From the Pulpit...

We come to Peter's second exhortation about Christian growth. The exhortation is basically to be diligent. The idea is quite similar to verse 5. There, the command was to make every effort to supplement the baseline Christian faith with a number of essential virtues. It spoke of the need to really apply ourselves with earnest commitment to the task of Christian growth. We saw that Christian teaching emphasizes our personal participation as opposed to a mystical, passive approach. Here, we are making diligent effort again, but with the final outcome more in mind than our present character development.