Reading the Text Rightly
Every time someone wants to debate my soteriological views with me, they always go to two verses, 1 Timothy 2:4
and 2 Peter 3:9. While I might concede 1 Timothy, most people fail to actually read 2 Peter 3:9. In that verse, Peter states,
The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.
What people like to do is say, “Look, the text says, ‘not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.’” Now if a person is to read 2 Peter 3:9 from the point of “not wishing” onward, then the conclusion one must draw is that which is being argued, that God wants all, in a universal sense, to be saved. However, it fails to read the whole verse.
Go back and read the entire verse with me, “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness.” Here Peter is referring to the judgment theme in this chapter. People will mock God and say that, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation” (3:4). Yet this mocking overlooks that at one point, the earth stored up water and that water was used by God to purge all but eight people and two of every kind of animal from the planet. God now has fire reserved and ready to purge the earth of all sinfulness (3:5-7). God is just biding his time for his economy of time is different as Peter points out in 3:8.
Peter goes on to say, “but is patient toward you.” Now who is the Lord patient with in this text. It is “you.” Who is the you? It is the you found in 3:1, “This is now the second letter that I am writing to you, beloved.” This “you” is the audience identified in 2 Peter 1:1-2, “To those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ: May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.” Peter is talking to those who are saved.
Now read the rest of 3:9 in light of what Peter has just said, “not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.” The terms “any” and “all” must be taken in light of “you” or the verse is drawn out of context and out of the flow of thought that Peter had when he wrote this just before he died–or by one of his disciples if you hold that this letter was written in the period of 80-90 AD.
Therefore, what Peter is saying here is this, “While some might mock and say that God hasn’t poured out his wrath and thus he won’t or he even doesn’t exist, this is not true. They forget that God destroyed the world with a flood and now is ready to do so again with fire. A day to him is like 1000 years and 1000 years is like a day. He is just being patient with you guys. He wants to make sure you have came to repentance before he unleashes his judgment, lest you perish.” Peter is speaking to the church and God wants all in the church to repent before he unleashes his wrath. This does not say that God wants every human alive to repent but only his people. I can remember only reading the last half of the verse. It was one of my key verses to defeating Calvinism. But one day, I read the whole text of 2 Peter and my eyes were opened to the context of the verse. Now it is one of my tools to show that the Bible does teach Election and Particulare Redemption.
Brothers and Sisters, I exhort you today to repent of your sins. Repent for God will not hold back his wrath forever. Isaiah 55:6 says, “Seek the LORD while he may be found; call upon him while he is near.” This is the most scariest verse in all of the Bible. There will be a time when one cannot seek God and call upon him for salvation. Do it now lest you get caught up in the judgment of unrighteous mankind!
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Islam, the Pope, and the Christian Response
This is a link to a great analysis and response all Christians should have to the current crisis occurring between the Pope, and now the Church, and Islam. “How Christians Should Respond to Muslim Outrage at the Pope’s Regensburg Message About Violence and Reason“
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