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"Le them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to
Him in well doing, as unto a faithful Creator" (4: 19).
"The devil . . . seeketh whom he may devour: whom resist stedfast in the faith" (5: 8, 9).
"A faithful brother" (5: 12).
The only references to faith in the second epistle are in 1: 1 and 5.
The second epistle stresses knowledge:
"To them that have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of
God and our Saviour Jesus Christ: grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the
knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord. According as his divine power hath given unto
us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath
called us to glory and virtue" (II Pet. 1: 1-3).
Salvation is by faith, but things that pertain to life and godliness are here associated
with the knowledge of the Lord. After all, we shall discover that faith and knowledge are
but two sides of one great subject. If I believe a rumour, I cannot really say "I know", but
if I believe a statement made by one who is infallibly and indubitably true, can I hesitate
to say "I know"? If I do, I deny the reality of my faith. Such knowledge is experimental
faith.
"And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, and to virtue
knowledge" (II Pet. 1: 5).
Pareisphero, translated "giving" and meaning literally "to bring in beside" (from para
beside, and phero to bring), is used here by the Apostle as though he would say "Besides
those precious promises on God's part, bring in, by grace, your co-operation, by using all
diligence to furnish virtue", etc.
"Add" Epichoregeo, literally means to supply the cost of leading the chorus or
theatrical entertainment. The person who thus defrayed the cost was usually a
public-spirited person of means, and was called the choregos. Visitors to the British
Museum may remember "the Choragic monument", a beautiful specimen of the
Corinthian order of architecture, in the Greek gallery.
En. Where our versions reads "add to your faith virtue", etc. the original uses the
preposition en, and Alford and others give it its full value, in each case translating,
"Furnish in your faith virtue, in your virtue knowledge, etc."
It will be seen therefore that no mere mechanical addition is to be attempted. Faith
must be virtuous; virtue must be informed with knowledge; knowledge must be held in
temperance, and temperance must be accompanied by patience, and so on.
"If these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren
nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ" (II Pet. 1: 8).
Fruit is an evidence of life, and these things "make our calling and election sure"
(IIPet.i.10).