DESTINATION
DESTINATION
It is much the same with the letter’s destination as with its origin and date: there is so little to go by. If 2 Pet. 3:1 refers to 1 Peter, then this letter is addressed to the same people as that epistle: "God’s elect...scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia” (1 Peter 1:1). If the reference is to some other writing, we have little to go on, though many have thought that these Asian provinces are still the most likely destination, on such grounds as the letter’s reception in that area and the fact that heresies of the kind opposed developed there in due course. Obviously we are not in a position to be very definite. Christians in the Asian provinces are a good guess, but we can scarcely say more.
We should also notice that 2 Peter is addressed to "those who through the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ have received a faith as precious as ours” (2 Pet. 1:1). There is no proper epistolary ending; the writing simply closes with a doxology to Christ (a feature found also in 2 Tim. 4:18, but nowhere else in the New Testament). Clearly we lack the information that would enable us to tie down the intended recipients, and perhaps the author intended this from the first. The epistle has
come down to us as one of the so-called general letters, and its opening shows that there was some intention of this kind from the very beginning. We may say that it was sent first to Christians in Pontus and the other places listed, but it is clear that its author did not intend it to be limited to them. He was writing with the whole church in mind: however widely or narrowly his letter would circulate, his message was intended for the church at large.