken out of context or twisted to fit into a preconceived notion of the reader. That’s not a good thing.
It is just that they are unlearned and don’t know any better. What is needed is some instruction from a more mature Christian who is able to interpret the Word of God and show the students how to study the Bible themselves.
Now on to the “unstable” preachers: The Greek word is asteriktoi. This is the only place it appears in the New Testament. It means unstable in the sense of having no foundation – “unpropped” is the closest translation to the word. “Nothing is holding it up.”
The Maharishi Mahesh Yogi once said “Jesus said, ‘Be still and know that I am God,’ so, be still and know that you are god.’” Lots of stuff wrong with that statement. Jesus didn’t say it. It is the beginning of Psalm 46:10. God said it and didn’t mean we are gods.
The Maharishi Mahesh Yogi had no foundation. He was “unpropped,” but he used what he had heard and tried to apply it to his own beliefs. This is called an appeal to authority. By trying to drag the Bible into his deception, he could imply Jesus (the Authority) endorsed what the Yogi was saying.
This is the sort of thing we see in the cults as well. The Mormons point to Ezek. 37:19 as support for the inspiration of the Book of Mormon:
say to them, Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I am about to take the stick of Joseph (that is in the hand of Ephraim) and the tribes of Israel associated with him. And I will join with it the stick of Judah, and make them one stick, that they may be one in my hand.
Because Joseph Smith wrote the Book of Mormon, the Mormons teach the stick of Joseph is referring to Joseph’s Book of Mormon as a second testament along with the stick of Judah (the Bible). If you read the context, this verse has nothing to do with any other faith. It’s just a blind baseless claim no more reliable than that of the Marharishi.
My last point on 2 Peter 3:16 is that it points to Paul’s writings as Scripture. Peter, the head of the apostles, points to Paul’s epistles as they were still being written and calls them Scripture. So, there was no doubt in the early church God was again inspiring writings, and those writings were coming from the apostles.
Why is this important?
How we handle Scripture is extremely important. Scripture “does stuff” as my pastor says. It gets inside of us and changes us. It instructs us. It is our standard for truth. It is the antiseptic for the infection of evil in us and in the world. We need to be careful how we handle it and generous in how we share it.
Believers Armed and Dangerous 