Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.
2 Peter 1:4 (NIV)
The Promises Have a Purpose
The jar comes out of a paper bag at the back of the church hall, and the woman handing it over has written the instructions on a strip of masking tape stuck to the lid. Equal weights. Twice a week. Warm spot, not hot.
The one taking it asks how old it is. The woman says her mother started it and that she doesn’t know where her mother got it, and that it has been through three houses and one apartment over a bad winter. It smells like apples going over.
Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires. Peter has just said that God’s divine power has given everything needed for a godly life, through the knowledge of the one who called us by his own glory and goodness.
The promises come with the purpose attached. They aren’t handed over to be admired and kept somewhere safe. Through them you may share in the divine nature, which is not standing near it and not being improved alongside it. What God gives away is his own, and it goes on being his in whoever has it.
The escaping sits in the same sentence. Corruption is the word for what happens to a thing left to itself. The same flour and water either gets fed or goes bad, and nothing in the jar decides which.
I’ve been given things and let them spoil in the keeping, and I’d have told you at the time that I was looking after them.
The jar goes home in the paper bag. It gets fed on Thursday and again on Sunday, and by the second week it’s up over the rubber band by dark, doing what it has done in three other houses, in a kitchen that has nothing to do with the woman who started it.
A Prayer to Remember
You gave away what was your own, God, and you meant it to reach all the way in. There’s something you handed me that I’ve let sit, and you know which one. Make me feed it this week, on the days I don’t feel like it. I’d rather be changed than improved.
In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.
