<p>1:5 <i>Yes and for this very cause you on your part should show all diligence- </i>We are now partaking in Divine &quot;nature&quot; (:4). The essential idea of the Greek word for &quot;nature&quot; is that of growth; for God is His Spirit, He is dynamic. We are therefore, &quot;for this very cause&quot;, to experience ongoing growth, with the various aspects of spirituality reinforcing each other as we grow. The spiritual characteristics now listed are the things of the &quot;Divine nature&quot; (:4) which we now partake in. &quot;Diligence&quot; in Greek carries the idea of speed, haste and urgency. This would fit with the reasoning we will encounter in chapter 3- that the sooner we develop spiritually, the sooner the Lord will come.</p><p><i>To your faith add virtue, and to virtue, knowledge</i>- This cannot mean that we consciously plan our own growth by adding characteristics to those developed earlier. Life doesn't work like that, nor does development of character and personality. If the idea was that we progressively add things to our own personality then a different Greek word would surely have been used; the word is usually translated 'to minister to'. The idea is that someone ministers or adds to another. Peter uses a form of the word in 1 Pet. 4:11 to describe how God &quot;gives&quot; or &quot;adds&quot; in order for us to have the ability to serve Him. Vine comments: &quot;The verb originally means to bear the expense of a chorus, which was done by a person selected by the state, who was obliged to defray all the expenses of training and maintenance. In the New Testament the word has lost this technical sense, and is used in the general sense of supplying or providing&quot;. It is used nearly always about the ministering or supply of the Spirit to us (2 Cor. 9:10; Gal. 3:5; Col. 2:19). Our partaking in these things of the Divine nature is of course our choice, and yet the Spirit is operative in leading us on this path of development. The Spirit of God is His mind, His way of thinking, what He is by nature; so partaking in His nature will be through the gift and operation of His Spirit. And a synthesis develops whereby one spiritual characteristic leads to another.</p><p>The &quot;virtue&quot; we are to have is a reflection of God's &quot;virtue&quot; in calling us (:3); and that calling was by grace, energy expended in order to intervene in our lives by grace and seek to lead us to salvation. It is that &quot;virtue&quot; we are asked to have.</p><p>There is a great emphasis by Peter on the need for &quot;knowledge&quot; to overcome the coming tribulation: 1 Pet.3:7; 2 Pet.1:2-6,8,16; 2:20; 3:18; an impressive list. By all means compare this with Dan. 12:10, which prophecies a sudden jump forward in understanding God's word by the faithful of the last days. But 'knowledge' in its Hebraic sense refers to relationship; and it would have been difficult for an illiterate readership to amass technical knowledge. Peter himself was likely illiterate; Peter&rsquo;s confidence in preaching to the wise of this world in his <i>a-grammatos</i> way (see on Acts 4:13) is continued in the way his letters stress that the only true knowledge is that of Christ (2 Pet. 1:5,6; 3:18). He was writing in response to the Gnostic heresy that <i>gnosis</i>, knowledge, enlivens the eternal spark within man until a man&rsquo;s knowledge becomes his &lsquo;immortal soul&rsquo;. Peter didn&rsquo;t leave this for the more erudite to combat. Like an illiterate peasant farmer unashamedly challenging atheistic evolution, Peter powerfully made his point.</p>