2 Peter 1:5-8: “But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Have you ever been confronted with a situation where before you can move forward, first, you have to fully understand a fundamental truth or concept? This is very common in the most basic aspects of life. You can’t move on to more advanced math until you know your addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division tables. You can’t write a story until you understand how to first write a correct sentence. It’s a wonderful thing when the “light goes on”, and you can say to yourself, ‘I get it!’ I believe humans are wired to progress in their thought processes. Therefore, once you get the foundational point(s), it’s common to ask, “What’s next?”
So it goes in the realm of faith. The Apostle Peter provides us an outline of the progression, or steps to maturity, in the Christian faith. To make it clear, he provides a series of progressive stages to follow to help us “stay the course”. Notice the pre-requisite to the steps, “giving all diligence.” The Greek words for “all” and “diligence” display a complete and total effort – an earnestness – towards our approach to growing in our relationship with God. He’s not suggesting this because we need to beg God to get closer to us – the strong admonition is because Peter knows better than most how easy it is to deceive ourselves as to how truly strong our faith is.
The first step forward after coming to faith in Christ is virtue. The Greek word for virtue in this verse is ‘arete’ which actually means manliness or valor; achieving an excellence that is praiseworthy and virtuous. When you truly take in the level of God’s efforts to forgive you and redeem you, responding with a dedication to conducting your life to a higher standard is reasonable. Figuring out how to do that, though, can be a challenge for most of us. God, though, doesn’t leave us in a void, and Peter directs us to where we can go to learn what it means to better conduct our lives – knowledge. Specifically, he is speaking of the knowledge of God – found through studying the Scriptures. The Bible was provided to us as a vehicle to come to know God’s character, His ways, and His promises. If we will take the time to read His Word, God will show us what it means to live a more excellent life.
The next step is an interesting one – self-control. What is implied in this step? There must be a risk of going out of control. Knowledge is a great thing, but by itself it can become dangerous – it can puff up someone’s pride, and according to Proverbs 16:18, pride comes before destruction – a haughty spirit before a fall. God is warning us that there needs to be restraints on the accumulation of our knowledge, so self-control is necessary. However, I do not believe self-control is fully achievable without walking in the Spirit. I say this because Galatians tells us that self-control is a fruit of (or a result of walking in) the Spirit. What’s implied is that without our willful invitation of the Holy Spirit to direct our ways, self-control will be, at best, a struggle.
By establishing self-control in our lives, we then must prepare to persevere. The fact that perseverance is a step to maturity is a clear inference that there will be a need to endure or be patient with situations or people who will go against what we are pursuing; in other words – persecution. Jesus promised persecution because of the word [our faith in Him], so we need to be ready to withstand those who will attempt to tear down our faith. As we begin to persevere and learn to stand up for God, we then are growing closer to living a more Godly life. Our faith-driven, courageous self-controlled knowledge of God begins to impact the way we deal with not only our lives but also those lives God brings into our lives. We are becoming equipped to minister to others as God might minister – in the form of a brotherly kindness. Notice the progression of these building blocks – they begin with the internal – faith, virtue, knowledge, and self-control and then transition to the external with perseverance, godliness, and brotherly kindness. Can you see the logic and the order of this?
So what is the conclusion of these steps to Christian maturity? Love. Is it surprising that so much foundation must be established before we can be useful and fruitful with our faith in Jesus Christ? It shouldn’t be because if we fail at any of these steps, we will be unable to love the way God loves us and seeks for us to love others as He does. It seems like a lot, but we need to remember the lengths God went to in order to show His love to us. If we get that, then the “now what” question of where to go with our faith is answered. Get it?