¹⁵. . . just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you, ¹⁶as also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction.

Peter draws on the apostle Paul’s teaching to support his instruction on how we should live in light of the certainty of the coming end-time judgment (see 1 Cor. 3:10, 1 Thess. 1:1–5, etc.). Peter’s view of the apostle Paul in this passage is fascinating. Peter had long ago recognized Paul’s apostleship as being authorized by God, and he early on extended the “right hand of fellowship” to him (Gal. 2:7–9). But their relationship was not without its challenges. Remember, Paul had rebuked Peter severely for his hypocrisy over interacting with believing Gentiles (Gal. 2:11–17). However, it is no stretch to see that he had long since accepted Paul’s rebuke and that their fellowship had not been broken. There was no residual animosity toward the former, and in fact, Peter continues to see Paul as a “beloved brother.” His humbleness and commitment to what God was doing stands as a challenge to all of us to rise above petty squabbles, admit our faults, and support one another in the ministry of the Word.

This passage is helpful in bibliology, that is, the study of the history and composition of the biblical text. First, we have testimonial evidence of the existence of a set of letters attributed to the apostle Paul. Second, Paul’s letters circulated among the early Christians (as Paul desired, see Col. 4:16), and Peter assumes his readers were familiar with at least some of them. Third, Paul’s writings were obviously penned before Peter’s. Fourth, the teachings of Paul were challenging to understand (for which we can add our “amen”). Indeed, even today, more theological debates occur over Paul’s writings than Peter’s.

Fifth, the apostle Peter places Paul’s writings on the same level as “the rest of the Scriptures.” A few scholars try to argue that “the Scriptures” refers simply to “the writings” (where the underlying word graphè may be translated either way, depending on context). However, Peter makes it clear that distorting Paul’s writings invokes “destruction,” the same word used for the consequences due to false prophets (2 Peter 2:1), Sodom and Gomorrah (2 Peter 2:6), and ungodly men (2 Peter 3:7). In other words, to reject or distort Paul’s teaching is tantamount to dismissing or distorting the truth of God. Thus, Peter sees Paul’s writing as inspired Scripture.

Lord, thank You for preserving the apostle Paul’s writings and for the solidarity of the apostolic witness.