Practice Makes Perfect - Knowledge

Practice Makes Perfect - Knowledge

“...and in your moral excellence, knowledge...” 2 Peter 1:5

As Peter lays out his step-by-step guide on how to live a godly and meaningful life, he tells us that faith must be accompanied by moral excellence and that our moral excellence needs to be supplemented with knowledge.

What do faith and knowledge have to do with each other? Over the past twenty years I have noticed a real division in the way people approach morality. There has been a separation of faith and reason (knowledge). This distinction is based on the thinking that faith and reasoning are opposites of each other.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Having faith and thinking critically are two sides of the same coin. That coin is virtue, or moral excellence.

James tells us that faith without works is dead. Why? Because without moral excellence faith has no outlet. Your faith should be producing good works.

Likewise, Jesus relentlessly criticized the Pharisees because of the emptiness of the works they did. Why? Because they had no understanding of why they were doing them. Their morality was absurdly ineffective because they didn’t know why they were doing things. Without that knowledge, their works became a ridiculous web of pointless tasks that had little or no value.

Faith and knowledge need each other. They are complementary pieces of the puzzle on how to find meaning and purpose in our lives. We must believe in God but we must also understand why. That is by God’s design.

John 1:17

“Grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ.”