Understanding Paul Through Peter's Warning

Shalom friends. My name is Chadwick Harvey. You have reached Faithful Performance. Thank you so much for joining us tonight as we look at the day of the Lord through the Apostle Paul with 1 Thessalonians 4 and 5 and also 2 Thessalonians 1 and 2. This will give us a great trajectory of what the day of the Lord looks like from the Apostle Paul's lens, providing great understanding about the divine appointments, the resurrection, and the day of the Lord. There is so much debate about these things, but I personally believe if we just read it in the trajectory, he's going to explain to us some of the misconceptions that we have out there.

First and foremost, before we commence with the Apostle Paul, I wanted to go through what Peter warned about in 2 Peter 3:14-18. I think it's very important. Most people might not realize that this scripture is in there. So let's read this scripture and then we'll identify what the apostle is speaking about. In 2 Peter 3:14-18, it says, "Therefore, beloved, looking forward to these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, Yeshua, without spot and blameless, and consider that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation, as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, has written to you, as also in his epistles, speaking in them of these things, which in some are hard to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the scriptures. You therefore, beloved, since you know this beforehand, beware, lest you also fall from your own steadfastness, being led away with the error of the wicked, but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Messiah Yeshua Hamashiach. To Him be the glory, both now and forevermore. Amen and amen and amen."

So my friends, Peter, in his second epistle, and again, this is the final chapter of the epistle, he really warns us. First of all, he gives Paul credit: "our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him." He doesn't discount Paul. What he's trying to say is to understand Paul through a Torah-based gospel lens. If one is not familiar with that terminology, Paul was a rabbi. He was a Jewish believer, but he was a rabbi. He knew the five books of Moses very well. He was a scholar under Gamaliel, as we all read in the book of Acts. So he was very familiar with the concept and the understanding and the knowledge that we have to have through the Torah. And then obviously, he would have known the instructions of Messiah through Peter, through James, through the ones that he met with after Yeshua ascended to heaven. So we have to look at Paul through Peter's lens as well, through John's lens, through James, through the Torah. We just can't take Paul for just Paul. Paul was writing for us to understand these concepts in the Torah, the Prophets, the Psalms, also the Gospels. And if we can't read him through that lens, then here comes replacement theology, here comes all of these different isms and schisms and all of these things that we have with these things that people are going to be, what Peter is saying, caught as a thief in the night, or not as a thief in the night, but twisted to their own destruction, and to the rest of the scriptures as well, which they will be caught as a thief in the night, as Paul will tell us in 1 Thessalonians 5.

So this is truly important, my friends. He's expecting us, Peter and Paul, but Paul is also expecting us to have the knowledge of Yeshua, have the knowledge of the Father's instructions in Torah, Prophets, Psalms, so that we can relate to Paul. Because we cannot relate to Paul if we do not have the education or the knowledge of the Torah, the first five books of the Bible. Is that what that is? The Prophets, the Psalms, and also what Yeshua wrote in the Gospel account. There's just no way to understand what the apostle is trying to say. And we're going to go through that here next. But look at what he says again, and I'll read this again, it's very important. He says, "As also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him," he's given him credit, "has written to you, as also in his epistles, speaking in them these things in which some are hard to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction." That's very important what Peter is saying here about the Apostle Paul. We can't take Paul out of context to our own destruction, is what Peter says, as they also do the rest of the scriptures. So Peter makes it very clear: we have to be educated to understand Paul. We have to, because the way he writes, I mean, he continues to just go on and go on and go on, you know, so to speak. And we have to break him down with the commas, if you will, so that we can have the understanding of what the apostle was trying to tell us, because he's very educated. He's very smart. He's very wise in the knowledge and the wisdom that God gave him. So we have to understand it from that lens, and that's what we talk about on the channel of Lot. We've got to look at it from a Torah-based gospel. If we don't understand the education before we get to the Apostle Paul in the Bible, then we're going to take him out of context, and welcome to replacement theology, where Peter says, "to our own destruction." Just like we twist the other scriptures as well. So truly, this is very important what Peter warned about. He gives him credit. He's a brother. He all of these beautiful things, but he's just giving us a check. Just a check that we just can't read Paul without the education of the Torah.