Verse 16
16. These things The second advent and its apparently near approach.
Hard to be understood Without due explanation as to the law of prophetic time.
Unlearned Ignorant of the true law.
Unstable Fickle in moral character, and ready at any difficulty to waver.
Wrest Twist, as with a windlass or hand-screw. They so put their forcible screws onto the time-words in the predictions of the judgment day as to declare them unfulfilled, and to maintain that no judgment day will ever come, and that Christianity itself is a fiction.
Other scriptures The same unlearned and fickle perversity will find plenty of other difficulties in scripture to wrest to their own destruction. He who wants a cavil will never fail to find one. And here it is to be noted that Paul’s epistles are ranked by Peter as scriptures, and are held by him to be authoritative scriptures for the Christian Church. Even so early as the writing of this epistle a canon of New Testament scriptures was recognised in the Church of these Hebrews, and St. Paul’s writings were included in it with the express endorsement of St. Peter.
Destruction The same as the perdition of 2 Peter 3:7, and these apostates are of the same class as the ungodly men of that verse.
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