Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to 2 Peter · About this commentary
Make Your Calling Sure
2 Peter 1:10-11
10 Therefore, brothers, be more diligent to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you will never stumble. · WEB
Election is something a believer is told to confirm by living, not something to be settled by speculation.
Therefore, brothers, be more diligent to make your calling and election sure. The instruction is startling on its face — how does a person confirm God's choice? — and the verse answers it in the same breath: for if you do these things, you will never stumble. The confirming is done by the practice of verses 5 to 7, not by introspection about a decree.
That keeps election where Scripture keeps it. It is God's act, and the assurance of it is a life that shows the marks. Peter does not tell his readers to determine whether they are chosen; he tells them to make it sure, which is a matter of evidence rather than of discovery.
Verse 11 gives the outcome in a striking image: you will be richly supplied with the entrance into the eternal kingdom. The verb is the one used of a wealthy patron underwriting a public performance, and it answers verse 5's supply — the reader supplies virtue to faith, and God lavishly supplies the entrance.
settled What this mark means