Scripture Torture - 2 Peter 3

The 3rd chapter of 2 Peter closely parallels the 24th chapter of Matthew, with several common themes including a cryptic time reference. I had been led to explore this passage several years ago to discover what secrets the thematic structure might yield about judgment in the last days. The static version that long appeared on The Open Scroll as a pdf was upgraded to an interactive presentation, which now appears here: 2 Peter 3 - Interactive Display of the Symmetry.

Presenting what initially seems technical tempts some who read here to move quickly on to something else without reading what follows, and if this is you, I encourage you most particularly to read and press in to what the Lord may have for you here. It may save your life, literally.

If you're led to explore the study you'll find most of the content matches to this line, which appears as what may be considered the Author's summary statement: “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.” The emphasis for the wise is to see the value assigned to the getting the understanding. Many are going to destruction, and note well the reason given. Folks put importance on many things in life. Few assign enough value to getting the understanding that will save them, with most being content to accept and unable to discern the distortions presented to them. HEY - DON'T BE THAT GUY! This is not just me saying this is what I think might be important here. This is what is called to our attention by the Author's own method of highlighting.

The Greek word for “distort” occurs only here, strebloo. It means, “1) to twist, turn awry 2) to torture, put to the rack 3) metaph. to pervert, of one who wrests or tortures language in a false sense.” This key word will actually be seen as making a strong argument for giving attention to this particular kind of study I'm presenting! I'll return to this shortly.

Expanding the passage a little around the summary statement we find some further insight being offered.

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 as 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. ~ 2 Peter 3:14-16

Paul did write about the patience of our Lord as salvation, and what the Lord opened to me about Romans 11 stands out to me as perhaps the most striking example. This theme is the only one explicitly named, so it is most relevant here. If you take into account how Peter, the apostle to the Jew is here referencing the work of Paul, the apostle to the gentile, and if you understand what is so seldom understood today, how Romans 11 uniquely reveals the essential dynamic of the Jew-gentile interaction through which the patience of our Lord as salvation is expressed, well you're getting somewhere! What Peter is declaring is really more than a general validation of Paul's writings. It is that, but the divine Author is cryptically directing our attention to Romans 11 for insight.

The failure to really get hold of that most excellent plan will bring destruction for many. Near the end of the 11th chapter of Romans, after laying out the profound plan, Paul makes the following expression.

Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways! ~ Romans 11:33

Oh yeah! It's HUGE! The Lord's plan is AWESOME and it is working! If you're not joining me in my little celebration here it's probably a sign that you've been wrestling with what Paul wrote, or maybe dismissing it entirely. If that's you, that should bother you. A lot.

If you explore the interactive display of 2 Peter 3 you'll see the curser change from an arrow to a hand in some places, which signals there's a pop-up comment. Click when you see the hand and you'll discover the following comments in their appropriate contexts. After presenting these I'll follow up on my earlier observation about the remarkable word, strebloo.

“Some call what this references (also in Psalm 90) the six day theory. I call it a seven day model, a pattern where the seven day creation week and the seven millennia and even the seven year `Shemittah` appear as what may be described as the expression of a time fractal. In a practical sense, what we see validated in this symmetrical link identified between two lines in verses 4 and 8 validates the associations and speaks to me about one being the pattern of the others. These weeks of time will end together, but until then they continue marking off the individual cycles in the established ratio since their being initialized in creation.”

“In verse 15, Peter refers to Paul, which is the apostle to the Jews referring to the apostle to the gentiles. Some folks want to reject Paul and everything he wrote. Peter validates him here, and, taking the symmetrical link to verses 1 and 2 into account, if you get rid of Paul you have to reject Peter and the holy prophets and... Writings attributed to Paul exhibit this same kind of complex linguistic structuring. I recommend acknowledging the validity of Paul as an agent worthy of respect, one through whom has come to us the word of the Lord, in truth.”

So, strebloo is the word translated “distort” (or “wrest” in the KJV), to communicate to us what is being done to the scripture that came through Paul and others.

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 as 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 [strebloo], as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction. ~ 2 Peter 3:14-16

Again, strebloo means, “1) to twist, turn awry 2) to torture, put to the rack 3) metaph. to pervert, of one who wrests or tortures language in a false sense.” What is being done to the scriptures compares to torture on the rack, a device that stretched people. This caused pain but it also made them longer. To twist something rotates a structure out of its natural form and changes its orientation. What we find in common is the meaning of change forced upon the natural form of a thing. If scriptures are strebloo they are forced out of their natural form. The untaught and unstable, or, the unlearned and unsteady, force the scriptures out of their natural form, to their own destruction.

If you have become aware of the symmetrical thematic patterns found throughout the biblical text you should now have a sense of the natural form of the scriptures. Their natural state, unimpaired, exhibits this divinely organized structure. The unlearned and unsteady fail to respect the integrity of the natural structure, twisting, stretching and torturing the divine form into another. I haven't invented the meaning of strebloo and I didn't coach Peter in this to help me promote my personal agendas, but its really a no-brainer to conclude that any serious Bible study that doesn't account for and respect the natural form is going to abuse it.

Many questions may arise, like, why, if linguistic structure is so important, is it not popularly acknowledged as important in all the pulpits and Bible studies and preaching platforms? I've really answered that kind of question so many times I'm just not going there again. Let the way things look speak to you about the way things are, and why.

I was far from the first to recognize how repeating patterns in the Bible formed intricate structures. My discovery that there was a formal work came when I bought a Companion Bible, which was primarily the work of the diligent Hebrew and Greek scholar E. W. Bullinger. In this image you see a sample of what Bullinger inserts throughout the companion notes.

I don't know whether these observations about the micro and macro structures were his own or whether he had other reference works on hand to draw from. While I think his examples are generally valid, I don't reference them when I do my own study, at the leading of the holy spirit. Many years ago, when I had asked someone I respected as a Bible teacher about those structures I remember being told they were not useful for interpretation. I recall being puzzled by that response, immediately rejecting it as a ridiculous conclusion. Of course it is!

Is this the only valid kind of Bible study? No. It is surely one that has been neglected, to our detriment. Why do I write about this now, in this late hour? Obviously, I'm not going to be correcting deficiencies in the Babylonian church, but the Lord has His reasons. I believe He has something profound in mind for a few individuals.

I had not been led to pursue the matter personally until the Lord made quite an emphatic point about it in 1991, not long after He had revealed to me the celestial sign of His return in judgment. You can read about how He made the point here, in The Sign for the Bride - Part 1, but in brief, I was presented with a situation that had two benefits. First, I was led to break the encryption on a key passage and get the goods. Second, to do that I had to learn how to break the encryption. The obvious conclusions: The biblical text is coded with messages embedded in the thematic organization. Structural analysis is required to break that code and discover the message.

In the mid-90s, a guy who was dating my sister-in-law was going to Catholic seminary. He saw an example of my work and told me a little about their library and how he had seen volumes of similar work. I tried to get access, but it just wasn't going to happen. Scholars do produce such materials but, at least from my experience, the work appears to be generally retained behind their academic firewall. :(

After many many hours trying to figure out how to effectively present and work with these structures I eventually came to give attention to leveraging various skills I had acquired in my career as a Web programmer / developer / engineer. I designed an interactive display and then a tool to build them. I call it the Chiasmatron 2000. Yeah, it is kind of a silly name, but I do have fun following along as the Lord directs. He has much planned, as He is the activities coordinator for the Millennial Kingdom, don't you know? There will be plenty of “entertainments” and works to keep us perfectly occupied, and I am assured no one will be bored or suffer for lack of appropriate challenges!