Talk:2 Pet 1:1-3:18

3:16: Wrest

The WBC translates this as distort and suggests the concern is a misreading of Paul. In particular, the conjecture is that rather than reading Paul's eschatological writings as a motive to repent now and hasten and prepare for judgment, the distortion was to rationalize sin: "The false teachers, who interpreted the Lord’s forbearance in delaying the Parousia as 'lateness,' made this an excuse for moral laxity which puts them in danger of condemnation when the day of judgment does come."

I'm not sure this helps very much in our the discussion of 1 Kgs 22:22, though I think it does put an emphasis on a unity between our reading of scripture, our hearts, and our works (I would still like to get back to these thoughts on "mingling philosophies of men with scripture" in light of Isa 29:13).

I think it's a larger and less supportable step to say that this means we should read the scriptures in an effort to reconcile ourselves to the scriptures rather than reconciling the scripture to ourselves. What I think Joe is getting at is that scriptures, esp. books like Job, are not written so that we can learn about the character of God, but so that we can learn about what keeps us from God. And one thing that may keep us from God is our precious preconceived notions about him. I think this is also related to Ex 3:14 in the sense that we should not try to reduce God to something we can simply name or assign concrete, theological attributes to. Such a view distracts from our need to reconcile ourselves to God. Thus, perhaps many passages in scripture are purposely difficult in the theological sense I've been describing so that we can, like Isaiah, become undone—that is, stripped of all pride, stripped of our words (and hence intellectual systems of understanding) so that we can fully reconcile ourselves to God as our Father (as a "person" that we can be in relationship with rather than focusing on our conception of God). --RobertC 18:25, 16 Aug 2006 (UTC)