The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. (2 Peter 3:9 KJV)

Arminians often use 2 Peter 3:9 as a proof text against Calvinists to refute the doctrine of God’s sovereign election.  At first glance this one verse seems to stand in blatant contradiction to the multitude of verses that clearly speak of God’s electing grace.  However the greek tells a different story; and it doesn’t take a scholar to see it for yourself.

Upon further investigation the greek words of this verse are as follows:

Notice that the word used in the very same verse for “SOME” is the same word used in the very same verse for “ANY”.  The Arminian argument that “ANY means ANY” turns out to be quite the opposite.Next lets examine the word “ALL”.  Believe it or not, our trusted and famous greek scholar of our trusted and famous concordance “STRONG” gives us a definition of the word ALL along with this insight:

“… ‘The whole world is gone after him.’ Did all the world go after Christ? ‘Then went all Judea, and were baptized of him in Jordan.’ Was all Judea, or all Jerusalem baptized in Jordan? ‘Ye are of God, little children’, and ‘the whole world lieth in the wicked one.’ Does ‘the whole world’ there mean everybody? If so, how was it, then, that there were some who were ‘of God?’ The words ‘world’ and ‘all’ are used in some seven or eight senses in Scripture; and it is very rarely that ‘all’ means all persons, taken individually.

The words are generally used to signify that Christ has redeemed some of all sorts—some Jews, some Gentiles, some rich, some poor, and has not restricted his redemption to either Jew or Gentile.“

So in fact, this word ALL is very infrequently used to signify EVERYONE in the WHOLE world, whether in the bible or in our own modern language.  The word is actually defined as:

1) individually
a) each, every, any, all, the whole, everyone, all things, everything

2) collectively
a) some of all types

See for yourself!  http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=G3956&t=KJV

Besides…  Lets not forget our basic interpretation rules about CONTEXT.  He’s long suffering towards.. USWARD.. WE… the people he is writing to which happen to be the very elect themselves.