INTRODUCTION.
The writer of this letter is none other than the same person who wrote the first Epistle. This the writer himself claims. To me it has been a matter of astonishment that this letter should have been refused a place in the sacred canon, while the former was accepted. However, now it seems to be of general acceptance. I can find nothing to indicate where Peter was at the time he composed this letter, and can only fix a time at which it was written, by inferences more or less doubtful. In the third chapter, sixteenth verse, he speaks of all the Epistles of Paul. Now, it is fairly safe to say that all of Paul's Epistles, except that of the second to Timothy, were written before A. D. 65. From this alone I conclude that Peter did not write this, his second letter, before the latter part of the year 65, or the first part of A. D. 66.
The aim is to keep the Christian mind stirred up with relation to the duties imposed upon them and the great reasons for diligence in the performance of these duties; to warn them of false teachers that would arise, and, in fact, of all the conflicts to which they would be subjected, and holding up to their gaze the glorious reward that awaits the faithful.