<p>3:16 <i>As also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things. In his letters there are some things hard to be understood, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do also the other scriptures</i>- An underlying theme of Peter's argument is the supremacy of the word of God, and how through understanding of and obedience to it, a character can be developed which will pass through the judgments which that word will bring upon the world. Those who are to be destroyed at that time, such as the false teachers, will have failed to understand these things of which Peter and Paul spoke- they were 'ignorant'. But they were not unaware of Paul's epistles- they 'wrested' them through their wilful misunderstanding of them (:5). The beginnings of this sad situation are found in Heb. 5:11, where the Jewish believers are called &quot;dull of hearing&quot; God's word, and therefore found the exposition of Melchizedek &quot;hard&quot; to understand. It is to these same Jewish believers that Peter's letters are addressed. Thus a lack of sensitivity in Bible study and to the movement of the Spirit, resulted eventually in a wilful misunderstanding of basic teaching concerning fundamental doctrine, e.g. the second coming. It takes real faith in the teaching of God's word here to accept that this really can happen, and has done so. The example of the first century is there for our learning. Such wresting of the Scripture was done &quot;unto their own destruction&quot; (:16), using the same word translated as &quot;perdition&quot; in :7, as if their judgment was already working itself out in this life. That verse speaks of how the &quot;ungodly&quot; would meet their perdition in the day when the heavens and earth were destroyed by fire. Thus those within the ecclesia who were so wresting the Scriptures are the same group as those of :3-7 who would be destroyed at &quot;the day of judgment and perdition (s.w. &quot;destruction&quot;) of ungodly men&quot;.</p><p>Jude likewise talks of &quot;ungodly men&quot; who had crept into the ecclesia (:4). The evident similarities between 2 Pet. 2 and Jude are for a reason. 2 Pet. 2 and 3 are a prophecy of what <i>would</i> happen in the ecclesia, whilst Jude is the record of their fulfilment; hence his use of the present tense &quot;there <i>are</i> crept in... ungodly men&quot;. The corrective is hinted at throughout all these prophecies: &quot;Remember... be mindful of the words which were spoken before&quot; (:1,2), meditating on the power of God's word in the past, in creation and at the flood, correctly understanding the teachings of Paul and Peter about the last days (:15,16), bringing our way of life into conformity with our great hope of the second coming (:11,12), and so by all this growing &quot;in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ&quot; (:18).</p><p>Ex. 16:20 says that the manna, symbolic of God's word, &quot;bred worms and stank&quot; if it was not used properly. The Scriptures, we are told, can be &quot;wrested&quot; by those who claim to believe them, until the &quot;unstable&quot; 'believer' is destroyed morally (2 Pet. 3:16). The only other occurrence of the Greek for &quot;unstable&quot; is a few verses earlier (2 Pet. 2:14), where it is used in a sexual context. The implication is that those 'believers' who want to justify a deviant sexual lifestyle will find that they can &quot;wrest&quot; the Scriptures to suite them, but in so doing they will be working out their own destruction. This is the category who turn God's grace into license for sexual sin (Jude 4).</p>