Add to Faith, Virtue -- 2 Peter 1:5b-11

2 Peter 1:5b-11


"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. For he who lacks these things is shortsighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins. Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your call and election sure, for if you do these things you will never stumble; for so an entrance will be supplied to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." (NKJV)

I’ve been studying this passage for several weeks. I find it interesting that all the mainline translations (the more literal translations) translate this passage as a continuum of sorts: add to faith virtue, add to virtue knowledge, etc. There is a real sense that Peter is saying that once we are saved (once we have faith), there is a path for us to follow in order to become loving as our Lord Jesus is loving.

Wouldn’t you like to love like Jesus loves?

I’m beginning to feel like the Church is heading down a very slippery slope, away from the character of Christ, away from the fruit of the Spirit, and closer and closer to the "righteousness" of the Pharisees. We seem to be looking for cultural morality, believing that if things "around us" seem right, then it reinforces our salvation. But we are rather unwilling within the Church to police ourselves (or each other) as scripture mandates that we are supposed to do. We are, however, very willing to try to police those outside the Church (those who, by the way, are only acting according to their nature). We are acting very much like Pharisees.

"Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other men—extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess.’ And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted." (Luke 18:10-14 NKJV).

In terms of our own culture, perhaps the "Pharisee" might have pray like this:

"God, I thank You that I am not like other men—homosexuals, drug addicts, Muslims, or atheists. I go to church; I donate to the latest anti-gay movement; I picket outside of abortion clinics." Meanwhile, this "Pharisee" watches R-rated movies, sneaks looks at porn on the Internet, refuses to give money to the poor (feeling he and his family need it more than anyone else), criticizes those with tattoos and piercings, and refuses to share with those in need.

I think we have, as a Church, lost our way. We have come to believe that we can replace true evangelism with civil laws, true repentance with refusing to "serve" those whose unbelieving lifestyles make us uncomfortable, and true worship with Christian "cheerleading" at our Sunday services. We have lost who we are supposed to be. Embraced in our creature comforts, we are unwilling to share, unwilling to change, and adept at lamenting the loss of a cultural morality that never truly reflected the Lord Jesus anyway!

We have to become more than converts! We have to become Christians. Christ-ones. We have to grow in our faith to the point that we love as our Lord Jesus loves, even to the point of dying for those who are still sinners. "God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8 RSV).

How do we do that?

Peter tells us that salvation—faith—is only the beginning. There is a whole continuum of changes that must occur in our lives and that first one is virtue. We don’t talk a lot about virtue these days. It’s really pretty unpopular to preach from the pulpit a list of "don’ts" because so many pastors themselves are doing the "don’ts." What kinds of things am I talking about? Paul gives what he calls a "plain" list: "Now the works of the flesh are plain: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness, dissension, party spirit, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and the like. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God." (Galatians 5:19-21 RSV). This list isn’t comprehensive; it’s not complete. It’s simply an example of the kinds of things that are not virtuous, the kinds of behavior that shouldn’t be done by Christians ever, for any reason.

Fornication: Any kind of sexual activity outside of marriage including watching sex (R-rated movies, books, Internet, etc.). (The original Greek also adds a word usually translated "adultery." So the passage really says "adultery fornication" meaning that every kind of sexual sin is included.)

Impurity: The Greek is akatharsia (G167) and means "the impurity of lustful, luxurious, profligate (wildly extravagant) living." In other words, a lifestyle that is self-centered and self-indulgent.

Licentiousness: Looking for and/or causing sexual excitement

Idolatry: From Vine’s, "the sin of the mind against God and immorality. An ‘idolater’ is a slave to the depraved ideas his idols represent." Idolatry is really service to something other than God. (How many values do we hold that are cultural rather than godly? How many lifestyle practices are we unwilling to give up?)

Sorcery: Any kind of witchcraft which could include horoscopes, certain kinds of meditation, chanted prayers, and anything where we think that a certain "formula" (behavior and/or belief) will result in a specific result.

Enmity: Hatred (the opposite of agape love)

Strife: Quarrel, contention, wrangling, the eagerness to contend, the desire to "be right" above all else.

Jealousy: Envy, wanting what we don’t have but wished we did

Anger, selfishness: Fierce, heated anger, particularly anger than results in fights or quarrels

Dissension: Divisions; incitement of resistance to or insurrection against lawful authority

Party spirit: "Heresy, a self-willed opinion which is substituted for submission to the power of truth and leads to division and the format of sects; such erroneous opinions are frequently the outcome of personal preference or the prospect of advantage" (Vine’s, G139)

Envy: "The feeling of displeasure produced by witnessing or hearing of the advantage or prosperity of others" (Vine’s G5355)

Drunkenness: Intoxication (through any means that changes the brain chemistry)

Carousing: The kind of behavior that accompanies drunkenness

So, that’s a long list. Why would I think it necessary to list each one individually? Because I think we gloss over this passage thinking that we won’t find ourselves in it. And we very likely do find ourselves there! And Paul even ends this passage by saying, "and the like" meaning that the list could go on and on. (So even if we don’t find that specific behavior we continue to embrace and refuse to discard, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t include ourselves in this list.)

Peter tells us, "Add to your faith virtue." From the Greek arete (G703). Vine’s says: "Intrinsic eminence, moral goodness, virtue. Virtue is enjoined as an essential quality in the exercise of faith." Strong’s says: "A virtuous course of thought, feeling and action; moral goodness; moral excellence, as modesty, purity." Virtue is the opposite of Paul’s list in Galatians. It is everything righteous, holy, and moral. And we are to add virtue to our own lives (not to the lives of others). In fact, virtue is the first thing we should add to our lives once we were saved.



No wonder the Church is so upside down and sideways. The Church is filled with people—leaders and laity alike—who are filling their minds and hearts with all kinds of evil found through the media; who are filling their time with all kinds of self-indulgent choices; who are practicing, over and over again, all kinds of evil choices . . . and then demanding that our unsaved neighbors clean up "their" act simply to make our lives more comfortable.

So what does virtue look like? Obviously, it’s the outpouring of the fruit of the Spirit in our lives: "love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control" (Galatians 5:22b-23). And it’s not one of these things every once in a while; it’s all of these things all the time to everyone!

It’s interesting to know that Jesus always first gave of Himself, meeting whatever need was presented, and then presented the gospel.

"A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, ‘Give Me a drink.’ For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. Then the woman of Samaria said to Him, ‘How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?’ For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans." (John 4:7-9 NKJV).

The Lord Jesus was willing to touch those who were shunned, to reach out to those who were sinners (this woman had been married five times and was shacking up with a new boyfriend). Jesus validated her existence, honored her as a person before He began to even comment on her sin and then only after she expressed interest in what He was saying. But why was she interested? Because He had demonstrated that He was interested in her as an individual; He had shown her that she had value.

"Then the scribes and Pharisees brought to Him a woman caught in adultery. And when they had set her in the midst, they said to Him, ‘Teacher, this woman was caught in adultery, in the very act. Now Moses, in the law, commanded us that such should be stoned. But what do You say?’ This they said, testing Him, that they might have something of which to accuse Him. But Jesus stooped down and wrote on the ground with His finger, as though He did not hear. So when they continued asking Him, He raised Himself up and said to them, ‘He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first.’ And again He stooped down and wrote on the ground. Then those who heard it, being convicted by their conscience, went out one by one, beginning with the oldest even to the last. And Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst. When Jesus had raised Himself up and saw no one but the woman, He said to her, ‘Woman, where are those accusers of yours? Has no one condemned you?’ She said, ‘No one, Lord.’ And Jesus said to her, ‘Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more.’" (John 8:3-11 NKJV).

And here, Jesus saves this woman from being unjustly stoned (How can you commit adultery by yourself?) before He addressed her sin. He saw the person and loved her . . . before He saw the sinner. The love came first! It came first for us and it needs to come first from us.

The only way we can love this way is to love with agape love. Agape love is at the end of the list in 2 Peter. First comes faith, believing in and trusting the Lord Jesus for our salvation. Secondly comes virtue. We cannot move on this continuum—we cannot learn to love as Jesus loves and as He longs for us to love those around us—until we have decided to discard all the junk in our lives and to live virtuously for Him through the power of the Holy Spirit. It was never about cleaning up the society around us; it was always about making disciples. And disciples—true disciples—will want to live lives that are pleasing to the Lord, lives that are virtuous in thought, word, and deed.

© 2015 Robin L. O’Hare. All Rights Reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.