I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on 2 Peter 1-3.

Peter gives us a short and easy guide for how we should live our lives in chapter 1 verses 5 to 9. I use the NIV for this because it seems slightly more concise.  Peter reiterates what James and Paul have said elsewhere; having faith is not enough.  Our faith must inspire us to action.  In particular, Peter tells us that our faith should lead us to be good.  Or, as he puts it,  we need to add goodness to our faith.   However,  over time we will realize, or, at least, we should, that seeking to do good is not enough.  We need to actually know that our actions have good results.  At that point we need to seek knowledge.  As we come to know more about God’s will, we will learn that we need to exercise self-control.  A natural consequence of self-control is perseverance.  As we persevere   our actions will become not just good, but godly.  As we exercise godliness we will come to have an affection for others.  Here the NLT provides an insight, it translates this as “brotherly affection”.  Which tells me that it is like the feelings a brother has for his siblings, slightly protective and desiring the best for them assuming that they will feel likewise, but not dependent on them doing so.  Perhaps you have seen the families where one sibling demonstrates that affection for their sibling, only to be repeatedly hurt when the other sibling fails to reciprocate?  Well, that is what we will experience from time to time.  Which leads us to actual godly love.  We no longer assume that others will return our good feelings about them and act for their benefit anyway.  

I wrote the above as if it “just happens”, that each step automatically follows the one before.  But Peter makes it clear that we must actively choose to add knowledge to goodness, self-control to knowledge, perseverance to  self-control, godliness to perseverance, brotherly affection to godliness, and love to brotherly affection.   The fact of the matte is that if we fail to take the next step we will fall back to the previous one until even our faith is lost.  I had intended to write something about what Peter says about false teachers and the Second Coming, but this is already too long.  Please read that part for yourself.