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2 Peter 1:5-9 (HCSB)
For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with goodness, goodness with knowledge, knowledge with self-control, self-control with endurance, endurance with godliness, godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they will keep you from being useless or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. The person who lacks these things is blind and shortsighted and has forgotten the cleansing from his past sins.
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Peter’s list of virtues here has quite a bit in common with Paul’s list of the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22-23. And he builds these virtues one on the other in a progression of grace and maturity.
He begins with goodness, basic holiness, which is merely doing the right thing and avoiding sin. This is a very basic expectation of those who have come from darkness to light, from death to eternal life. But maturity in Christ doesn’t stop there.
To goodness is to be added knowledge. This is not merely the intellectual knowledge touted by Pharisees and philosophers. It is practical knowledge that rises from a relationship with God through faith in Jesus. And Jesus Himself, as part of the Great Commission, commanded that new believers be taught to obey everything that He commanded (Matthew 28:18-20). Thus, this knowledge has the goal of deeper and more consistent obedience, obeying all the Jesus commanded, and avoiding everything that He proclaimed to be wrong. That’s why self-control is next added to knowledge. Knowing God’s will as expressed through Jesus’ commands is useless unless one can exercise self-control for consistent obedience.
To self-control is to be added endurance, the ability to stand firm even in the face of opposition, internal and external. The disciple must continue to persevere through obstacles, which increases their own commitment to God’s control of their lives, and which leads to godliness, the next virtue listed. Godliness is more than goodness, mere obedience. It is right behavior that stems from a purified heart, the work of the Holy Spirit in a person’s heart but made real by consistency in both greater learning and more profound obedience.
Next listed is brotherly affection, or philadelphia. This is the kind of love that makes possible teamwork toward a common goal, growing God’s kingdom and making it real in the world. And it also makes possible synergy, the exponential increase in effectiveness that comes from that teamwork.
The ultimate virtue to be added is agape love. Whereas other types of love (and Greek has a wealth of synonyms that most other languages lack) are mostly about feeling, agape love is about action. Agape love is the kind of love that God has for the world that prompted Him to send Jesus as the once-for-all sacrifice for sins (John 3: 16-17, 1 John 4:9). And it is the love that held Jesus to His course, even through the shame and pain of the cross. It is a self-sacrificial love that puts the needs of the other person ahead of one’s own needs, or even one’s own safety. It is the highest of all other virtues and is only available to people through the presence and purifying work of the Holy Spirit in one’s heart.
Pray with Me
Father, it is interesting to see these virtues lined up in increasing magnitude, with agape love shining like the star at the top of the Christmas tree, capping them all and holding them all together. What starts with our own commitment to honor and obey You must be finished by Your own work in transforming our hearts. But that transformation is available through the power of Your Holy Spirit working in our lives and hearts. Thank you, Lord, for these great truths. Make them real in my own life today. Amen.