Peter's Final Instructions--2 Peter 3:14-18

​Final Words
14 Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace. 15 And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, 16 as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures. 17 You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability. 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.

It's hard to summarize Peter's final thoughts here with any one title, but it is clear that he has a few final words of admonishment for the Church as he urges them to live lives that are not only holy as we've also seen, but "blameless, without spot, and at peace."  That's a pretty high bar, and impossible for us to do in our flesh, but remember, that we should be letting the Holy Spirit move in and through us and doing His work to sanctify us to make us more and more like Christ every day.

Peter then tells the churches that he's planted that they should accept the letters of Paul as Scripture.  Paul was always looked on as an outsider because he was not one of the original 12, and people questioned whether his gospel was authentic because he preached to the Gentiles, not just the Jews.  Peter made sure that before he died that the Church knew that the only reason people were having an issue with Paul's teaching was because they were trying to twist what he was saying, just like has always been done with all of the prophets and the other apostles.  This is one of the first times though that Epistles of the New Testament were referred to as Scripture equal to the Old Testament as the Word of God and is evidence that these letters were widely circulated among the early churches and that there was ample opportunity for someone like Peter to correct Paul if he believed he was in error.

Peter's admonishment to not be carried away by error by the people that are lawless (this is a word we've seen a lot to describe those that are false prophets and false disciples--pay attention to this) and that Peter wants them to remain stable (remember the part of the Sermon on the Mount about the two foundations).  We need to instead grow in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ by reading and studying the Word of God, making sure that in all things God gets the glory both now and forevermore.  To God be the glory!