*3:1 See 1 Peter 1:1 for the identification of the addressees.
†3:2 Peter places the “command of the Lord and Savior through your apostles” (which I take to be a reference to NT writings) on a par with the “words spoken before by the holy prophets”, which evidently refers to OT writings. Since “apostles” is plural, I take it that Peter was aware that there were several authors.
‡3:5 It appears to me that the term “deliberately” has a direct bearing on the intended meaning. How can one ‘forget’ deliberately? To ‘ignore’ is deliberate; to ‘pretend’ is deliberate. When a professor or a scholar or a scientist ignores the scientific evidence for a worldwide flood he is deliberately deceiving his students or readers. To do so is to be perverse.
§3:5 There is no definite article with ‘heavens’, I suppose because the third heaven, God's abode, is not included—the reference here would be to the first heaven (the atmosphere) and the second (stellar space).
*3:5 To be visible and useable (for normal purposes) land must rise above the water level, ‘out of water’, but to sustain life there must be water available on the land as well, ‘through/by water’.
†3:6 “World” is different from “land” (v. 5) and refers to the organized world—Noah's flood did not destroy the planet earth, just the organized surface. It was the divine decree that unleashed the destructive forces.
‡3:6 All around the world there are layers of sedimentary material hundreds of meters deep, and the layerings are similar. The whole globe was scoured and the surface rearranged about 4350 years ago. To ignore the evidence is a deliberate choice, and has serious consequences.
§3:7 God promised Noah that He would never destroy the world by water again, designating the rainbow as a symbol of that promise (there were no rainbows before the Flood)—the next time it will be by fire. The destruction in Noah's day involved the earth and the first heaven, the atmosphere; the next destruction will include the second heaven, stellar space, as well.
*3:7 “Preserved”—our planet was created for the use of the human race and placed under human administration, so it cannot be destroyed until human history has run its course.
†3:8 Although I myself have been partial to the idea that this information constitutes a precise formula, it is doubtless more prudent to take this as a general statement, showing that an eternal Being does not regard time the way we do.
‡3:9 If everything were ‘cut and dried’, there would be no point in waiting.
§3:10 The same comment applies as in verse 5 above.
*3:12 “Hastening” is a transitive verb. If we can hasten the coming, we can also delay it, or words do not mean anything. The point is, what we do or do not do makes a difference, which is why there will be an accounting. I imagine that there are outside limits or parameters that God's sovereignty will guarantee, but within those parameters it is up to us (like players on a football field—the score is up to them). So how can we hasten the coming of God's day? By living our lives to the hilt on behalf of His Kingdom, standing up for biblical values in the society at large, working to get the Gospel to the last ethnic nation.
†3:13 God is not through creating, but since the Son will have His bride, the next time around righteousness will be guaranteed.
‡3:14 When we face the Creator are we going to see a smile, or a frown—it is up to us.
§3:15 Peter repeats the truth stated in verse 9 above—just because God is not striking us down like He did with Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:1-11) does not mean that we are getting a free ride. If you have sense, you look ahead.
*3:16 Peter was obviously aware of a ‘Pauline corpus’—the use of ‘all’ suggests that Peter was aware of a fair number of Paul's letters.
†3:16 Peter affirms that Paul's letters are Scripture!
‡3:16 The verb form of this noun is usually rendered ‘to perish’—the implication is that such people are lost. To distort what is in a newspaper or magazine does not have the same consequence—it is distorting God's Word that is serious.
§3:17 Peter emphasizes human responsibility, again.
*3:18 Peter does not use the usual ‘forever’, but the effect is the same.