The Grands Letter

Dear Grands,

2 Peter 3:13-18, “But according to His promise we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells.

14 Therefore, beloved, since you look for these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, spotless and blameless,

15 and regard the patience of our Lord to be salvation; just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you,

16 as also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction.

17 You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, be on your guard lest, being carried away by the error of unprincipled men, you fall from your own steadfastness,

18 but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory, both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.”

Another school shooting has left a small community in Texas in fear and mourning. Such trouble, however, is not new. Since the fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, evil and devastation has beclouded the world. History of every nation overflows with trouble. Are we to hover in fear? Certainly not! We are looking for “new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells.” So, be at peace. Just be clean spiritually and morally. But when will all of these troubles end? They will end when the LORD wills, when they have run the course He has set for them.

Peter then reminds his readers (us, as it were) of the letters written by Paul. Remember that Peter was a practical and uneducated fisherman; Paul was an intellectual, a university graduate, and his letters contained “some things hard to understand.” If you’ve read Paul’s writings, you know some of those difficulties of which Peter is speaking. Moreover, there are in our day, as there were in Peter’s day, some biblically unstable and unprincipled preachers, who twist (strebloo) Scripture to mean what they want it to mean. So, be on guard against them! They’re clever, and they will cause you to misunderstand the Bible and become spiritually unstable.

Did you notice the phrase “as they do also the rest of the Scriptures”? Peter equates Paul’s writings as Scripture!

There can be no division between the Old and the New Testaments. “The New is in the Old concealed; the Old is in the New revealed.” It’s all there in the Bible for our consumption. Context is vital to understanding! Words themselves convey clarity of God’s Truth! And the overall purpose is for our spiritual growth in the knowledge of our LORD Jesus Christ. What He intends for our benefit, He also intends for His glory. So, wake up! The best is yet to come!

We love and pray for you every, single day,

Nana & Dado III

Gene L. Jeffries, Th.D.

Springdale, Arkansas

“We never know that God is all we need

until He becomes all that we have.”