The Bible Says
2 Peter 1:10-11 Meaning

In 2 Peter 1:10-11, Peter demonstrates a practical application relating to Christians progressing to maturity and fulfilling God’s ministry for them, namely that they will gain a great reward in Christ’s kingdom that is to come. In the previous verses, Peter said that believers who failed to gain Christian maturity by diligently progressing through the learning loop of 2 Peter 1:5-7 were “shortsighted,” focusing only on the world’s rewards in this life. Now he contrasts shortsightedness with the immense reward that attends diligently working to gain maturity.

The reward has an application in this life, as well as the next for believers.

Peter begins this section with Therefore (v. 10) to alert his readers that he is making an application from what he has previously said regarding progressing on to spiritual maturity.

He addresses his readers as brethren because they are brothers and sisters in Christ having already believed in Christ for the forgiveness of their sins. In the prior section, Peter asserted that the one who failed to walk in maturity had “forgotten his purification from his former sins.” There was no doubt cast on his forgiveness. It is simply that the believer is not living in the reality of being a new creation in Christ. This leads to unfruitfulness and being of no use to Jesus as His servant (2 Peter 1:8-9).

The main action Peter wants his believing readers to take is to be all the more diligent to make certain about His calling and choosing you; for as long as you practice these things, you will never stumble; for in this way the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be abundantly supplied to you (2 Peter 1:10-11).

To be all the more diligent means to work really hard at fulfilling an obligation. In 2 Peter 1:5, Peter began the list of eight qualities by saying each believer should be continually “applying all diligence.” The Greek word translated “diligence” in verse 5 is a noun form of the verb translated diligent in the phrase be all the more diligent in verse 10. This shows an emphasis by Peter of the need for ongoing, diligent effort to gain maturity in Christ. It requires an ongoing act of the will to set aside self and walk in obedience to Christ. He supplies the power of the Spirit, but it is up to each believer to diligently pursue choosing the Spirit.

The obligation they are to work hard at fulfilling is described as making certain about His calling and choosing you. This does not fit as an application of God’s calling and choosing a believer as referring to justification salvation, since being declared righteous in God’s sight comes only through faith in Jesus (John 3:14-15). Peter would contradict himself if he said that believers must be diligent to add to Jesus’s death on the cross in order to be saved. This would also contradict what he just said about the believer who is not diligent, namely that the unfruitful believer is one who has “forgotten his purification from his former sins” (2 Peter 1:9).

Clearly, the unfruitful believer is one who has already been purified from sin through the death of Jesus. This is because Jesus bore the sins of the world while on the cross (Colossians 2:14). Peter boldly proclaimed that being justified in God’s sight was purely a matter of God’s grace, received through faith, when he agreed with Paul in the Jerusalem council of Acts 15. There he said of the Gentile believers “But we believe that we [the Jews] are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, in the same way as they [the Gentiles] also are” (Acts 15:11).

The context in verses 10-11 reveals that the issue is not justification salvation because Peter is talking to the brethren who are already saved from being estranged from God’s family. What is being spoken of is God’s calling and choosing believers to live as fruitful servants of Jesus. Each believer has a specific calling to do “good works” that “God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10).

Paul’s Ephesians 2:10 “walk” required to do the “good works” we are called to is the same calling that Peter speaks of in exhorting believers to diligently acquire the spiritual qualities of the 2 Peter 1:5-7 learning loop of fruitfulness for the Lord. Each believer has a calling from God. God has chosen each believer to be His workmanship and walk in the good works He prepared for him.

An example of a calling is Paul. Scripture says Paul was called and elected by God for a special ministry. “But the Lord said to him [Ananias], “Go, for he [Paul] is a chosen instrument of Mine, to bear My name before the Gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel” (Acts 9:15). Every believer has been called and elected to be God’s workmanship, “created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10).

Peter uses an adjective that describes something about God’s calling and choosing for a ministry. The adjective is translated make sure from the Greek word “bebaios,” meaning to have validity over time or be constant or steadfast. In other words, believers are to work hard at fulfilling their obligation to the ministry and service to which God has chosen and called them. This is another emphasis on the need for diligence and perseverance as we progress through the learning loop of 2 Peter 1:5-7.

The inference is that we should expect our progression to maturity to look something like: stumble, fail, learn, try again, repeat. This can get discouraging. But Peter is insisting that we should not allow discouragement to intervene; we should continue diligently regardless of circumstances. The key is to keep learning and growing. Our flesh will likely tell us we have failed and should give up (so that we will fall into its clutches). But that is a lie. God never gives up on us. He desires that we continue to strive and to grow in our faith.

The last phrase of verse 10 begins with for, signaling that Peter is explaining the value of each believer fulfilling their calling to live as faithful witnesses, doing good deeds in obedience to Christ. Peter continues, as long as you practice, a translation of the present tense of the verb “poieo” meaning to make or do. What believers are to practice or do are these things. According to the rules of Greek grammar, these things does not refer to the ministries and service God has for them to do, but to the these things back in verse 9-to the eight qualities leading to Christan maturity.

What Peter is saying is that as long as a believer practices the eight qualities that lead to Christian maturity you will never stumble, from the Greek word “ptaio” meaning to lose one’s footing, stumble, or trip. In this context, Peter is not saying that his spiritually progressing readers will never fall into sin, but rather that they will never fail to fulfill the ministry God has called and elected them to do (Romans 11:29).

In verse 11, Peter closes this section with a powerful motivation for believers to progress toward spiritual maturity and faithfully fulfill the ministry that God has called them to do. He starts out for (v. 11), indicating that a purpose or result sentence will follow. Peter continues, in this way which refers to the way believers follow the eight steps toward maturity and fulfill the ministry that God has called and chosen them to do.

The powerful motivation for doing this is a future reward described as the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be abundantly supplied to you (v. 11). Notice that the reward is not entering into the kingdom, rather the reward is a special sort of entrance into the eternal kingdom, one that will be abundantly supplied.

The main action is contained in the verb supplied, which is the same word Peter used earlier for adding one spiritual quality to another (“supply moral excellence,” in 1 Peter 1:5). God is the one who supplies. What will be supplied is a particular sort of entrance into the eternal kingdom of Jesus, an entrance that is abundantly supplied.

The Greek word translated supplied is also translated “ministered.” The idea is that something special is being bestowed. The inference is that Jesus is the one who is supplying the reward of a special entrance into His kingdom to those who mature in faith during their sojourn on earth. The word abundantly has the connotation of rich or plentiful. A rich or plentiful entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ implies a richly rewarded entrance into the eternal kingdom of Christ.

Who are the ones who have a richly rewarded entrance into Christ’s Kingdom?

Only the believers who work hard at developing the eight qualities can progress toward spiritual maturity and fulfill the ministry God has for them. They are the ones who experience a deeper, fuller, richer fellowship with God while living on earth. They are also the ones who will experience a richly rewarded entrance into Christ’s kingdom because they have obediently fulfilled the service and ministry that God called and chose them to do.

To gain a fuller picture of what this might entail, we can put these verses in 2 Peter alongside other passages regarding the rewards Jesus promises those who are faithful. In the Parable of the Talents, the master (representing Jesus) tells the faithful servants to “enter into the joy of your master.” The “joy” in this case was to be “put in charge of many things” (Matthew 25:21). In Hebrews 12:2, Jesus is said to have matured in His obedience, overcoming temptation, because He kept His eye on the “joy set before Him” which was to be seated at the “right hand of the throne of God.” The abundantly supplied entrance into Jesus’s kingdom likely includes a reward of sharing responsibility to reign in the kingdom that is to come, thus fulfilling the divine purpose for which humans were created (see commentary on Hebrews 2:9 for more on this).

There are several applications of this truth that can be made to believers today. First, if you come to believe in Christ and you never go up the stairsteps to maturity, you never develop your spiritual gifts, you never take advantage of the spiritual opportunities God gives you, and you never pursue what God has called you to do, then you develop a kind of spiritual “myopia” that Peter described as “blind and short-sighted (1:9).

That means you can’t see or focus on what is far away in the future-all the rewards that God has promised in the future for faithful obedience to His will. As a result, you will end up chasing things that won’t last, at the possible expense of what really matters. Rather than having a special entrance supplied by Jesus, you might be “saved, yet so as through fire” in the judgment. Anyone who has believed is saved from being consumed in the fire, and will live with Christ forever. But only those who mature and overcome as faithful witnesses will gain the greatest rewards (Revelation 3:21).

Second, if you come to faith in Christ, and never go up the stairsteps to spiritual maturity,

yes, though you will still enter the kingdom of heaven because of your faith in Christ, you will not have a rich, fully rewarded entrance into the kingdom of heaven.

Third, if you come to believe in Christ, and you progressively go up the stairsteps to maturity, you will experience a deeper richer, fuller, intimacy with the Lord while on earth. You will discover God’s meaning and purpose for your life and ministry on earth that is your calling, and you will also experience a richly rewarded entrance into Christ’s kingdom. What a motivation to move toward Christian maturity!

Fourth, instead of being blind and shortsighted about the present and the future, believers need to see the present clearly and work hard doing what God has called and chosen them to do while here on earth. This is hard, and requires diligence and perseverance. But we have ample motivation, because we have the promises of Jesus that are “precious and magnificent” that we can count on. These promises assure us that all faithfulness will be greatly rewarded in Jesus’s future eternal kingdom.