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Brotherly Kindness
August 17, 2013

Last week, I wrote about how godliness is part of our spiritual development. Peter shows that next in our life comes brotherly kindness.

2 Peter 1:5-11
And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity. For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins. Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall: For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

I like to think of this verse as providing the taxonomy of spiritual development. The character of brotherly kindness is known by all who have a sister or brother. Rivalries between children can be immense as can be the compassion that is shown to each other, and it is this type of compassion that is highlighted in the verse and other verses throughout the Bible.

Proverbs 18:24
A man that hath friends must shew himself friendly: and there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.

The proverb shows that there are friends that are closer than a brother, and this proverb also shows that there is a close relationship between siblings. The quality of always being there is what is being shown through this proverb, and part of havng brotherly love is always being there for our brothers and sisters in Christ.

1 John 2:7-11
Brethren, I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment which ye had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which ye have heard from the beginning. Again, a new commandment I write unto you, which thing is true in him and in you: because the darkness is past, and the true light now shineth. He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now. He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him. But he that hateth his brother is in darkness, and walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth, because that darkness hath blinded his eyes.

It is when we have brotherly love for each other that we abide in the light and the opportunities for us to stumble in faith are diminished. When Peter wrote about making our election sure, our future depends so much more than what we know. Our future depends upon what we do with what we know. Those who are in the know know that brotherly kindness is one way how we may celebrate what is good, embrace what is good, and do what is good.

All verses are from the King James Version.
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