2 Peter 3:16

as also in all his epistles The English represents the Greek accurately enough, but the absence of the article in the original should be noted as shewing that there was not yet any complete collection of St Paul's Epistles. All that can be legitimately inferred from the expression is that St Peter knew of other Epistles (probably 1 and 2 Thessalonians, 1 and 2 Cor., and Romans) besides those or that to which he had referred in the preceding verse.

speaking in them of these things i.e. of the coming of the Lord and of the end of the world. Here, on the assumption made in the previous verse, we may find a reference, as to 1 Thessalonians 4:5 and 2 Thessalonians 2; so also to Romans 8:19-21; Romans 13:11-12; 1 Corinthians 3:13; 1Co 4:5; 1 Corinthians 15:51-54.

in which are some things hard to be understood We are left to conjecture what these were. We might think of the mysterious predictions of "the man of sin" in 2 Thessalonians 2, or the doctrine of the "spiritual body" in 1 Corinthians 15:44; 2 Corinthians 5:1-4, but it is not easy to see how these elements of St Paul's teaching could have been perverted to the destruction of men's spiritual life. On the whole, therefore, it seems more likely that the Apostle finds in the "unlearned and unstable" the party of license in the Apostolic Church, who claimed to be following St Paul's assertion of his freedom, by eating things sacrificed to idols and indulging in sins of impurity (see note on chap. 2 Peter 2:19), or who quoted his words "that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law" (Romans 3:28) as sanctioning a profligate Antinomianism.

which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest Both words are peculiar to this Epistle in the New Testament. The latter had been used in chap. 2 Peter 2:14. The word for "wrest" expresses the action of a windlass that twists what is submitted to its action.

as they do also the other scriptures Few passages are more important than this in its bearing on the growth of the Canon of the New Testament. It shews (1) that the distinctive term of honour used of the books of the Old Testament was applied without reserve to St Paul's writings; (2) that probably other books now found in the Canon were also so recognised. The last inference, though it might be said that the "other Scriptures'did not necessarily mean other writings than those of the Old Testament Canon, is confirmed (1) by the use of the term "Scripture" as connected with a quotation from Luke 10:7 in 1 Timothy 5:18; (2) by St Paul's reference to "prophetic writings" or "Scriptures" as unfolding the mystery which had been hid from ages and generations in Romans 16:26, and probably by the tests which he gives in 2 Timothy 3:16 as the notes by which "every inspired Scripture, or writing," might be distinguished from its counterfeit. See notes bearing on this subject on 1 Peter 1:10-12; 1 Peter 4:11; 2 Peter 1:20-21.