2 Peter 3:16 as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.

Imagine if you would for a moment that Peter is admitting that Paul’s letters to the churches are a puzzle even to him. Peter admits that he doesn’t always get it. But rather than twist Paul’s words to his own understanding, he warns us not to do what he might have done himself.

If you have a puzzle to put together and you cut a piece to make it fit you have made the piece that should fit there useless. That piece, in order to make it fit somewhere else, must be cut. In doing that you now have three pieces that need to be cut to fit. By the time you get through cutting all the pieces to fit, the picture doesn’t match the image on the box.

I am suggesting that Peter might have tried to make sense of Paul’s wisdom, given to Paul by our Lord, which was withheld from Peter. At some point in Peter’s struggle he might have been told not to cut corners. I can only imagine that Peter might have done that because I have done that myself in the past.

I am neither ignorant nor unstable but I choose to believe that the bible is true even if I have not been given insight into everything.

2 Peter 1:20 knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation.

Nor am I a scoffer.

2 Peter 3:3 knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires.