by Louise A. Flood
Kyrieology.com

As my walk with the Lord moves towards worshipping as Jesus worshipped, I find myself questioning some of the things Paul has said in Scripture. The interpretation of some of Paul’s scriptures have been used to justify themselves in not following any of the Laws instituted by God. Although I will have specific articles in the future, I wanted to share something that “I find very interesting”!

As mentioned above, I’ve had some problems with some of the things that Paul has written. For example, Paul almost had a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy in regards to eating foods sacrificed to idols in 1 Corinthians 8, yet Jesus in Revelations 2:20 said that one of the things he held against the church in Thyatira is that they ate food sacrificed to idols! So, I asked the Lord about Paul.

For a reason I can’t remember, I found myself in 2 Peter and decided to read the whole book. I thought it was important when I came to 2 Peter 3:15 to 18:

Bear in mind that our Lord’s patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God have him. He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.

Therefore, dear friends, since you already know this, be on your guard so that you may not be carried away by the error of lawless men and fall from your secure position. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and forever! Amen!

The study notes in my Bible state this in regards to 2 Peter 3:15 to 18:

Peter and Paul had very different backgrounds and personalities, and they preached from different viewpoints. Paul emphasized salvation by grace, not law, while Peter preferred to talk about Christian life and service. The two men did not contradict each other, however, and they always held each other in high esteem. The false teachers intentionally misused Paul’s writing by distorting them to condone lawlessness. No doubt this made the teachers popular, because people always like to have their favorite sins justified, but the net effect was to totally destroy Paul’s message. Paul may have been thinking of teachers like these when he wrote in Romans 6:15: “What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!” Peter warned his readers to avoid the mistakes of those wicked teachers by growing in the grace and knowledge of Jesus. The better we know Jesus, the less attractive false teaching will be.

Amen!

December 4, 2005