What Does 2 Peter 1:8 Mean?

2 Peter 1:8 For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being unproductive and unfruitful in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

“These qualities” refers to the list of virtues in verses 5-7, which describe what verse 4 means by sharing in the divine nature. To avoid an unproductive life, one must not only have these virtues but be growing in them. Your knowledge of (relationship with) Jesus should bear fruit (the fruit of personal holiness).

 

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Are You Truly Effective for Christ? How would you define an impactful, productive life? Peter gives a definition that wouldn’t even occur to most people. But it’s a definition that gives hope to everyone, regardless of your age, health, skills, or any other factor. A powerful, effective life is within your reach! Unlock a Fruitful Life with 2 Peter 1:8!

Introduction: When Life Is Empty

In today’s passage, Peter uses two piercing, terrifying words: unproductive and unfruitful.

2 Peter 1:8 For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being unproductive and unfruitful[1]

The word unproductive is translated “useless” in James 2:20.[2]

James 2:20 … faith without deeds is useless.

It doesn’t accomplish anything. Peter is warning us against a useless, empty, unproductive life.

Then he explains how to avoid that fate and have a life full of meaning and purpose, which is a wonderful promise, because a meaningless life a horrible fate. I don’t know if that would qualify as a fate worse than death, but it’s a fate very similar to death.

God Designed Us to Crave Productivity

Being useless grates against the human soul. A cow standing around all day doesn’t mind being useless. Chickens don’t worry about meaning in life. Your dog doesn’t have a midlife crisis.  But you’re different.  God made mankind in his image and then immediately assigned us the task of tending and ruling over the creation. It’s our job to create culture and run this world, that’s deep in our bones, and we must do it or we’ll go insane. We must have purposeful, impactful lives.

When you’re young, you don’t worry too much about what you’ve accomplished in life, but that’s only because it seems like you’ve got plenty of time to make something of your life. You don’t really have your act together yet, but you’re sure that one of these days you’re going to knock it out of the park. The term “mid-life crisis” was coined to describe that point in life where you finally realize, “I’m never hitting anything out of any park. I’m already past my prime and I’ve never even hit a double. In fact, I’m not even sure if I’m playing the right sport.”

A mom sees her empty nest and thinks, “Do I even matter anymore? What’s the point of my life now?”

A man plateaus in his unimpressive career, his wife pretty much has everything in hand at home, no one cares about his opinions, no one comes to him for anything and he thinks, “I could disappear off the face of the earth and it wouldn’t really disrupt anything.”

Somewhere along the line your life became more about coping than calling. You’re showing up every day, taking care of all your stuff, but nothing in your life is important enough to make you run hard. And the reason that is so painful is that God created us for productivity, and every human feels it.

And if you doubt that, just go to a bookstore. How many books do you think were published in the last 5 years on that topic—how to be more productive? Between 30 and 50 thousand new books published on that topic just in the past 5 years. People spend decades trying to get to retirement, and then when they retire, if they don’t find something productive to do, they end up going back to work. No matter how lazy we get, something deep inside us craves productivity and fruitfulness and meaning in life.

Not all Work Is Fulfilling

Does that mean everyone with a job is fulfilled? No. You often hear that work gives meaning to life, but that’s not automatically true.  If you work really hard at something and it ends up being a total waste of time and accomplishes nothing, that drains life of meaning.

Think of how much it bothers you when you work hard at something and it ends up accomplishing nothing. If someone makes a mess on the floor before you sweep, you can live with that. But if they do it right after you sweep, so that all the work you just did gets immediately undone, it bugs you because it makes the work you just did meaningless.

Did you ever study the wrong chapter in school? Nothing is more aggravating to a student than learning something he didn’t have to learn. All that wasted effort.

Have you ever explained something or told a long story to someone on the phone only to find out they lost connection and didn’t get any of what you said? All that talking for nothing.

Those are little examples. But if the bigger things in your life are futile, that’s when life loses meaning. When you look back on your life and see wasted years, wasted decades, that can put you in depression. And Peter is warning us here that that can happen to Christians. Even as a Christian, your life can become pointless and ineffective and indolent—not because you don’t care, but because you’ve lost touch with something vital.

What Is Productivity?

But then just about the time when you’re about to raise your hand and say, “Yeah, that’s me—ineffective, unproductive, wasted life,” Peter drops a truth that revolutionizes our whole concept of what determines whether a life is wasted or unproductive, and it’s a truth that will breathe life back into a heart that feels sidelined, because no matter what you’ve done up to this point, a meaningful, productive life is still within your reach.

But here’s where Peter goes in a totally different direction than what we might expect. All those books on the subject of productivity are loaded with tips and methods and ideas for how to become more productive. Everyone claims to have the secret to a more productive life. Here’s how to be more efficient with your emails, here’s how you can do laundry quicker, only handle a piece of paper once, don’t procrastinate, etc. But Peter shows us the path here to productivity and I promise you, you’ll never see this in any book on productivity.

Most of the tips in the productivity books aren’t really about productivity; they’re about efficiency.  And efficiency is not the same thing as productivity. If what you’re doing is pointless, you can be super efficient and skilled at it, but what good is that? All that will do is help you waste your life faster.

The Path to Productivity: Spiritual Growth

So instead of giving tips on efficiency, Peter says this:  If you want productivity, if you want to put your head on the pillow at night and think, “Man, I got so much done today”—the secret to that is the virtues—love, perseverance, moral excellence, the whole list. Growing in personal holiness is the key to productivity.

Can you see that in the text?

2 Peter 1:8 For if you possess these qualities (the virtues he just listed in vv.5-7) in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive

The key to productivity is spiritual growth.

You say, “Does that mean if I grow in these virtues I’ll get more loads of laundry done and finish my emails in half the time?”  No. It doesn’t say the virtues will keep you from being unproductive in housework or emails.  What does it say—productivity in what?

2 Peter 1:8 For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Relational Productivity

It’s productivity in your knowledge of Christ. And knowledge of a person, in the biblical sense, refers to a relationship. Your relationship with the Lord is supposed to be productive. It’s supposed to produce a life of spiritual growth. So if you’re not growing, that means your relationship with Jesus is not working. The relationship still exists, but it’s not productive.

It’s a bit of a shock to hear Peter talk about the possibility of your knowledge of Christ becoming unproductive and unfruitful because back in vv.2-3 knowledge of God was the key to everything. It’s the key to getting abundant grace and peace from God, it’s the way to tap into divine power, and it’s the means of getting everything we need for life and godliness. It’s the key to everything, and yet, even that can become unproductive and dormant if you stop growing.

The second term Peter uses is “unfruitful”—unproductive and unfruitful. Your relationship with the Lord is supposed to be like a fruit tree bearing fruit. When God saved you, it wasn’t just to rescue you from hell. He saved you because he wanted to use you to produce good works.

Ephesians 2:10 For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

The more productive your relationship with Christ is, the more you’ll do those good works.

So this is a paradigm shift when we think about the definition of productivity in life. If you ever feel like your life is a waste or a failure, or you feel useless, ask yourself, “What is my definition of useless?” Whatever it is, it’s wrong unless it matches God’s definition. And God’s definition is that you are useless or useful based on whether you fulfill your purpose for existence. And what is your purpose in life? Why are you here? Why were you created?

Ephesians 4:24 Put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.

You were created, not mainly to get stuff done, but to be like God. Or to use Peter’s words, to share in the divine nature.

Producing fruit means growing in personal holiness. And Scripture has strong words for people whose lives are unfruitful.

Matthew 3:10 … Every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.

When Jesus saw a fig tree that didn’t have any figs in Mark 11:13, he killed it. Failure to produce fruit in your life is a big deal. In Ephesians 5:11, fruitlessness is associated with spiritual darkness.

Ephesians 5:11 Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness

If you become unfruitful, you miss the mark on your whole reason for existing.

Relational Productivity Creates Material Productivity

So Peter is calling us to relational productivity, where your relationship with Jesus bears moral fruit. But if that’s what productivity is all about—relational growth and moral progress, what about physical productivity? Is Peter saying it doesn’t matter how many loads of laundry you get done or get the yard mowed? It doesn’t matter whether you find a way to accomplish amazing things in your career or just sit on the couch and watch Netflix? If it’s all about relational productivity with Christ producing moral fruit in your character, what is the place for the things people normally think of as productivity—physical productivity? Does that matter?

Yes, it does. Proverbs is loaded with counsel on how to be productive at work. Laziness is roundly condemned all through Scripture. In Matthew 25, Jesus told a parable about three servants who were entrusted with money, and the industrious ones who used it to make a profit were praised, and the lazy one who just buried it and didn’t produce any return for his master is harshly rebuked.

So yes, physical productivity is important. So why doesn’t Peter mention that? He doesn’t have to because if you have relational productivity with Christ resulting in moral productivity in your character, that will always result in physical productivity.

Peter doesn’t have to tell you to get up off the couch and go to work. All he has to do is tell you to grow in the virtues, and those virtues will drive you to go to work.

For example, take the virtue of love. If you love your family, that will drive you to work hard to provide for them. If you love people in need, that love will drive you to earn enough to share with them. If you love the saints, that will drive you to serve them with your spiritual gifts. And when you’re tempted to be lazy, self-control will enable you to overcome that laziness and work hard. When you’re tempted to give up, perseverance will keep you going. When you get off track and start doing things that don’t matter, spiritual knowledge will get you back on the path of doing important things. When your work gets out of balance so you’re focusing too much on temporal things and not enough on eternal things, godliness will give you the right perspective. When your relationship with Christ is productive, the moral fruit it produces will drive you to be effective and productive in earthly things.

But here’s the crucial point: if Peter would have just called for physical productivity, that, in and of itself, isn’t necessarily good. If you go to work because you love your family and others, that’s good. But if you go to work because you want to get rich or to elevate yourself above others, or if you go with a bad attitude, that’s not productivity. If I do the work of recording this study and posting it online because I love people and want them to have the grace of the truth of God’s Word, that’s productive work. But if I do the exact same thing because I want to get a lot of clicks on my Youtube channel so I can be famous or feel good about myself, that’s evil.

Physical productivity without the relational, moral fruit is evil. But where you have the relational, moral productivity, physical productivity will always happen.

Always within Reach

And here’s the encouraging part—that good kind of productivity and fruitfulness, growth in your knowledge of Christ is always within reach. If I had to make a certain amount of money in order for my life to have meaning, I’d be out of luck.  If I had to reach a certain level in my career, if it’s something I haven’t reached in the past, it’s definitely not going to happen now. Most of the metrics people use for gauging a successful life depend on factors that are not all within your control.

But no matter where you are in life, no matter what your age, what’s happened in your past, how skilled or educated or wealthy or strong or healthy you are, spiritual growth is within your reach, which means productivity and success in life are within your reach.

If you’re wondering if you matter, or if your life is successful, it’s not about your career, it’s not about your parenting, it’s not about your net worth or even about how many people’s lives you have influenced.  It’s about how much you share in the divine nature. How similar is your character to God’s? That’s the question that determines success and meaning in life.

The Standard: Growth

Now, maybe you don’t find that very encouraging because you feel like you fall short in the virtues. You think, “Man, if meaning in life comes from having those virtues, that’s terrible news for me because I’m nowhere near where I should be.” You look at someone like Ruth and her perseverance and think, “I go through something that’s not even a fraction of what she’s been through and it sends me into a spiral.” Or you see someone who’s really loving and always sees other people’s needs and has so much compassion. Or someone who has tremendous wisdom or knowledge or humility and you think, “I’m years from being where they are.” And so you wonder, “How much of these virtues do I have to have to please God?”

For example, take kindness.

Everyone has some kindness. Even a mass murderer is probably nice to his dog or his mom or someone at some times. But you wouldn’t call him a kind person. So how kind do you have to be to be a kind person?

Most of us answer that question by comparing ourselves to others. How do I compare to this person or that person? But that doesn’t get you anywhere because you can always find someone who is more loving than you or less loving, depending on whether you want to justify yourself or beat up on yourself. But either way, that doesn’t really tell you anything about whether your level of love is pleasing to God. Surely God’s standard isn’t that you have to be better than everyone else in every category.

So how much is enough? Peter’s answer is very simple (and this is so helpful)—your love, your kindness, your self-control—fill in the virtue—it’s enough if it is (wait for it) … growing.  Peter doesn’t say a word in this passage about how much of each virtue you have to have. Here’s what he says:

2 Peter 1:8 For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive.

How much does it take to please God and to fulfill your purpose in life? Growth. You say, “But I’m a 1 out of 10.” Well, as long as you’re on your way to 1.5 or 2, you’re good. The issue is not how you compare to others or some arbitrary standard. The only issue is, are you growing?

So again, it’s always in reach. Maybe you are ten years away from being what you ought to be in some area. But no matter how far off your goals are, beginning the growth process can always happen right now.

Progressive Sanctification

Theologians call this the doctrine of progressive sanctification.  Sharing in the divine nature is a progressive, gradual, step-by-step process.

That’s not the way we like it, a lot of the time. People often think of spiritual growth in terms of large leaps forward. “I had a breakthrough!”  Or “I need to have a breakthrough.”  We love the idea of going on a retreat or hearing a great sermon or reading a book and all the lights come on, we have an epiphany, and our life is changed from that moment on. We’re like a kid who wants muscles so he spends one day lifting weights and then looks in the mirror every day to see if his muscles are any bigger. We want instant physical growth when we’re kids, and we want instant spiritual growth when we’re adults.

But Peter is very clear. You make progress bit by bit, using one virtue to build another one, then building on that, growing, building, progressing.

Better than Legalism

And the fact that that’s the standard—instead of God saying, “You have to be at this level,” he just says, “The only requirement is growth,”—that protects us from perfectionism, which is really just a form of legalism. Perfectionism sets an arbitrary external standard and says, “Anything short of that is not good enough. Once you reach that point, you’re good.” And it’s always an external standard.

Our legalistic minds always want to come up with some really measurable, external goal. And that makes you constantly frustrated and discouraged if you’re not meeting the standard. And you have a twisted concept of God being impossible to please.

And then once you do reach it, it leads to stagnation. “I’m doing what’s required, now I can coast.”

How much better is God’s way. He says, “All I require is that you take the next step, wherever you are.”

Conclusion

So if you’re ever feeling useless, don’t get discouraged. Just remind yourself of what God says about what defines an important, productive, fruitful life—deepening knowledge of Christ, remember that God wants you to have that, he can help you have it, and he’s on your side in this whole thing (he wants you to have a meaningful, successful life because that will glorify him), and let those truths motivate you to step up your efforts to grow in the virtues by trusting specific promises in God’s Word.

 

Summary

And unproductive life is a horrible fate because God designed us to need productivity. But productivity is more than efficiency. True productivity is growth in your knowledge of (relationship with) Christ which produces moral fruit. And that fruit will force you into material productivity. The standard for the fruit is simply growth, which defeats perfectionism, legalism, and coasting. A meaningful, successful, productive life is always available

[1] A literal translation of v.8 is, “For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will make you not ineffective and unproductive.” It seems like he’s going out of his way to use a double negative. It would be so much simpler to say, “If you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will make you effective and productive.” Evidently, Peter assuming our fear of being useless is stronger than our desire to be productive, so he appeals to the former

[2] In Mt.20:3 it’s used of people who are out of work. In 1 Timothy 5:11 it’s used of younger widows who don’t have anything to occupy their time so they get in trouble.

In Titus 1:12 it’s translated “lazy.”

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For the previous message in 2 Peter, click here.

For the full series on 1 Peter, click here.