“For this very reason, you must make every effort to support your faith with goodness, and goodness with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with endurance, and endurance with godliness, and godliness with mutual affection, and mutual affection with love. For if these things are yours and are increasing among you, they keep you from being ineffective and unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Peter here is urging us to support our faith. Faith is not a stand alone. It’s the basis of our belief and our life in Christ but it’s not something that by itself, without support, is unshakeable. The Hagia Sophia, in Istanbul, began it’s life as a Christian church. Completed in 537 AD, it’s been standing for roughly 1500 years, which is quite extraordinary considering that this part of the world is regularly rocked by earthquakes of substantial magnitude. And yet this building is still standing, huge, magnificent and seemingly invulnerable. But it’s not an accident that it has stood so firm over the centuries of geological instability. It’s strength comes from the design of it’s architecture, and how its huge central dome is supported by massive arches and external buttresses. The beautiful dome does not stand by itself.
The dome of the Hagia Sophia is like our faith; it needs to be held up and supported, buttressed by other features. The support that we read about in this passage is like a pyramid, with one part resting on and supporting the other. Faith is supported by goodness, which is supported by knowledge. Then there’s self-control, endurance, godliness, mutual affection, and finally, love. Love is the thing that supports all the other qualities that in succession, hold up our faith, perched at the top. Faith is the crowning glory that sits on this mighty pedestal of virtues, all resting on the solid base of the love of our Lord Jesus Christ. If we are rich in these qualities, then this gives our faith the quality of permanence; we cannot be moved.
Tell Out My Soul 
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