“For this very reason, you must make every effort to support your faith with excellence, and excellence with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with endurance, and endurance with godliness, and godliness with mutual affection, and mutual affection with love.” 2 Peter 1:5-7
During last Sunday’s sermon, I suggested that 2 Peter 1:5-7 could serve as a useful basis for regular meditations on growing in Christ. I thought it might be helpful to flesh out an eight week outline for study, reflection, and practice. The idea is to focus on one virtue per week, following the Monday through Friday suggestions.
Week 1: The starting point of our journey is faith, which is basic trust in God through Christ. Faith is putting your full weight on the Lord.
Week 2: For the ancients, virtue (moral excellence, goodness) had to do with human excellence. For Christians, virtue is about obedience to God and the living of morally excellent lives.
Week 3: Knowledge is about practical wisdom, gradually gained, that is necessary for Christian living.
Week 4: When we tell someone to “get a hold of yourself,” we’re getting at the idea of self-control. The ancients saw self-control as reason winning over passion.
Week 5: Patience describes hopeful endurance; it envisions steadfastness under temptation and endurance in godliness despite opposition.
Week 6: Godliness here literally means “good worship.” For ancients it meant expressing proper respect for the gods. For Christians it means honoring God in worship and practicing godliness in one’s behavior.
Week 7: Brotherly affection was a favorite of ancient moral philosophers. For them, there was nothing greater than the reciprocal affection between equals. For Christians, this is a good start but we know there is also more to love than mutual appreciation.
Week 8: The most distinctive of Christian virtues is agape love, which is the love that God has shown toward us. Agape is a deliberate desire for the highest good of the one loved and shows itself in sacrificial actions for others.
Each week as you explore these character qualities, use or modify the following outline to help you go deeper. If it’s helpful to you, make daily notes.
Monday: Learn more about the meaning of the word from a Bible dictionary; check a concordance to see where else this word appears in the Scriptures.
Tuesday: Reflect on the ways that Biblical characters, historical believers, and people you know have manifested this quality.
Wednesday: Ask a wise Christian friend what they’ve learned about this virtue.
Thursday: Find a tangible way to put this quality into practice while not drawing unnecessary attention to it.
Friday: Reflect on where you stand with this virtue, writing down your strengths and growth areas. Pray for God to grant you a greater measure of this quality.
One of the insights from 2 Peter 1 is that the Christian journey is a long one and Peter’s list of interlocking character qualities can help us on our transformational journey. May God bless you as you pursue growth in Christlikeness!
Recent Comments