Misinterpretations often misuse this verse to undermine Paul's writings by claiming their difficulties prove inconsistency or error in Scripture, contradicting Peter's endorsement of them as authoritative; others wrongly label honest inquirers as unlearned for questioning traditions, promoting division rather than growth, or apply it selectively to defend personal heresies while ignoring the warning against twisting texts to one's ruin.
II Peter 3:16
King James Version (1769)
16 As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.
Peter affirms the authority of Paul's epistles by classing them alongside other Scriptures, noting that they contain challenging teachings on key doctrines like the return of Christ, which ignorant and unsteady people distort through private interpretations, resulting in their own spiritual destruction; this urges believers to handle Scripture with humility, sound doctrine, and reliance on the Holy Spirit to grasp its truths rightly.