I love the first reading in 2 Peter 1: 2-7 today because it gives us detailed instructions for how to live a life that shares in the divine nature of Jesus our Lord. But it does seem a bit confusing in some ways. In this reading, it is the Apostle Simon Peter who reminds us that it is the divine power of Jesus our Lord that calls us to share in the divine nature of God. Peter further tells us what this means. Peter says that the divine power of God comes through knowledge of the promises of Jesus that not only save us from the corruption and evil desire of this world but call us to share in his divine nature. So far that is clear to me.

The next verse, I think, tells us how this should be done. But that is less clear. I grew up in the Lutheran tradition and Martin Luther’s teachings were always reminding us to ask, “what does this mean?” and “how is this done?” These old catechism frameworks come back to me so often in thinking about what I read in the Bible. I also learned to think about the meanings of words that are frequently found in the New Testament. The two I find most useful in this reading are “virtue” and “endurance.” Peter says that to share in the divine nature of God, we are to make every effort to supplement our faith with virtue, which can also be thought of as moral strength, force, and power. But despite our knowledge of God and our self-control, we are constantly challenged by trials and sufferings. That is why we need endurance, which is the fruit of hope. We cannot stay strong and hopeful in our faith without it. That also seems clear.

Yet, as I read these verses, they seemed confusing. I read that we need to supplement endurance with devotion to experience the divine power of God. The way I made sense of this circular reasoning is to go back to God’s divine power, which is already bestowed on us through the promises of Jesus. What then needs to be done on our part? We already have everything! “For this very reason,” argues Peter, we must make every effort to supplement our faith with virtue, knowledge, self-control, endurance, devotion, mutual affection, and love. It is not what needs to be done, but how it is done in terms of acknowledging what has already been done to share in the divine nature of God. Accepting how God’s divine power is active in my life is how I worked through what should be my response to love the world. But I think each of us must personalize that acceptance of God’s divine power in our lives in our own ways. My prayer today is that we are all growing in that power by supplementing our faith with virtue, endurance and love.