BUILDING THE KINGDOM LIFESTYLE

2 Peter Chapter 1 – part 1

Greetings from Peter

1 This letter is from Simon Peter, a slave and apostle of Jesus Christ.

I am writing to you who share the same precious faith we have. This faith was given to you because of the justice and fairness of Jesus Christ, our God and Savior.

2 May God give you more and more grace and peace as you grow in your knowledge of God and Jesus our Lord. (NLT)

Note the simple, sincere and humble opening to Peter’s letter, in a sense even more humble than his first letter in which he just calls himself an apostle. He now adds the appellation, slave, which has a significant and consequential meaning to it. He would have been well aware of the standing of a slave for in the world of that day for they were commonplace. They had absolutely no rights, were the absolute possession of their master and were at his beck and call day and night. By calling himself a slave Peter is indicating his total, absolute and unquestioning submission to Jesus, to be constantly available to do his master’s will.

In his thinking and attitude to Jesus it  may well be that Peter has drawn closer to his master. There is a sense in which the nearer you get to God, the more you see yourself in the lesser light of a humble servant.

Once again it is the non-Jewish people to whom he is writing who previously were outside the promise of the chosen nation. However, the new covenant has brought all people equality in the eyes of God, and Peter is at pains to make this identification and equality plain: you who share the same precious faith we have.

Since his vision, Peter has become the champion of the non-Jewish Christians going so far as to journey to Jerusalem in defence of their right to faith and their place in the new holy nation (1 Peter 2:9). When criticism was levelled at the non-Jewish Christian for not observing the rite of circumcision, the early church leaders met in Jerusalem to address the issue and it is Peter whose stirring defence of the non-Jews that wins the day: At the meeting, after a long discussion, Peter stood and addressed them as follows: “Brothers, you all know that God chose me from among you some time ago to preach to the Gentiles so that they could hear the Good News and believe. God knows people’s hearts, and he confirmed that he accepts Gentiles by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as he did to us. He made no distinction between us and them, for he cleansed their hearts through faith. So why are you now challenging God by burdening the Gentile believers with a yoke that neither we nor our ancestors were able to bear? We believe that we are all saved the same way, by the undeserved grace of the Lord Jesus.”(Acts of the Apostles 15:7-11 _- NLT)

No doubt when Peter refers to the justice and fairness of Jesus Christ, he can see in the eyes of his memory, Jesus on a Judean hillside telling the parable of The Good Shepherd, and Peter can clearly hear His voice: I have other sheep, too, that are not in this sheepfold. I must bring them also. They will listen to my voice, and there will be one flock with one shepherd. (John 10:16 - NLT)There is a clear reference here to total assimilation of all people into this new, holy nation.

Verse 2 reflects Peter’s wish for his readers to be overwhelmed with the grace and peace of God, and behind his desire are the words of John in the prologue to his gospel. And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace. For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. (John 1:16-17 - NKJV) Central in Peter’s thinking is the person and mission of Jesus and his desire for his readers to grow in [their] knowledge of God and Jesus [their] Lord.

The deeper a person steeps themselves in the person of Jesus Christ, the greater their awareness and experience of God’s grace and peace. It is a natural outcome, but one we must intentionally activate and pursue.

Growing in Faith

3 By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvellous glory and excellence. 4 And because of his glory and excellence, he has given us great and precious promises. These are the promises that enable you to share his divine nature and escape the world’s corruption caused by human desires.

5 In view of all this, make every effort to respond to God’s promises. Supplement your faith with a generous provision of moral excellence, and moral excellence with knowledge, 6 and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with patient endurance, and patient endurance with godliness, 7 and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love for everyone.(NLT)

Here we have Peter’s escalating picture of the kingdom lifestyle reflected from the image of Jesus Christ and the promise, that all we need to implement this scenario, God has already given to us, by His divine power. However, there is a degree of human activity here. God will never do for us that which we can activate and realise for ourselves. We have received all of this by coming to know him.

God is the one who called us to himself by means of his marvellous glory and excellence. A gracious invitation has been extended and, like any invitation or gift, it has to be accepted and utilised before it has any value. The initial step of intentional response in the process is on our part, we must purposely want to, and actively, get to know God. He will never draw in the unwilling or the rebellious, there must always be an intentional, obedient response.

Herbert Booth writes in one of his songs:

All the rivers of grace I claim

Under every promise write my name.

No doubt he was thinking of the great and precious promises that come to those who are Royal priests in this holy nation, those whom God has chosen and called to be His special people. The intriguing thought here is that these promises enable us to share in the very nature of God, shielded from much of this world’s temptations and corruption.

Faith as the basic building block

Peter then launches into his escalation of Christian character with the words: Make every effort. What he is calling for is a supreme and strenuous endeavour that will take faith as our foundation and, by affirming and claiming God’s promises, build a Christlike character. There can be no escalation of the Christian character unless it starts with faith. Faith that God exists, and that He exists for me on a personal and knowable manner, is the crucial base on which life in the kingdom of God operates. In all that Peter is going to write here we need to keep in mind that in this escalation of Christian character, we have the ever-present and unerring guide of the Holy Spirit.  That is not to say there will be times of doubt in the kingdom lifestyle for that is the way of fallible humanity in this fallen world.

We do need to understand that in essence, the Bible holds ideals to which humanity is continually reaching, but never quite acquiring. If it were merely some achievable target then the Bible becomes a limited, finite guide or self-help book which humanity could outlive and its power becomes severely limited.

Moral excellence

The next step is to add to faith, moral excellence, or as some translations put it: virtue. However, here we will examine it as moral excellence for it seems that is the ideal for which Peter is aiming. The use of the words, generous provision, suggests a multi-faceted target. It includes things like integrity, morality, honour etc. Qualities all decent humanity would applaud although not many may personally pursue. There is a sense in which when you pursue such high and lofty ideals you will be closely monitored and very quickly informed when you have not measured up to another’s expected standard.

However, we march to the beat of a different drummer under the banner of grace, and personal opinions of others, while they may keep us grounded, are not the bar at which we set out sites. In this activity, there is opportunity to address many areas of our life response to God and others.

Knowledge

To moral excellence, we are to seek to build our knowledge base, not only our knowledge of God and his way but also our knowledge and understanding of our fellow kingdom travellers as well as those outside the holy nation. The true seeker after God knows that all of life is an opportunity to learn and apply the lessons learnt to their own journey. With our increase in knowledge will come an understanding of others, tolerance, patience, empathy and insight, all which must contribute to our desire to reflect a Christlike character.

Self-control

It almost goes without saying that as our knowledge and insight grows our ability to master ourselves and achieve great self-control develops, since we have come into a greater understanding of what makes us tick as a person, and what makes others act the way they do. There needs to be kept in mind here, a realistic balance so that we are authentic and genuine in our relationships with others. We have all met people whose personalities are so tightly controlled they border on the inhuman. Nowhere in the life and ministry of Jesus do we ever catch a glimpse of such behaviour.

Patient endurance

In Paul’s brilliant profile of the qualities of genuine Christian love in 1 Corinthians 13, there are a couple of characteristics that stand out as being crucial and essential in the character of the Christian. Patience and endurance, and there is a sense in which you really can’t separate them and Peter links them together as the quality to add to self-control. It is worth noting that in Paul’s list of the 15 characteristics of love, patience leads them and that may well be intentional for without patience many of the other qualities of love may well be impossible to encounter.

The kingdom lifestyle is not a sprint, but rather a marathon that lasts until eternity and it must be run with a sense of intentional endurance, understanding there will be waypoints that may be achieved, but they are not the finish line. Whether we like it or not, this race requires a deal of stoicism and grit and with the writer of Hebrews, we can say: let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us. (Hebrews 12:1 - NLT)

Like Paul, we need to be in for the long haul and realise early on that endurance is the key point in completing the Journey that we may say with Paul and journey’s end: I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, and I have remained faithful. And now the prize awaits me—the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give me on the day of his return. And the prize is not just for me but for all who eagerly look forward to his appearing. (2 Timothy 4:7-8 - NLT)

Godliness

This race of patience endurance must inevitably lead us to develop a godly character, although we need to be very careful in using this character designation in reference to our fellow travellers along the kingdom lifestyle. We live in an age where we hear this descriptor attached to people who may well, in their normal lifestyle, display anything but a godly character. It is this writer’s opinion that it is unwise to use this descriptor to designate the character of another since we are all, without exception, fallible sinners saved by grace.

I find little support in the Bible for the use of this word as the descriptor of an individual. However, I find numerous texts that hold the ideal of godliness to be something we should pursue and strive toward. It needs to be one of those inner ideals on which we privately set our focus and it seems to me the Bible encourages such a pursuit.

The Lord detests the way of the wicked, but he loves those who pursue godliness. (Proverbs 15:9 - NLT)

This letter is from Paul, a slave of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ. I have been sent to proclaim faith to those God has chosen and to teach them to know the truth that shows them how to live godly lives. (Titus 1:1 - NLT)

Do not waste time arguing over godless ideas and old wives’ tales. Instead, train yourself to be godly. (1 Timothy 4:7 - NLT)

Most Bible students seem to have trouble defining exactly what we mean by godliness and perhaps the ancient use of the word piety may have sufficed, however, it carried with something of an unauthentic image. I would suggest that the image of Christlikeness may well be the closest we can come to embrace some sort of understanding that gives us a clear focus.

Brotherly love

When we consciously strive to become more godlike (Christlike) in our character, we will inevitably see people more and more as Jesus viewed them, as his brothers and sisters, all part of a family in this holy nation. Within this concept must come that expression of brotherly affection, the acute awareness that we grant to, and receive from each other, those familial bonds and ties of genuine affection. In such circumstances we will exhibit all the warm and intense responses you will find in a close family; e.g. A willingness to drop everything to help a family member who is struggling; the propensity to defend a family member even when we are not sure they are right. Etc.

Love

As we have noted Christian love as designated by Paul in 1 Corinthians 13, tends to leave aside emotions in place of actions, and this is where Peter is concluding his escalating picture of the kingdom lifestyle. In the end, it comes down to what I will do more than what I might feel. The reality is that soppy feelings sometimes don’t get anything happening, authentic and loving Christian actions will. At the end of the day life in this holy nation is about changing people’s lives and seeing results. Although it is holy, it is also very practical.