Yesterday, Pastor Byron shared the opening message on 2 Peter. You can hear the full message here. Today, I’d like to take some time and reflect on a couple key truths found in 2 Peter 1. The first truth is the list of virtues necessary to live a godly life through the Holy Spirit found in verses 5-7. The second truth is recognizing the divine nature of Scriptural prophecy. So I hope you find this week’s post to be both an encouragement and a challenge to press forward.
Virtues Necessary for Godly Living
Verses 5-7 list out several key virtues: “make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love.”
If you notice, Peter’s language indicates that each virtue is supplemented or filled by a deeper virtue. The image I get of this series of virtues is a nesting doll. Those are the wooden Russian dolls that can open up, revealing a smaller doll inside. I see each of these virtues nested within the one mentioned subsequently. The largest doll would be Faith, filled by virtue, filled by knowledge, etc. Look at the figure below:
Faith–>Virtue–>Knowledge–>Self-control–>Steadfastness–>Godliness–>Brotherly Affection–>Love
Continuing with the image of a nesting doll, once we get to the very last doll, the absolute core, we find Love. We can never stress how foundational, how important, nor how powerful Love really is. This is not the endorphin filled ecstatic love. This is the long burning fire of love devoted to the greatest eternal wellness and life possible. This is the love that is devoted to helping you become your best. It is the love that will sacrifice to ensure your freedom and life. It is the love that drove Jesus to the Cross. That is the core of all Christian virtue. From that flows everything else.
We can never stress how foundational, how important, nor how powerful Love really is [tweetquote]
The Divine Nature of Scriptural Prophecy
Peter was an eyewitness to Jesus’ ministry, death, and resurrection. So when he began preaching the Gospel in Acts, he was coming from a point of 1st hand experience. He saw Lazarus rise from the dead, just like Talitha. He saw the 5000 get fed with a measly two fish. He was even in the inner circle with James and John when Jesus was transfigured in the presence of Moses and Elijah. These weren’t distant stories Peter had heard growing up as a child (as most myths in the ancient world were). That is why he told them he didn’t deliver myths. In addition, because of Jesus’ teaching, Peter was able to link this supernatural power to prophecies listed in Scripture.
Peter is very open in verse 20 about Scriptural prophecies having divine origin. He knew, even back then that many people purported prophecies that were mere inventions of the mind. We have to keep in mind places like the Oracle of Delphi and the Sibylline Oracles were still in use. People consulted them. The prophetess of Delphi would expose herself to gaseous fumes from the earth to go into ecstatic trances before uttering her prophecies.
Peter used no hallucinogenic aids in his ministry. He saw Jesus make the connections between the Old Testament and his own coming. So he carried on teaching those connections. What Peter witnessed in Jesus’ time on earth fulfilled so many Old Testament prophecies, some written five centuries back, that he knew they were of divine origin, had stood the test of time, and were fulfilled as foretold.
He knew, even in his day, prophetic utterances were to be weighed and considered. They could easily be faked for a time–thus lending themselves to human interpretations and imaginations. But the prophecies found in Scripture are not like the utterances of an oracle in the middle of a hallucinogenic trip. They are the result of a direct communication between Yahweh and the prophet. They are unalterable and were not subject to human interpretations. Many of the Old Testament prophecies were fulfilled in Jesus’ first coming.
If we can wrap our thought processes around these two truths: the core of all virtue is love and Scriptural Prophecy is of a Divine nature, then we are well on our way fulfilling the godly call and salvation to which we have been elected. Understanding this process isn’t difficult, it’s in the doing. In order to empower our virtues with love, we first must encounter God’s pure love in his presence. Then we have the task of imitating that love in every relationship, social interaction, and unexpected reactions. Learning to practice love in the midst of that does require a great amount of mental training and self-control.
In order to empower our virtues with love, we first must encounter God’s pure love in his presence [tweetquote]
I pray you have a great week full of God moments. I also pray you will continue to feel our Lord’s