Another way of looking at the list of attributes in 2 Pet. 1:5-7 is under the headings of faith, hope, and love. The first two attributes are about faith and aspiring to be like God because of that faith (virtue), self-control and steadfastness are about hope through the trials of life, and the last two are to do with love. You may have noticed I omitted the third attribute, knowledge, and the sixth, godliness. I call them bridging attributes. Knowledge is experiential knowledge and is the bridge between faith and hope. How do I turn my faith into hope? Through experience. It’s only when my faith is put under trial that I can truly know God and develop the hope attributes of self-control and steadfastness.

Godliness is the other bridging attribute. Ultimately God wants us to be loving people, but how do I turn my faith and hope into love? Paul tells Timothy “train yourself for godliness” (1 Tim. 4:7). The word for “train” is gymnazo from where we get our English word gymnasium. Self-control and steadfastness are to do with the gymnasium of our lives and Paul tells us the product of that training is godliness. By the way, prior to mentioning the gymnasium, Paul told Timothy we also need to be “trained in the words of the faith and of the good doctrine” (v6). First comes our schooling – faith, and then comes the gymnasium – hope.

So, what is godliness, how is it developed from self-control and steadfastness, and how does it help us turn into loving people?

The literal meaning of the Greek word for godliness, eusebeia, is “right worship.” The word is paired with semnotes (“dignified”) in 1 Tim. 2:2, a word that means orderliness. If you think of us as teenagers going through the gymnasium, as Greek teens used to do, then godliness is like reaching a state of spiritual maturity. We’ve learned through experience and the trials of life what right worship looks like. 

Right worship is God-focused. Virtue, for instance, without it being focused on God, can turn into sentimentality. Knowledge can become intellectualism, self-control, false humility and legalism, steadfastness, self-reliance and pride. The mature man or woman in Christ realizes that everything we do is meant for the glory of God.

Right worship begins with faith, the first of Peter’s attributes. It’s not based on our ability to follow law. Right worship is not formalism but something we come to appreciate through developing godly characteristics. In other words, it begins with God – having faith in him – and it ends with God – because God is love. The more I mature in Christ the more I get to know who God is and the more I get to know who God is the more I understand true godly love.