"giving all diligence, add to your faith"

When I finished reading Ezekiel I began reading James and moved on to First and Second Peter. I really like Peter. I’ve decided his first epistle is one of my favorite sections of Scripture. Then, his second epistle begins with a bang! There is so much there, but I don’t want to provide a running commentary. I only want to share what impresses me every time I read it:

2 Peter 1
5  And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge;
6  And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness;
7  And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity.

Verses 3 and 4 contain so much wonderful truth. I want to camp there, dwell there, elaborate on those things! But Peter moves right on:

And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith
I cannot be satisfied that I have faith in Christ. I cannot rest content with faith. He says I am to add to my faith certain things. But not haphazardly, or as I think about it, or even as I have opportunity. No, giving all diligence, add to your faith. I can’t wait, I can’t let it just happen. I need to work on it. Peter was not one to say, “It’s cool, man, you’ve believed. Just chill.” No, no. no. He says, “You’ve believed. You’ve received some great things from God! Now, get up and get to it – add these things to your faith.”

And he provides us a list of seven virtues, graces or character traits we are to add. Seven attributes that I need to work on. Now!

Obviously, these are matters we need to study on and be sure we understand. I simply want to list them and provide a simple definition of how I understand each one.

Virtue – moral excellence

Knowledge – of God, His ways, His promises, His will, His warnings, His commands, His Word

Temperance – self-control. This is also listed as a fruit of the Spirit. Clearly, there is some sort of cooperation here. This is a grace He works in me, but it is also a trait I am to work on myself.

Patience – there are two kinds of patience mentioned in the Bible: ‘people patience’ which is the word longsuffering and ‘problem patience’ which is the word patience. Patience means the ability to endure, to hold on. Now, tribulation worketh patience. Obviously, I cannot create trials of faith for myself, so how can I add this to my faith? It seems to me this begins as an attitude, “I will not quit, I will not give in, I will not give up.” I love how James explains it, Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.
Add patience and let her have her perfect work!

Godliness – this seems to me to be the trickiest one, because we so misunderstand godliness. For years I had the hardest time understanding godly and righteous. But I think I have a better grasp now. This word was a basic word for ‘religious.’ But it conveyed more than rigidly or superstitiously religious. It was an attitude of ‘being careful to be correct in my religious duties and obligation.’ This changes things for me. God is not pleased when I am sloppy in my Christian life. I need to be careful to be correct in my walk with the Lord.
I have to be at work at 11 pm. I can’t just show up whenever I want to, so I have to plan my evening accordingly. I have to leave the house by a certain time to be sure to be there on time. I need the same approach to my Christian life.

Brotherly Kindness – this is brotherly love (philadelphia). It is really neat how Peter says the same thing in the first epistle. Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren [philadelphia], see that ye love [agape] one another with a pure heart fervently. Not too hard to add something that God has worked in! We are born again unto, resulting in, unfeigned love of the brethren. Now we are love one another with a pure heart, which leads us to the pinnacle of virtues:

Charity – this is love, agape. Paul says the same thing, And above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfectness” God gives me love, God works love into my soul, but I still have to add it, put it on. And consider the fullness of love:
Love suffers long [this is ‘people patience’] and is kind; love does not envy; 
love does not parade itself, is not puffed up;  
does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil;  
does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth;  
bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 

By God’s grace, I have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ. But I can’t rest there. By God’s power and promises I need to diligently add these to my faith. And this is the encouragement and warning he offers as motivation:

8  For if these things be in you, and abound, they make [you] neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
9  But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins.
10  Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall:
11  For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

Since I don’t want to be blind or forgetful, barren nor unfruitful, I need to be diligent! Practical Christianity!


"The soul of religion is the practical part" (Bunyan).