1:8

In this verse Peter told what good results would come if Christians did the things he wrote about in 1:5–7. In the next verse he told about the bad results that would come if they did not do those things.

1:8b

ineffective: This means “useless, unable to do anything good.”

unproductive: This is similar in meaning to “ineffective” and means “barren, not producing anything good.”

Berean Standard Bible translates these two words in a way that emphasizes their negative meaning. “Ineffective” means “not effective” and unproductive means “not productive.” It is also possible to translate the words in a way that expresses a positive meaning. For example:

you will be useful and productive
-or-
they will make you active and effective (Good News Translation)

in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ: This may mean one of two things:

(1) “concerning your knowing the Lord Jesus Christ.” If this is what Peter was saying, he meant that knowing Jesus Christ would result in people living in a good way. For example:

knowing our Lord Jesus Christ has not made your lives either complacent or unproductive. (Phillips’ New Testament in Modern English)

(2) “towards knowing the Lord Jesus Christ.” If this is what Peter was saying, he meant that if people lived in a good way, it would result in them knowing Jesus Christ even better. For exmaple:

they will bring you to a real knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. (The Jerusalem Bible)

It is recommended that you follow the first interpretation.

© 2000 by SIL International®

Made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License (CC BY-SA) creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0

All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible. BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.