Add to Virtue Knowledge

2 Pet. 1:5

            In the last lesson we studied about adding virtue to your faith. Virtue is a power to produce something manifested by voluntary obedience to truth. God wants us to get saved and then summit to be obedient to the truth. In this passage, Peter says next to add knowledge to your virtue. Well it makes perfect sense if you need to be obedient to the truth that knowledge is necessary. The definition of knowledge is “a clear and certain perception of truth”.

[1 Tim.2:4] “Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.”  The “and come unto” is a process. When you get saved and begin to be obedient to the words of God you start a process of adding knowledge. [2 Pet.3:18] says we should grow in it, [Col.1:10] says we should increase in it.

[2 Tim. 3:7] “ever learning, and never able to come unto the knowledge of the truth. There are two types of people that never get it.

• First type is those saved people that never add obedience first. If you are not obedient to God’s words, you can learn all the truth  there is and it will never apply because you don’t put it to use. In fact the children in Israel were destroyed because of a lack of , [Isa.5:13], [Hosea 4:6]. If you choose to not retain God in your knowledge, God can give you over to a reprobate mind, [Romans 1:28].

• The second type is people that only add worldly knowledge, our current system [Dan.12:4] as was prophesied. Knowledge puffeth up, [1 Cor.8:1]. We live in a world today where knowledge is at your fingertips. Google it! We as Christian’s will run first to Google, instead of God. The world has no fear of God, and that is the beginning of Knowledge, [Prov.1:7]. We serve the God of Knowledge, [1 Sam.2:3].

Since knowledge is the clear and certain perception of truth, we must be careful to control the sources of our knowledge, [Prov.19:27]. Your King James 1611 Bible is the final authority for truth. It is God’s words. Be careful with all the “self-help” books sold at Christian book stores, they are only a man’s ( not necessarily God’s) version of truth packaged to SELL FOR PROFIT. In this world today they are selling and for mega profits. Go to God through prayer and belief in his word seeking His knowledge, [Prov.2:3] “if thou criest after knowledge”, [Prov.2:5] then you will “find the knowledge of God.”

The “first mention” of knowledge in your Bible is in Genesis, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It appears that God never intended us to have “knowledge of good and evil”. He preferred us to be completely innocent and dependent on him. [2 Pet.1:5] “And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge;” God wants you to have faith in his Son and salvation because of His finished work. He then wants you to add virtue (voluntary obedience which produces power that you need to live a Christian life) to your faith. Then he wants you to add knowledge to that virtue, so that you will be completely innocent and dependent on him.