“2 Peter 3:15 says that Paul wrote a letter to the Hebrews to whom Peter was writing. Do we have that letter in Scripture?”

The letter Paul wrote to Peter’s readers must be part of Scripture, for in speaking of it, and “all” of Paul’s other epistles (v. 16), Peter went on to warn that “they that are unlearned and unstable wrest” those epistles, “as they do also the other Scriptures” (v. 16). So whatever epistle Paul wrote to Peter’s readers, it must be part of the canon of Scripture.

As to what epistle that might be, we know Peter wrote his second epistle to the same people to whom he wrote his first epistle, for in 2 Peter 3:1 he wrote,

“This second epistle, beloved, I now write unto you…”

That means 2 Peter is written to “the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia” (1 Pet. 1:1), the same dispersed Jews he addressed in his first epistle. Paul wrote an epistle to people in Galatia, people who would then have circulated it to those other regions.

Of course, Paul wrote his epistle to members of the Body of Christ who lived in Galatia, believers who were looking forward to being raptured to heaven (2 Thes. 4:13-18; Titus 2:13), while Peter wrote to Hebrew kingdom saints who were looking forward to making “an entrance…into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord” (2 Pet.1:11), i.e., the kingdom of heaven on earth. But God expected that the epistles of the New Testament would be circulated after they were received (Col.4:16), so we know that Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians is the letter Peter had in mind in 2 Peter 3:15.

If it be asked what interest the kingdom saints to whom Peter wrote might have in reading Paul’s epistle to members of the Body of Christ, the answer is that they would know that “all Scripture is…profitable” (2 Tim. 3:16) if it is rightly divided (2:15). Because of that, those kingdom saints would read Paul’s epistles with the same interest we show when we teach Peter’s epistles, or other books of the Bible that pertain to Jewish kingdom saints.

2 Peter 3:15 is sometimes said to be a reference to the Book of Hebrews, and this verse is promoted as proof that Paul wrote Hebrews. However, the “salvation” that is the subject of the Book of Hebrews is one that “at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed…by them that heard Him” (Heb. 2:3). The salvation spoken of by Paul in his epistles was part of the mystery of the gospel (Eph. 6:19), a mystery that was not spoken of by the Lord while He was here on earth, nor confirmed by the Hebrews to whom He ministered (Matt. 15:24; Rom. 15:8).

To the Reader:

Some of our Two Minutes articles were written many years ago by Pastor C. R. Stam for publication in newspapers. When many of these articles were later compiled in book form, Pastor Stam wrote this word of explanation in the Preface:

"It should be borne in mind that the newspaper column, Two Minutes With the Bible, has now been published for many years, so that local, national and international events are discussed as if they occurred only recently. Rather than rewrite or date such articles, we have left them just as they were when first published. This, we felt, would add to the interest, especially since our readers understand that they first appeared as newspaper articles."

To this we would add that the same is true for the articles written by others that we continue to add, on a regular basis, to the Two Minutes library. We hope that you'll agree that while some of the references in these articles are dated, the spiritual truths taught therein are timeless.

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