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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comVincent Word Studies - 2 Peter 1:6 - 1:6
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Temperance (ἐγκρατεία)
Self-control; holding the passions and desires in hand. See 1Co 9:25.
Patience (ὑπομονήν)
Lit., remaining behind or staying, from μένω, to wait. Not merely endurance of the inevitable, for Christ could have relieved himself of his sufferings (Heb 12:2, Heb 12:3; compare Mat 26:53); but the heroic, brave patience with which a Christian not only bears but contends. Speaking of Christ's patience, Barrow remarks, “Neither was it out of a stupid insensibility or stubborn resolution that he did thus behave himself; for he had a most vigorous sense of all those grievances, and a strong (natural) aversation from under going them;...but from a perfect submission to the divine will, and entire command over his passions, an excessive charity toward mankind, this patient and meek behavior did spring.” The same writer defines patience as follows: “That virtue which qualifieth us to bear all conditions and all events, by God's disposal incident to us, with such apprehensions and persuasions of mind, such dispositions and affections of heart, such external deportment and practices of life as God requireth and good reason directeth (Sermon XLII., “On Patience”).
Godliness
See on 2Pe 1:3. The quality is never ascribed to God.
Brotherly kindness (φιλαδελφίαν)
Rev. renders, literally, love of the brethren.
Charity (ἀγάπην)
There seems at first an infelicity in the rendering of the Rev., in your love of the brethren love. But this is only apparent. In the former word Peter contemplates Christian fellow-believers as naturally and properly holding the first place in our affections (compare Gal 6:10, “Especially unto them which are of the household of faith”). But he follows this with the broader affection which should characterize Christians, and which Paul lauds in 1Co 13:1-13, the love of men as men. It may be remarked here that the entire rejection by the Rev. of charity as the rendering of ἀγάπη is wholesome and defensible. Charity has acquired two peculiar meanings, both of which are indeed included or implied in love, but neither of which expresses more than a single phase of love - tolerance and beneficence. The A. V. in the great majority of cases translates love; always in the Gospels, and mostly elsewhere. There is no more reason for saying “charity suffereth long,” than for saying, “the charity of God is shed abroad in our hearts,” or “God is charity.”