Knowledge and Christian Living

ftentimes on group blogs, one runs the risk of their post getting “bumped” by another contributor’s post.  This happens when one posts, say, in the morning, and by mid-afternoon, someone else has posted on top of them.  I guess it’s part of the risk on a group blog.  However, I’m the only author on this blog, and I’m going to bump myself!

I realize I sometimes go days or even weeks without posting, and then inspiration comes all of a sudden.  I should probably draft this one and wait a day or two to post it, but I won’t.

At any rate, I was typing a comment on my previous post when I happened to see the verse of the day from BibleGateway in my sidebar.  I must admit that I rarely read my own blog, so I rarely see the verse of the day over there.  But in this particular case, the position of the comment box happened to be right next to it on my screen, and so it caught my eye.

Here is today’s verse (Wednesday, March 14) — 2 Peter 1:5-8 in the New American Standard (the sidebar shows it in the NIV):

Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge, and in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control, perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness, and in your godliness, brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness, love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

There are a couple of things that jumped out at me on this.  But first of all, let’s get the context.  Peter begins with “Now for this reason…”, so obviously it behooves us to look at what preceded this.

He begins this thought in verse 2 by speaking “grace and peace” over his readers “in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord….”  (Not very trinitarian, but I digress…!)  Note that he refers to “the knowledge”, so he obviously sees it important that we either possess knowledge about God, or that we obtain knowledge that comes from God.

He goes on to say that “[God's] divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness” — wait, let’s pause there.  Think about that.  Everything that we need for life and godliness is ours!  That is an amazing truth!

Then, Peter tells us the way in which we “tap into” all that we need for life and godliness: “…through the true knowledge of Him….”  Now, it would be tempting at this point to think that Peter is exalting knowledge.  Therefore, we should study, and learn, and parse, and exegete, and…  But I don’t think that’s the point Peter is getting at.  That’s where today’s verse caught my eye.  But I’m not there yet.  There’s more.

Peter says that “by these [since it's plural, I'm assuming that he is referring to "everything pertaining to life and godliness", or perhaps "life and godliness" itself] He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature” — whoa!  Did you see that?  “Partakers of the divine nature”.  Wow!  That’s heavy!  I’ll leave it up to you readers to ponder what that means, but I’m thinking it might not mean what we have downplayed it to mean.  I’m thinking that it might have something to do with the oneness that Jesus prayed for in John 17.  Just a thought.  (Or maybe Peter was examining Mormonism! hehe) Now, back to our text…

So, all of that lays the groundwork as the reason Peter gives his instruction in the verses I quoted above (2 Peter 1:5-8).  We must, with all diligence, augment our faith (in sort of cascading, or snowballing form) with moral excellence, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness, and love.  That’s quite a list, but I think illustrates the need to combine knowledge (i.e., theological knowledge) with things that reflect a lot of what Paul called “fruit of the Spirit” in Galatians 5.

“For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”  I would say that being “neither useless nor unfruitful” are excellent goals for the believer!

Peter isn’t saying that you must do all these things in order to be saved.  But he does go on to say that it’s a good way to be “certain”.  And I think certainty is a good thing.  If we are unsure of our position in Christ, we (in some sense) teeter on the edge.  But if we are certain of who we are and the position we have, we can grow and move deeper into that.

Several years ago, I had a discussion with a friend about a church in which we were both involved at the time.  One of my frustrations was that the senior pastor was constantly making people feel like they might not be saved.  (This is a horrible thing to do, by the way, and is one of the reasons I ended up pulling away from that particular church finally.)

The friend with whom I was discussing this didn’t quite understand what my problem was.  I pointed to Hebrews 6 where the author of Hebrews says that we should move beyond the elementary things of the faith.  I contended that, by keeping people feeling like they were on the edge of their salvation, possibly falling out, that they were never able to move beyond that and go deeper in their relationship with Christ.  I still believe that.

My prayer for each of you, my dear readers, is that you will find yourself not only certain of your calling and standing in Christ, but that you will find yourself useful and fruitful “in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Until next time,

steve