FRIDAY 9th
2 Peter 1:12-15
‘Therefore I intend always to remind you of these qualities, though you know them and are established in the truth that you have. I think it right, as long as I am in this body, to stir you up by way of reminder, since I know that the putting off of my body will be soon, as our Lord Jesus Christ made clear to me. And I will make every effort so that after my departure you may be able at any time to recall these things’.
We come today to the verses that conclude the first major section in chapter one.
I wonder if anyone else had a similar experience as my siblings and I when you were growing up. We there were six of us, one of us would do something, and then get told off, but if we did the same thing again, one of our parents would say, ‘I’ve told you once before and I am not going to tell you again’. It was a stern warning, ‘you dare do it again, if you do, look out!’
Well, the scenario in our verses for today is slightly different, the readers hadn’t done anything wrong, Peter had been instructing them, but he says to them, ‘I intend always to remind you of these qualities’. Here, it wasn’t ‘I’ve told you once, I won’t be telling you again’, instead it was a case of ‘I will keep on telling you or reminding you’.
We all need reminders, I’m one of the worst for forgetting, I can go to the supermarket for something and come away without what I went for and come away with things I didn’t go for, simply because if it is not written down, I will forget!
Peter says to his readers, and he says to you and me, so we are without excuse because it is written down, ‘I intend always to remind you of these qualities’, notice what else he says, ‘it is right to stir you up with a reminder’ and ‘I will make every effort so that after my departure you may be able at any time to recall these things’.
And he made every effort to remind, so here is a reminder again as we leave this first section of what he wants us to remember. ‘For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.’