When studying any passage of scripture, I think it is important to note the intensity with which the writer is pressing his point. For example, in the beginning of Romans 12, the Apostle uses the word "beseech". This is a very strong word, which indicates the deep desire that the writer has for the reader to pay attention to his words.
I am impressed with the intensity with which Peter tries to make us see the extreme importance of adding the characteristics in the list to our lives. Note how many times, and in how many different ways, he presses the point. He starts the section, in verse 5, with
"make every effort". In verse 8, he says that they will keep you from being "ineffective and nonproductive". In verse 9 he says, "if anyone does not have them, he is...blind, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins". Verse 10 says, "make your calling and election sure, for if you do these things, you will
never fall". Finally, in verse 12 and following, Peter tells his readers that he will keep reminding them of these things, and will leave them as a heritage for them to remember
even after he is gone. Peter thought they were pretty important.
One of the most disturbing articles I have read in recent years was written by a professed Jewish atheist homosexual (that's what he called himself) in a piece he wrote in 2003. He said he no longer claimed to be an Atheist, because that was a person who actively was against the idea of God. Instead he called himself an "Apathist", which meant he didn't care one way or another. More disturbing, he pointed to the statistics that show the number of professed believers who never go to church increased by three-fold from 1971 to 2002, to 33% of the population, and another pollster said nearly half of those who claimed to go to church do not, according to the actual count of church attendance. His conclusion (which is probably right) is that they believe in God, but don't really care much about Him. He also mentioned that his Christian friends didn't seem to care that he was an unrepentant Jewish atheist. So they not only don't really care much about God, but they also don't really care whether you care about Him or not. Question: Are you a Christian Apathist?
This is the whole point of Peter's remarks here in the first chapter of II Peter. These are not principles to be agreed to with a shrug of the shoulders, and then ignored in your pursuit of life in your world from day to day. They are to be incorporated as the daily food for your spiritual body, pursued to an ever higher level each day, made your essential concerns in all you do and say, or they will die, and you with them.
The bane of Christianity is not the atheist, the pagan, and the scoffer. It is the membership which derives complacent satisfaction by observing all the right rituals, as they regularly attend church, and lets none of it leak out into their real world, nor affect their daily lives. It is against this kind of religious apathy that Peter is warning in this chapter. This is why I said, in a previous essay, that one of the most insidious doctrines being taught in Christendom is "Once saved, always saved". This complacent doctrine that, once you have achieved "being saved", you no longer have to worry about it, and you can take your ease in the Kingdom, with no further responsibilities to fulfill.
You can have the church which loudly proclaims to "speak only as the Bible speaks", to adhere strictly to the orthodox legal principles of "truth" (as they see it), and is ready to do battle with all who disagree. Give me the people who may make some mistakes, but who are so filled with the energizing power of His Spirit that they leave the church building each week to flow out into the world, determined to make Him the Lord of their life, and to take Him, in word and deed, to their neighbors along the road of life, both at home and in the market-place.
One final word for this paper. Peter says those who possess these qualities will not be "barren". Another version says, "ineffective". A few years ago I
read a translation of this word that said it refers to a person who avoids labor for which they should assume responsibility. I remind you again that saying, "I am just going to leave it to the Lord", is not a pious statement. The Lord gave you a job to do, and the piously apathetic will never get it done.
