1 Peter 5:12-14 Revised Standard Version

12 By Silva′nus, a faithful brother as I regard him, I have written briefly to you, exhorting and declaring that this is the true grace of God; stand fast in it. 13 She who is at Babylon, who is likewise chosen, sends you greetings; and so does my son Mark. 14 Greet one another with the kiss of love. Peace to all of you that are in Christ.

2 Peter 1:1-11 Revised Standard Version

1 Simeon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours in the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ: 2 May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.

3 His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, 4 by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, that through these you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of passion, and become partakers of the divine nature. 5 For this very reason make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, 6 and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, 7 and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. 8 For if these things are yours and abound, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 For whoever lacks these things is blind and shortsighted and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins. 10 Therefore, brethren, be the more zealous to confirm your call and election, for if you do this you will never fall; 11 so there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

First Impression?

The most popular impression was that we have all we need to live a godly life. The second was that the process being discussed is sanctification, but the overwhelming idea was that it takes effort on our part.

Salutation and Greeting – We skipped the salutation questions at the end of 1 Peter (5:12-14), but I wanted to combine it with the Greeting in 2 Peter (1:1-2) to discuss the writing of letters in general. – We did the writers include these components. Why did the editors leave them in the Bible? Do we practice what we learn from these actions?

Common courtesy, to allow us to see the fellowship among the early believers, and no one writes letters anymore. Our lives are dominated by communications through short texts, informal emails, spontaneous phone calls, and/or none of these. We sometimes treat people similarly with greeting and salutations in person, but often the civility of interactions is amiss.

Meat Part One – 3&4 – God has granted us all things that pertain to life and godliness. Can you describe these things and how they differ from the world’s expectations?

The list: salvation, the word, the Holy Spirit, Jesus, this list, and goodness. They differ in that we have self-control and take personal responsibility for our actions. The key here is that money, power, influence, and all the things of the world are not required to live a godly life. Those are necessary for success in the world, but we are to seek success in living for God; showing love.

We have knowledge of God. Can you describe how you know what you know about God and how you use it to glorify Him?

The Bible, the Holy Spirit, Our Testimony, the testimony of others, the introduction by others, and just observation are ways we find out about God. We use these to pray, to teach our kids, to declare His love for others, and to be an example of it. My point in the question was that we are always learning about God and every experience can be used to share our experiences as testimony of the love of God. Not the big things, everything.

We have promises of God. How many have you memorized or can repeat the jest of?

The group actually had one memorized. Mostly it was a little bit of getting the jest of. We have read and been impacted by reading God’s promises. We know the jest of the big ones, but sometimes we fail to really dig into how to know them.

Escape the corruption of passion. What escape experiences has God provided to you to incorporate into your witness?

This one we quasi skipped over based on how the discussion rolled along, but the intent was to recognize that God puts us in situations that are too much for us, but that He gives us an escape from so that we do not fall to the temptation. And then we have a story to share.

Divine nature. Can you explain how we have divine nature and how we partake in it.

Answers were really good on this one. God made us in His image, He made us with a drive to relate to Him, and He provides the Holy Spirit to those who believe in His Son. We partake in it by recognizing our need for Him and turning to Him for everything.

 

Meat Part Two – 5-7 – The formula.

How does virtue help faith?

Virtue helps us see sin in our lives.

How does knowledge help virtue?

Reading the Bible helps us to see know the differences between godly and worldly behavior.

How does self-control help knowledge?

Mind and Mouth. By controlling what we think and what we say, we are able to apply the knowledge rather than react with emotion.

How does steadfastness help self-control?

Beyond some hilarious reading of versions, we found that by not giving up when we do not practice self-control, we become better at following through. Failing once is not the end, failing to try again would seem to be.

How does godliness help steadfastness?

When we seek to follow God, we find it easier to overcome our failures and get back up when we fail since His call does not end when we fail.

How does brotherly affection help godliness?

Positive peer pressure. If they can succeed, then so can I.

How does love help brotherly affection?

We care. God loves us. He cared so much He sent His Son. When we care about others, when we love them, we strengthen the community and support group godliness.

Vice verse?

Along the way, one individual reversed the helping in his discussion. In the end, this process is both a cycle one can repeat over and over with better and better results, but it is also one that each step helps the others that “come before or after” it in the sequence. This is not a totem pole. Its not even a set of pillars, it is more like a pyramid building upon itself.

 

Meat Part 3 – 8-9 – These things are ours and abound. How hard is it to grab hold of these things?

They are not hard to grab hold of, but they cannot be held on to. We must continually be grabbing hold of them over and over again to have them active in our life. I can picture analogies in my mind, but hopefully the need to keep working at it is seen as success.

Ineffective and Unfruitful. If we know Christ, we can use these things to be effective and fruitful. Can we be effective or fruitful without them? Him? Why do you try?

No. No. I’m human.

Blind, shortsighted, forgotten. Why does this happen to us? How do we overcome?

God made us a forgetful people so that we would have to continually turn to Him.

Meat Part 4 – 10&11 – Brothers. Do you feel like brothers? With everyone or who? Why?

Yes. No. Ignorance. Everyone has sinned and been forgiven, some just have not accepted. We are all brothers in the same boat or still flaying in the seas of chaos.

Zealous to confirm your election. What does this mean?

We need to have zeal in telling everyone we have been saved. We cannot impact our election through effort, so we must see this as a command to share.

You will never fail. Is this not a promise we can take to the bank? Did any of us use this one above?

Once again, we ran into an issue with translation. This version says “fail” while others say “fall” or “fall away”. There is a big difference between never failing at anything and never losing your salvation. This is a promise that God will keep us in His hand and headed to heaven regardless of how bad things go for us. If we are always trying to follow God, then He sees that as success. We may never get the results we want to see when following the process above, but He will see our efforts as victory.

Richly provided entrance. Do we believe that the gift is this precious? Does it show in our lives?

Yes, we believe it was worth Christ dying for. Showing how important this is to us is our goal. Constantly grabbing out for the life line that God is providing us is how we succeed.