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2 Peter 3:15<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n 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.<\/span><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n Truth to Learn<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n God is holding back His wrath so that salvation can come to as many as possible.<\/p>\n Behind the Words<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n The Greek word translated \u201cBear in mind<\/span>\u201d is hegeisthe<\/span><\/em>, which technically means \u201clead the way.\u201d Metaphorically, however, it means \u201clead out before the mind,\u201d that is, \u201cconsider it\u201d or \u201cthink of it as.\u201d The word is expressed here in the imperative voice indicating a command.<\/p>\n Meaning Explained<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Peter says, \u201cDon\u2019t think of the longsuffering of God as weakness or as His inability to fulfill his promises. Instead, think of His longsuffering as His way of making sure that salvation comes to everyone possible.\u201d The Apostle Paul said a similar thing regarding God\u2019s longsuffering in Romans 2:4<\/span><\/strong>,<\/p>\n Or do you despise the riches of His kindness, and the forbearance and long-suffering, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance?<\/span><\/p>\n Both the Apostles, Peter and Paul, indicate that God\u2019s longsuffering (his patience, according to Peter) is His way of holding back judgment until the last possible moment so that salvation can come to as many as possible.<\/p>\n Romans 2:4<\/span><\/strong> may be the verse that Peter is referring to in the second half of this verse. The startling thing is not that Peter refers to the teaching of Paul, but that he refers to him as a dear brother. If you recall, Paul was not one of the original 12 disciples nor was he the one selected to replace Judas (see Acts 1:15-26<\/span><\/strong>.) Paul is the only apostle of Christ who was saved after the resurrection. The other apostles were primarily sent to witness to Jews, but Paul was commissioned by the Lord Himself to a ministry among the Gentiles.<\/p>\n Scripture also records the fact that Peter and Paul had several strong confrontations regarding how Christianity was differentiated from Judaism (see Galatians 2:11<\/span><\/strong> and surrounding verses), so for Peter to now refer to Paul as a \u201cbeloved brother\u201d shows a remarkable demonstration of humility and acceptance on Peter\u2019s part.<\/p>\n This is as much the message of today\u2019s verse as anything else. We need to accept the fact that none of us has all the answers. In spite of everything that we have been taught through years of sermons, Sunday school lessons, and Bible studies, we all have much to learn from each other. And, as long as the teaching is based on what the Bible actually says (as opposed to hearsay or private interpretation), we need to be willing to be taught by the Holy Spirit regarding these truths.<\/p>\n Let us guard ourselves against heresy and the corruption of false teachers. However, we need to be open to the teaching from the Spirit of God so that we can all be effective witnesses for Christ.<\/p>\n Application<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n While God is patiently waiting, holding back His judgment, we need to be witnessing to everyone we can. God\u2019s wrath will not be restrained forever, and each soul saved is one fewer who will experience that wrath. Proclaim the gospel message and ignore what the scoffers say about you.<\/span><\/p>\n In God\u2019s service, for His glory,<\/strong><\/p>\n Copyright \u00a9 2009 Will Krause. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –<\/p>\n <\/span>If this message or this link was forwarded to you by a friend and you wish to receive future verses directly to your inbox, you can call the church phone 2 Peter 3:15 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. Truth to Learn God is holding back His wrath so that salvation can come to as many as possible. Behind the Words The Greek word translated \u201cBear […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[389,372,390,391,373],"class_list":["post-1040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-brother","tag-patience","tag-paul","tag-restrain","tag-wrath"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pd5geA-gM","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1040"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1040\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"signature\"](\"\/signature.gif\")
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