2 Peter

Chapter 1

vs 1

This letter is also by Peter. Who is it to? Who knows. There are traditions, surely, but the letter doesn't say, at least not at the beginning. It does make it clear that it is to Christians though.

vs 2

Knowledge brings grace and peace in this again fairly typical Christian letter beginning.

vs 3

Who's divine power? Who called us? That first "he" is so vague that you might almost think that Peter is referring to God and Jesus as the same person. I don't know how the greek breaks it down.

God is so powerful that he can work indirectly through our own knowledge - giving us everything we need through it - life and godliness. It's not just knowledge per se, though, it is specific knowledge of him. He called us, and that call is linked up with his glory and goodness.

vs 4

These valuable promises either flow out of God's glory and goodness, his power and our knowledge, or perhaps even our calling. Perhaps when I know enough greek I'll come back and look at these verses again to see if it says what it's referring to here. At the moment my bet is on God's glory and goodness, because they are next to each other in the english and the greek.

At least the next step seems fairly clear - that through these promises we can share in God's very nature, and we have been given an escape from this self-destructing world. Seems to be talking about our eternal life, with the ideas of sharing God's nature, and escaping this world, although the exact wording is escaping the corruption, not the world per se.

Evil desires has the same root as the word "lust" in 1 Peter, which I think helps to show their evilness.

vs 5

I think Peter was getting old - making all these references back is driving me nuts. This very reason is probably the whole idea of our participation in God through his promises.

"Make every effort" is not a one-off action. It is a continual thing, like "keep on making diligently making the effort". Add goodness to faith, because virtue is the active outward component of faith. Add to goodness knowledge, because it informs our actions. Note specifically here that faith comes first, not knowledge. You've got to trust God even before you know what's going to happen, and your virtue comes out of that trust, not out of knowing what happens next.

This knowledge isn't the same as the one mentioned earlier in the chapter, although it has the same root. Those are translated "full knowledge" - this is just regular knowledge. So your "full knowledge" of God (which the lexicon states as knowledge of things ethical and divine) comes before. This knowledge (gnosis) is a general intelligene and understanding. So you can fairly say here that Peter does value intelligence that would come through teaching - the use of your mind for God.

vs 6

To knowledge add self-control, because self control is needed to stop you from being all puffed up with your knowledge. Remember that the church is combatting an early form of gnosticism, so Peter doesn't want people to think that he means "to all these add gnosis like those other gits". Gnostics were well known for not having much self-control, despite their doctrines.

To self-control, add perseverance. I guess that's so you can keep up the self-control, because it can be hard to be self-controlled all the time.

To perseverance, add godliness, that is, righteousness. So in virtue we should be doing good things, in godliness we should be doing right things. I think we can see the link between perseverance and righteousness in 1 Peter, in the idea of suffering for doing what is right - you have to be able to endure, and through your endurance continue to be righteous.

vs 7

To righteousness we should add love for other Christians. Wow, imagine if we treated other Christians with love, instead of trashtalking them because we are so good in our theology and they are so wierd and different and wrong. Instead, the word used here tells us to love our Christian fellows as if they were our brothers and sisters. Which to someone like me doesn't seem much, but in its cultural context basically means that you should be prepared to do anything for them.

And to love for our fellow Christians, add love generally. So love starts with the family of God, and works its way out into the world.

Now of course I added all that commentary, and it's not reflected in Peter's writing. His writing is little more than a list written in such a way as to make them all add together one after the other. But I think it's a good way to look at it. It's not a model of the Christian life in stages or anything - you're meant to add all of these all the time. You can't say "right, I'm up to knowledge... can't wait to get to brotherly love...".

vs 8

There's no time period between these things, they are all meant to be increasing all the time. The more we have of all of these qualities, the more effective and productive we will be. What a promise! Again we are back to the "full knowledge" of God form of knowledge here.

vs 9

Here's a classic example of simple repetition of an idea. What does it mean to be short-sighted and blind at the same time? It's not some complex theological question - it means you're so short sighted you're blind. It's just there for extra expressiveness. Peter's diagnosis for this problem is interesting - the forgetting of the cleansing of your sin. You forget what Jesus has done for you, and everything else seems to go down the toilet. And you can't even see it, because you're blind.

vs 10

Peter has a thing about our calling and election. Perhaps it's because he's a Jew, and they are the "called people". Perhaps it's because Jesus called him directly. Notice he still uses his name that Jesus gave him, Simon Peter in verse 1. In any case, verses 10 and 11 are just begging for an argument. They don't just talk about us being called, but more - that we can firm up our election! Sounds like an implication of the ability to lose your election to me. However, don't take that word "fall" to seriously. It's not a fall from grace or anything. The lexicon says "stumble", and Marshal translates it "fail". So Peter is saying that if you do all these things, they will prevent you from stumbling, or failing in your Christian life. But the nearsighted blind guy will stumble all over the place.

vs 11

Something worth striving for - a rich welcome at the gates of heaven. Count me in.