Wermuth's GREEKBOOK

Aug 14, 2006

2 Peter 1:5-11: Your Invitation to the Divine Dance

I don't think I'll ever forget the day I was passing through the seminary library and discovered one of my former Greek students doing some initial sermon preparation for his homiletics class. As we chatted about the passage he was working on (inclusive of 2 Pet. 1:5-11), I began to interact with him about what I for the first time had just noticed within the passage from his opened Greek New Testament.

By way of refresher, this passage runs the "laundry list" of all the qualities necessary for the Christian to possess and increase in as he diligently seeks "entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ" (v. 11). These verses had always seemed ominous to me and seemingly unattainable from a human standpoint:

". . . applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge . . . self-control . . . perseverance . . . godliness . . . brotherly kindness, and . . . love." (vv. 5-7)

Whew! I had always felt I was not much farther along in the whole process than attempting to apply "all diligence" to my "faith," mostly feeling bogged down in the part about "moral excellence." Apart from the necessity we all have of constantly remembering Paul's admission that God's "grace is sufficient," coupled his experiential realization that "(we) can do all things through Christ who strengthens (us)," it always seemed to me to be a tall order to make any real progress in climbing this mountain of Christian attributes.

How refreshed and relieved I was when, while glancing down at the Greek text for this passage, I noticed the word χωρηγήσατε (lexical form: χωρηγέω = to supply; root word: χὀρός = a dance). As I am often prone to do when I phonetically pronounce a Greek word, I performed a quick mental search for any familiar sounding English derivative word(s). Almost immediately the English word choreograph came to mind. All of a sudden it hit me: the list of superior godly qualities set before us was not attainable in the fashion I had always assumed, that is, gained to some degree one after the other. Instead, these Christian standards of character set down by Peter were intended to be appropriated ("by faith") in a "choreographed" way, similar to a great musical production. The implications of the passage are that we continually seek to participate in the "dance" as "partakers of the divine nature" (v. 4), being governed by and becoming fruitful "in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ" (v. 5 ).

It is no surprise that this interlude with my fellow Christian brother has long remained special to me. What a dance invitation! To such a divine dance! The "R.S.V.P." will take a lifetime, but it is attainable "by faith."

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Posted by Robert Wermuth at 22:22:7 | Article Path: Home: Greek Gleanings: 2 Peter 1:5-11: Your Invitation to the Divine Dance