Peter Called these People “ignorant and unstable”

It’s popular to explain away unpopular New Testament truths by claiming Paul was merely writing his opinion or expressing a cultural prejudice. 

This is a major part of the propaganda of the modern “ex-vangelical” movement. But it’s been used for centuries to explain away commands that contradict culture (e.g. male church leadership, submission, premarital sex, gay lifestyles, etc.).

Peter calls people who make this claim “ignorant and unstable”:

“Bear in mind that our Lord’s patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave 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.” 2 Peter 3:15-16

In these two verses Peter presents Paul’s letters as divinely inspired when he says people distort them “as they do other Scriptures.”  

If someone thinks the human authors of Scripture made mistakes, there’s nothing in Scripture they can trust, not the words of Jesus, not the story of Christ's death or resurrection, not the hope of forgiveness and salvation. Why? Because all of these things were recorded by human authors. 

Either all of God's Word is divinely inspired, or none of it is!

I believe it ALL is. What about you?

See:  

Believing God's Word is Inerrant 

Why We Trust a Bible “Written by Men.”