3 His divine power has given us everything required for life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. 4 By these he has given us very great and precious promises, so that through them you may share in the divine nature, escaping the corruption that is in the world because of evil desire. 5 For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with goodness, goodness with knowledge, 6 knowledge with self-control, self-control with endurance, endurance with godliness, 7 godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. 8 For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being useless or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Message: The Right Tools
Time: Written by Peter, he being influenced by the writings of Paul to Ephesus (Ephesians) somewhere between 62 and 63 AD.
What the Lord is Saying: We had a guest speaker this morning at church and he did a message from 2 Peter on Right Tools. He used an example of fly fishing throughout his message to basically talk about the fact that God has given us Christians all the right tools that we need to carry out godliness in our lives.
As is my pattern, I looked at the text and went back to verse 1 to understand a little bit better the context of this passage. Peter's message is written to those Christians that have the same understanding of faith or belief that he does.
I noticed verse 1 says this faith is "by the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ." I wondered with that verse if Peter is linking God and Jesus or if God and Jesus are separate. On one hand, it sounds like he is stating that Jesus the Savior is God. But could he be stating that faith is of the righteousness of God and the righteousness of Jesus Christ?
In verse 2, he asks that "Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord." Here again, Peter is mentioning grace and peace because of those (verse 1) having a knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.
Even if Peter is not stating that Jesus is God, he is linking characteristics that are the same of the two - righteousness, grace, peace - all found in the knowledge of God and Jesus.
Verse 3 - "His divine power." When I read this, that's what made me go back to verse 1 and 2 and think about who's divine power He is speaking about for His is singular and yet so possibly it lends itself to think that verse 1 and 2 and the words of God and Jesus are unified rather than separate. Yet, His divine power could be the last name spoken in verse 2 (remembering that punctuation and verse divisions were added later). But also here we then have Jesus being the one with divine power and God also has divine power. Thus, there is another linkage here with Jesus and God having the same attribute of divine power.
This here is the point of the pastor's message yesterday morning and initially the first point of the text of 2nd Peter. That to the Christian, the fellow believer and Peter - that through Jesus, his righteousness and our knowledge, those Christians have "everything pertaining to life and godliness." The everything we have is because of the faith we have, the grace, and the peace. This is indeed a compelling statement. We have everything pertaining to life because we have faith "through the true knowledge of Him."
And later in the text it states therefore, with the qualities mentioned in verse 5-7, namely "moral excellence, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness, and love -- we are neither useless nor unfruitful." Thus we have everything we need for life an godliness and because of that we will be fruitful and useful.
This sounds like a promise. This takes me back to verse 4 - "For by these" where these seems to be "everything pertaining to life and godliness." Peter says, "these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, in order that by them you might become partakers of the divine nature."
Again, we have everything we need pertaining to life and godliness. We have qualities that we will supply to others and throughout life to be of use and fruitful. Thus, we become divine-like.
But in this text then is a mysterious statement to me - "He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises." Promises. What are these promises?
2 Peter 3:9 says, "The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness..." There is a promise.
2 Peter 3:13 says, "But according to His promise we are looking for new heavens and a new earth."
We have everything we need for life and being Godly. We are those that have faith and knowledge of God and Jesus. We have been given qualities. We will be useful and bear fruit. We will be divine. And this is all according to His precious and magnificent promises.
I find this interesting because Peter explains all of these outcomes which we have because of our faith, but doesn't specify the promises, and so his audience must have understood these promises.
I don't know exactly what these promises are right now. I could look at commentaries and review the different ideas. I suppose for now I will focus on what I know - I have everything I need.
Prayer: God, you have done it. Through faith, I have everything I need to do everything pertaining to life and godliness. I want to discover this Lord. And believe this and trust in this. And help me to share this with others to encourage them. Give us all hope.
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