What Peter is speaking of in these verses is not self-improvement, but rather, the growth and development of the precious faith we received in our new birth in Christ (v. 2). We need to be very clear about the difference between these two things.

As Christians, we surely need to develop virtue in our character, as Peter says here, but that must be done “in” our faith, not apart from it; then we need to develop knowledge, but “in” our virtue, etc.

In fact, this is the growth and development of the divine seed Peter spoke of in his first letter (1 Peter 1:23). Everything depends on this seed being within us, for it is the seed that contains the germ of all of these characteristics, and we could never really develop them apart from this seed. But, just as the seed of a plant needs the right environment and care to grow and develop, so we must provide the right “environment” in our being for the divine seed to grow and develop within us. Otherwise, it will remain dormant.

As an example, something Peter says in his first letter very much shows us what it means to develop knowledge in our virtue:

Therefore, laying aside all malice and all guile and hypocrisies and envyings and all evil speakings, as newborn babes, long for the guileless milk of the word, that by it you may grow unto salvation.
— 1 Peter 2:1-2

The laying aside of the negative things spoken of in these verses, the malice, etc., is the development of virtue in our being. As a result, we naturally, in this virtue, “long for the guileless milk of the word”; this is to develop knowledge in our virtue. In contrast, so many Christians don’t deal with the negative things in their being, and without the base of such virtue they fail to grow, because they have no real heart to come to the word.

To deal with ourselves in this way is to provide the environment the divine seed needs to grow in our being; and as we have stressed in these Notes, this is the practical experience of what Paul tells us when he says we need to “work out our own salvation in fear and trembling” (Phil. 2:12-13). For, as Peter concludes in this section of his letter,

…in this way the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ shall be richly, bountifully supplied to you.
— 2 Peter 1:11

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—  17 January 2026 —