2 Peter 3:15 15And consider the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given to him,
The delay in Jesus’ return has a reason. God’s patience and waiting to send Jesus back again provides more time and opportunity for people to come to faith. Countless people today have never heard about Jesus and live in the darkness of sin and the deceit of human religions. The world offers promises it cannot fulfill. People have stumbled into the darkness of their own folly and self-destruction. The human heart is sinful and gets worse as people continue to walk away from the light of God (Romans 1:18-32). The message of salvation must go out into all the world. Not everyone will respond. Some people are set in their ways and will not change. Others will distort the truth to fit their own selfish purposes. The biggest religion today is the religion of self. Humanism in many forms dominates people’s thoughts and lives. Every reference to Jesus’ second coming should cause the readers of the New Testament to confess their sins and walk in the light of God, because we do not know when Jesus will come again or when death will come knocking.
Peter mentions the letters of Paul in this verse. If this letter was indeed written by the Apostle Peter, this is a remarkable statement for several reasons. One is that it implies the close bond of believers from many locations. The two great apostles had traveled widely and were known in many parts of the church within only a few decades after Jesus’ ascension. Wherever these readers were, they knew of both Peter and Paul and may have even received letters from both. Second, Peter knew of Paul’s letters. Both Peter and Paul were martyred by the Emperor Nero in the mid 60’s AD. They were likely in Rome near the same time. Paul’s letters had already begun to circulate by the mid 60’s. Third, Peter recognized in this verse the authority and wisdom in Paul’s letters. God used Paul as an instrument to spread the gospel. Paul was a very learned person. He had studied under the greatest rabbi of his time, Gamaliel. Paul knew the Old Testament well, as the many citations in his letters indicate. He also knew many other things of his time and was able to converse with scholars and debate philosophers and religious leaders throughout his travels. Peter acknowledges that Paul’s wisdom was given to him, with the assumed source being God. Paul was God’s gift to the early church to think carefully through its doctrines, which he shared in his letters.