2 Peter 3:15

And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also, according to the wisdom given to him, wrote unto you;

The longsuffering of our Lord ... Indeed Paul did write of longsuffering, not only as an attribute of God, but as a grace to be cultivated by Christians, and even as one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit (Romans 2:4; 9:22; 2 Corinthians 6:6; Galatians 5:22; Ephesians 4:2; Colossians 1:11; 3:1; 2 Timothy 1:16; and Titus 3:10; 4:11). Which of such references had Peter read? There is actually no good reason to suppose that he had not read most of them!

Our beloved brother Paul also ... Depending on wild, subjective guesses, the Tubingen radicals based their rejection of this epistle upon this verse, having supposed an irreconcilable split between Paul and Peter, making it impossible, in their view, for the genuine Peter really to have written anything like this. That view today, of course, is utterly repudiated, even by the radicals themselves. J. Munck's book dismisses the whole theory. As Green said, "It cannot stand today."[56]

There are a number of tremendously important deductions that flow out of Peter's words here: (1) It contradicts any notion of a late date for 2Peter; because, at a later date, any writer would have been far more extravagant in the title applied to Paul, or have downgraded him as an arch-villain. As Mayor said, "The manner in which St. Paul is spoken of here seems to me just what we should have expected from his brother apostle."[57] (2) This also means Paul was still alive when Peter wrote this. Robinson agreed that, "This implies that Paul is still alive."[58] (3) Paul was still alive when this was written; and if our assumption is correct that 2Peter was written subsequently to the first epistle, a deduction necessary from the conviction that Peter mentioned 1Peter in this one, it is to be explained why there is neither any greeting from the apostle Paul in this letter, nor any greeting to him. Following Robinson's findings that there is no evidence that Paul was martyred first, what evidence there is in the New Testament favoring the view that he was last martyred, we are inclined to accept the thesis that, "Paul may well have been out of Rome at the time (possibly in Spain)."[59]

According to the wisdom ... This means that the wisdom revealed in the Pauline writings was not Paul's, in the strict sense, but God's, thus attesting the inspiration of the Pauline letters. "This is a good reminder of the supernatural origin of Paul's epistles."[60]

[56] Michael Green, op. cit., p. 144.

[57] J. B. Mayor, The Epistle of St. Jude, and the Second Epistle of St. Peter, 1907), in loco.

[58] John A. T. Robinson, op. cit., p. 183.

[59] John A. T. Robinson, op. cit., p. 199.

[60] David H. Wheaton, op. cit., p. 1258.