Scoffers walking after their own lusts. The connection between mockery of God and pursuit of personal desire. Those who want license to live as they please find theological reasons to dismiss accountability.

The same scoffing operates today. The modern dismissal of divine judgment correlates closely with the modern affirmation of lifestyles God forbids. Lust feeds skepticism, and skepticism justifies lust.

The skeptic's argument: nothing has changed; therefore nothing will change. The uniformitarian assumption — that present processes are all there is.

Peter's reply in verse 5-6: they willingly are ignorant of the flood, which proved that the world is not unchangeable. The same God who broke up the world with water once will break it up with fire eventually.

God's time is not man's time. What appears as delay from below is not delay from above. A thousand years as one day — and one day as a thousand years.

The verse is not a chronology tool (despite some attempts to use it to calculate the Day of the Lord). It is a corrective to impatience. The Christian who expected Christ's return last year, last decade, last century — and is now skeptical — has forgotten verse 8.

One of the most quoted verses on God's heart toward the lost. Not willing that any should perish. The patience of God is the gospel's breathing room.

Some men count slackness — what man calls slowness, God calls longsuffering. Each day of delay before the Day is another day for repentance. The believer should view delays not as broken promises but as extended mercy.

As a thief in the night. The metaphor of unexpectedness. Matthew 24:42-44, Luke 12:39-40, Revelation 16:15 all use the same picture. Christ's return is certain in fact and uncertain in timing.

The elements shall melt. Some have seen here a prediction of nuclear fission or thermodynamic dissolution. Whatever the mechanism, the truth is plain: the physical universe is not eternal. The same God who created it will recreate it.

Wherein dwelleth righteousness. The defining characteristic of the new creation. Not just physical renewal but moral renewal. Sin will have no place to dwell. The new earth's air is righteousness.

Isaiah 65:17 and 66:22 promised the same. Revelation 21:1-5 describes its arrival. The whole Bible looks toward this single horizon — a renewed creation where God's will is fully done.

A remarkable verse. Peter calls Paul our beloved brother and treats his letters as Scripture (verse 16 — as they do also the other scriptures). The apostolic recognition of fellow apostles' writings as canonical, even during the period of the early church.

The two great apostles to Jews and Gentiles — once at odds over the Antioch incident (Galatians 2:11-14) — end with mutual recognition. The body of Christ holds together.

The last verse of Peter's second letter — and the last words we have from him before his martyrdom (he says in verse 1:14 that his death is imminent).

Grow in grace. Not a single command but the summary of the Christian life. The growing believer is the safe believer (1:10 — if ye do these things, ye shall never fall). The stagnant believer is the vulnerable one.