Bible-scoffers
Short answer: In 2 Peter 3:3-7, Peter warns that in the last days mockers will come, following their own lusts and asking where the promise of Christ's return is. Their scoffing is not honest doubt but a moral posture: they do not want an accounting with God. Peter answers them by pointing to creation by the word of God and to the flood, showing that God has judged before and will judge again. The passage teaches believers to expect mockery without being shaken by it. Scoffing is nothing new. It was present in Israel's history, in Paul's preaching, and in Peter's own day. The right response is not panic, silence, or retaliation, but patient confidence that God's word stands.
What Peter says is coming in the last days
Peter begins with a word of preparation: "knowing this first, that in the last days mockers will come, walking after their own lusts" (2 Peter 3:3). He does not say they might come or that clever argument will keep them away. He says they will come. The church is not to be surprised when ridicule of Christ's return becomes public and confident. Peter wants his readers anchored before the storm arrives, not scrambling after it starts.
The phrase the last days covers the whole period between Christ's first coming and his return. So mockers are not a phenomenon reserved for some distant future. They were already active in the apostles' era, and they have appeared in every generation since. Peter's readers were dealing with them in real time. Nothing about their arrival should unsettle a believer who has been told plainly in advance.
Notice that Peter ties their mockery to desire: they walk after their own lusts. Their rejection of the promise is not merely intellectual. It flows from a life that does not want to be accountable to a returning Lord. That connection matters for how we read the rest of the passage. Their question about the delay of the promise is not a research question; it is a moral one wearing an intellectual costume.
The question mockers ask and what it really means
The mockers say, according to Peter's account, Where is the promise of his coming? They add that things have continued as they were from the beginning of creation. On the surface this sounds like a reasonable observation. Nothing has changed; life goes on; the promised return has not happened; therefore, they conclude, it will not happen. It is an argument from silence, drawn from the ordinary regularity of the world.
Peter treats the question as willful, not innocent. These are not people asking for evidence they would gladly receive. They have already decided what they want to be true. Their mockery is the sound of a settled refusal, not the voice of honest wrestling. Believers should learn to tell the difference between a sincere question and a hardened sneer, because the two call for different responses.
This is why Jesus told his followers that no one knows the day or hour of his return, and why Peter goes on to explain that God's timing is not measured by our impatience. A delayed promise is not a broken promise. The mockers read delay as denial. Peter reads delay as mercy, since God is patient, not wanting anyone to perish but all to come to repentance.
What the scoffers deliberately overlook
Peter says they willfully forget that the heavens existed long ago and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God. The very world they point to as evidence of stability is itself testimony to God's power and prior judgment. The same word that made the world once flooded it. Creation and the flood are not side issues; they are the foundation of Peter's answer.
The mockers want to argue from the uniformity of nature, but Peter says the record of the past is uniform in a different way: God creates by his word, and God judges by his word. A world that has already been judged once cannot claim immunity from future judgment. To forget the flood is not to escape the argument; it is to lose the very history that answers it.
So Peter does not debate the scoffers on their chosen ground. He does not accept the premise that nothing has ever interrupted ordinary life. He goes behind their question to the testimony of Scripture itself. This is a pattern for us. When someone mocks the promise of Christ's return, the strongest response is not a clever theory but the plain record of what God has already said and done.
How Scripture describes the scoffer's heart
Psalm 1:1-2 pictures the progression of a life that ends in the seat of scoffers: first walking in wicked counsel, then standing in the path of sinners, then sitting down with those who mock. Scoffing is not a sudden accident. It is a destination reached by stages. The psalm's contrast is the person who delights in the law of the Lord and meditates on it day and night. Two ways, two outcomes.
Proverbs 9:7-8 adds a sober warning about correction: one who corrects a mocker invites insult, and one who reproves a wicked man invites abuse. This is not a prohibition on ever speaking truth. It is a realistic assessment that mockery is often resistant to rebuke. Wisdom knows when to speak, when to keep speaking, and when to stop casting what is holy before those who will only trample it.
Jude 1:17-19 tells believers to remember the words spoken beforehand by the apostles, because in the last time there will be mockers walking according to their own ungodly lusts. Jude and Peter are twin witnesses. The New Testament does not treat scoffing as a rare anomaly but as a predicted feature of the age, and it consistently connects mockery to unrestrained desire.
Scoffing at the cross as well as the return
Mockery does not aim only at the second coming. Acts 13:41 records Paul quoting a warning to scoffers who would wonder and perish, a work God was doing that they would not believe even if someone described it to them. The gospel itself, announced in their hearing, was the very work they were in danger of dismissing. Scoffing is not limited to one doctrine; it can fasten onto any truth that exposes us.
First Corinthians 1:18 says that the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are dying, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. The same message that is mocked by some is the power of God to others. That is a steadying thought. The ridicule of the message does not change what the message is, and it does not change what it does in those who receive it.
This explains why Peter's readers should not be rattled by the laughter of skeptics. If the cross itself was called foolishness, then mockery aimed at the promise of Christ's return should not come as a shock. The pattern is consistent: what God reveals, unbelief ridicules. The scoffer's verdict is not the final verdict on anything.
God's word outlasts the mocker's confidence
The scoffers assume that their settled observation of a stable world settles the matter. Peter answers by pointing to what God's word has already done. The heavens and earth were formed by that word, and by that same word they are being kept for the day of judgment. The confidence of the mocker is not built on a stronger foundation than the confidence of the believer. Both rest on a reading of history, and only one matches the record.
That is a crucial point for anyone tempted to feel that mockery has won simply because it is loud. Volume is not evidence. Certainty is not the same as correctness. The mockers in Peter's day were confident, and their confidence lasted only until the day they had denied arrived. God's word is not on trial before the scoffer; the scoffer stands before God's word.
Peter's readers needed this reassurance because the delay felt long. The promise seemed slow. The mockers seemed to be winning the argument by default. Peter cuts through that by reminding them that the word of God is not measured by how quickly our circumstances seem to confirm it. It stands on its own authority, and it will be vindicated on God's schedule.
How a believer should answer a mocker
The New Testament does not call believers to trade insults with scoffers. Proverbs warns that correcting a mocker invites insult. That does not mean we never speak. It means we speak with wisdom, with patience, and without expecting that every scoffer will be persuaded. Some mockery is an opportunity. Some is a closed door. The difference is not always visible at first, which is why we need discernment.
At the same time, Peter's own method shows that there is a time to answer. He does not ignore the mockers; he corrects their error from Scripture. He points to the flood and to the word of God. So the response is neither silent retreat nor angry combat. It is patient, Scripture-soaked explanation, delivered without panic and without the assumption that we must win the exchange on the spot.
Believers can also answer by the shape of their lives. If the mockers walk after their own lusts, then a life governed by holiness, hope, and patient endurance is itself a kind of reply. Peter later urges his readers to be found in peace, without spot and blameless. The way we live while waiting is part of how we answer those who mock the waiting.
The patience of God is not delay forever
Peter's most pastorally important note is that God is not slow as some count slowness. The delay the mockers ridicule is the patience of God, who does not wish any to perish but desires all to reach repentance. What the scoffer reads as evidence that nothing will happen, the believer reads as mercy still available. The same calendar means judgment to one and opportunity to the other.
That does not mean the delay is endless. Peter goes on to describe the day of the Lord coming like a thief, and the present heavens and earth being kept for fire until the day of judgment. The patience has a purpose and a limit. Mockers mistake the delay for denial, but the day is not cancelled; it is appointed. God's timing is long, but it is not indefinite.
So the passage ends with a summons to readiness rather than anxiety. Since all these things are to be dissolved, Peter asks what sort of people we ought to be in holy conduct and godliness. The scoffer's mockery is meant to make us doubt. Peter's answer is to make us watchful, faithful, and calm. The question of when is in God's hands. How we live until then is in ours.
Biblical fidelity check
These verses establish several things plainly. They establish that mockers will come in the last days, that their mockery is tied to following their own lusts, and that their central question concerns the delay of Christ's promised return. They establish that God's word is the true account of creation and the flood, and that the same word keeps the present world for judgment. They establish that the perceived delay is not failure but divine patience. What they do not establish is a date for Christ's return or a detailed timeline of end-times events. Peter gives no chart, no schedule, and no list of signs to calculate. He gives a posture.
A common misreading of this passage treats the mockers as basically honest skeptics whose objections must be refuted by superior reasoning before anyone can believe. That is wrong on the text. Peter describes them as walking after their own lusts, people whose minds are already made up because they do not want a returning Lord. Another misreading treats the delay as permission to live however we please, as though God's patience means his promise is empty. Peter explicitly denies that in the verses that follow. Faithful Christians differ on how to read many end-times details, and this study does not settle those debates. But on this much the text is clear: mockery is predicted, judgment is real, and patience is not the same as permission.
Other passages that speak to 2 Peter 3:3-7
The theme of scoffing runs through Scripture from the Psalms to the apostles. Psalm 1:1-2 shows where a life of mockery ends and where delight in God's word leads. Proverbs 9:7-8 gives practical wisdom about correcting those who have settled into contempt. Jude 1:17-19 echoes Peter almost word for word, calling believers to remember the apostolic warnings about last-days mockers. And Acts 13:41 records Paul applying the warning of scoffers to a generation that heard the gospel and risked dismissing it. For broader context on the letters Peter and Paul wrote to early churches facing similar pressures, see 1 Corinthians 1: Called, United, and Boasting in the Lord, 1 Corinthians 10: Warnings and Freedom, 1 Corinthians 11: Order, Unity, and the Lord's Supper, and 1 Corinthians 12: One Body, Many Members in Christ.
Frequently asked questions
Who are the scoffers in 2 Peter 3?
Peter describes them as mockers who will come in the last days, walking after their own lusts and questioning the promise of Christ's return. They are not outsiders asking honest questions, but people whose rejection of the promise flows from a life that does not want to answer to a returning Lord. Their central argument is that everything has continued as it was from creation, so the promised return will not happen. They have already decided what they want to be true.
Does the delay of Christ's return prove the scoffers are right?
No. Peter directly answers this by saying God is not slow about his promise as some count slowness, but is patient, not wishing any to perish. What the mocker reads as evidence that nothing will happen, the believer reads as mercy still available. The day of the Lord is not cancelled; it is appointed. God's timing is measured by his purposes, not by our impatience, and the same delay means judgment to one and opportunity to another.
How should a Christian respond when someone mocks the faith?
With patience, wisdom, and Scripture, not with insults. Proverbs 9:7-8 warns that correcting a mocker invites insult, so there is a time to speak and a time to stop. But Peter himself answers the mockers from Scripture, pointing to creation and the flood. So the response is neither silent retreat nor angry combat. Answer calmly where there is an opening, live in holiness and hope, and trust God's word to stand when the mocking has ended.
