“The Inspired Apostle Paul” (A Study of 2 Peter 3:14—16)

We sometimes speak of artists or authors as “inspired.” We mean that they have incredible insight in their art or that their words are particularly moving or powerful. As if the gods were somehow breathing on them.

Ah, but there’s the difference in the biblical writers. The God, the only God, is breathing out His thoughts through the chosen writers. And in our text Peter is acknowledging the Apostle Paul as someone through whom the true God is speaking. But the truth of the Holy Spirit-led inspiration of Paul’s writings occurs in a section challenging the believer to “make every effort” in his Christian life.

I. Paul’s Message (v. 15)
“Our Lord’s patience means salvation!”

II. Paul’s Wisdom (v. 15)
“with the wisdom that God gave him”

III. Paul’s Consistency (v. 16)
“He writes the same way in all his letters . . .”

IV. Paul’s Complexity (v. 16)

“His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort . . .”

V. Paul’s Inspiration (v. 16)

[Paul’s writings] are distorted by unstable people “as they do the other Scriptures”!