2 Peter 3:15 - Exposition

And account that the long-suffering of our Lord is salvation. The apostle is referring to 2 Peter 3:9 . Scoffers count the delay of the judgment slackness; the Christian should count it salvation; it is for the salvation of the elect that the judgment tarrieth. It is almost certain that by "our Lord" here St. Peter means the Lord Jesus, whom he describes by the same title in 2 Peter 3:18 . Even as our beloved brother Paul also. The plural pronoun may be intended to imply that St. Paul was known to the Churches to which St. Peter was writing, and was beloved there. St. Peter addresses his readers as "beloved" four times in this Epistle; he here uses the same epithet of St. Paul. It comes naturally from his lips; but a writer of the second century would probably have used much stronger words of praise in speaking of one so much reverenced. According to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you; rather, wrote to you (comp. Polycarp, 'Ad Philipp.,' Philippians 1:3 , "One like me cannot equal the wisdom of the blessed Paul"). That wisdom was given mite him, as he himself says ( 1 Corinthians 3:10 ). If we ask to what Epistles of St. Paul is St. Peter referring, the passage which at once occurs to us is 1 Thessalonians 4:1-18 and 1 Thessalonians 5:1-28 . This Epistle was probably known to St. Peter; there may be a reference to 1 Thessalonians 5:2 in 1 Thessalonians 5:10 of this chapter; and Silvanus, whose name St. Paul associates with his own in both Epistles to the Thessalonians, was with St. Peter when he wrote his First Epistle ( 1 Peter 5:12 ). But St. Peter's Second Epistle is addressed (primarily at least) to the same Churches to which the first was written ( 1 Thessalonians 3:1 ). We must therefore either say, with Dean Alford, that "our Epistle belongs to a date when the Pauline Epistles were no longer the property only of the Churches to which they were written, but were dispersed through, and considered to belong to, the whole Christian Church;" or we must suppose that the passages in St. Peter's thoughts were not in the Epistle to the Thessalonians, but in some of the Epistles addressed to the Churches of Asia Minor; as, for instance, Ephesians 1:4 ; Ephesians 2:8 ; Ephesians 3:9-11 ; Colossians 1:22 ; Colossians 3:4 , Colossians 3:24 ; or, possibly Romans 2:4 and Romans 9:22 , as there seem to be some reasons for believing that this last Epistle was addressed to the Church at Ephesus among others.