Scripture Daily

Context No. 2466 of 4322 · 2 Peter

Context · Reflection

2 Peter 3:14-18: in context

14Therefore, beloved, seeing that you look for these things, be diligent to be found in peace, without defect and blameless in his sight. 15Regard the patience of our Lord as salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also, according to the wisdom given to him, wrote to you, 16as also in all of his letters, speaking in them of these things. In those, there are some things that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unsettled twist, as they also do to the other Scriptures, to their own destruction. 17You therefore, beloved, knowing these things beforehand, beware, lest being carried away with the error of the wicked, you fall from your own steadfastness. 18But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and forever. Amen.

Peter is closing his letter with a call to be found at peace, spotless and blameless, and he adds a striking way to read God's slowness: regard the patience of our Lord as salvation. He mentions that his beloved brother Paul wrote the same things, that some of it is hard to understand and easily twisted, and he urges his readers not to be carried away, but to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord.

The line to hold is that God's patience is salvation. The delay of the Lord's return, which the scoffers took as proof he would never act, Peter reads as mercy, time deliberately given so that more may repent and be saved. What looks like God being slow is God being kind. And the response he asks is not to coast but to grow: keep maturing in grace and knowledge so you are not swept off your feet. God's patience is not an excuse to drift; it is room he is holding open, and the fitting use of it is to grow.

Do I read God's patience and delay as indifference, or as merciful room he is holding open for me to grow and turn?

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