December 24, 2024

II Peter 1.5-8 (NIV) 

Make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

It is no one grace which makes a Christian. . . . Nor does any number of excellences united make a Christian, unless they be excellences added to faith.*

In this passage, do we find a recipe to be followed step-by-step, or do we add ingredients to the mixing bowl at different intervals and in varying amounts according to our individual personalities and experiences? 

In the “step-by-step” camp, here are two samples of what others had to say:

    ·         “Each of these several steps begets and facilitates the next.”*

    ·         “The believer’s way is marked out step by step."*

Plus, here is one who wanted it both ways: “The different virtues here are not arranged according to definite logical order,” but, he says, “Each of the virtues . . . forms the complement of that which precedes.”*

Of the writers who agreed with me that this recipe is somewhat more random, this approach is my favorite: “This is to be seen not so much as a progression but as an expansion (you do not start with faith and gradually build up to love, rather, as you truly believe, your life expands to take it all in).*

I believe it is safe to say that when Peter writes about possessing these qualities in “increasing measure,” he doesn’t expect us ever to reach saturation point, only to keep adding ingredients. As someone else expressed it, “These beautiful qualities are not things that the Lord simply pours into us as we passively receive. Instead, we are called to give all diligence to these things, working in partnership with God to add them.”*

What about the benefit of our diligence? Were you as surprised as I was that Peter says that we will be effective and productive in our knowledge of Jesus, rather than in some activity for Jesus? Knowledge seems such a passive attribute. Shouldn’t effectiveness and fruitfulness be the result of heroic service? We need to understand that full knowledge of Jesus is not the same as knowing the multiplication table or the state capitols. To know Christ is to know his will, and it is not his will for us to remain inadequate and barren.

Spiritual growth in the Christian life calls for the strenuous involvement of the believer.*