St. Peter: Refuting today’s false moral justifications

By Dr. Jeff Mirus ( bio - articles - email ) | Oct 02, 2025

The use of the Liturgy of the Hours varies¹ among Catholics, but I typically pray Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer. One of the many reasons I find this spiritually helpful is that these prayers highlight the texts of Sacred Scripture in different ways, so that the one who prays might be struck by a fresh awareness of their power and meaning.

I can remember starting this practice with a four-volume set of the Liturgy of the Hours, the very length and organization of which was enough to both impress and daunt even the more prayerful among the laity. Fortunately, phone “apps”² and web sites now make praying the hours easier and less confusing, especially for those who are neither trained in the use of these prayers nor attuned to the various options, memorials, feasts, seasonal changes, and cycles of the liturgical year.

Let me highlight here a single example of the heightened spiritual awareness which can be gained through this practice. Not long ago, I was struck by a passage in Evening Prayer from the first letter of Peter:

[R]ejoice in so far as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. If you are reproached for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. [1 Pet 4:13-14]

This is perhaps the classic statement of the inversion of suffering for which Christianity is known, particularly as it applies to living forthright lives of fidelity to Christ’s teachings. I made a note of the passage so I could look into it later, and when I reviewed it in its Scriptural context, it reminded me of something about Peter which I had all but forgotten: Unlike so many Christian teachers and theologians today, Peter is unremitting in his insistence that Christians must live morally.

Our call and election are conditional

When I looked back at the series on the books of the Bible I wrote on CatholicCulture.org between 2017 and 2020, I realized that I had recognized this point at least once before. In my comments on the Letters of Peter, I had already written this: “Immediately…Peter moves from a proclamation of the great gift and grace which Christians have received to the great responsibility they have for living up to the Divine measure of that gift and grace.” Apparently there has been a lot of water under the bridge for me during the last five years, for once again, now, in late 2025, I have recovered my conscious recollection of Peter’s special emphasis on this fundamental Christian lesson: If you are a believer, then act like it.

Indeed, not only does Peter fill his two letters with moral exhortation, he even says he is going to keep emphasizing this point: “I intend always to remind you of these things…. I think it right, as long as I am in this body, to arouse you by way of reminder” (2 Pet 1:12-13). What things? Well, in the previous verses (beginning with 2 Pet 1:5), Peter has just insisted that a claimed faith is not enough. Rather, we must add:

• virtue to faith
• knowledge to virtue
• self-control to knowledge
• steadfastness to self-control
• godliness to steadfastness
• brotherly affection to godliness
• and love to brotherly affection

“For,” he says, “if these things are yours and abound, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ” (v.8). In fact, Peter goes so far as to say that whoever lacks these things “is blind and shortsighted and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins” (v.9), and Peter also stresses that we must be “zealous to confirm” our call and election, which, if we fall, can otherwise be lost.

A challenging sequence

From the beginning of his first letter, Peter emphasizes that we will face trials, but that we should find in these trials cause for rejoicing so that the genuineness of our faith may be proved (1 Pet 1:6-7), for “as the outcome of your faith you obtain the salvation of your souls” (v.9). Therefore, we must gird up our minds, be sober and hope fully in the grace of Christ (v.13). We must not conform to the passions of our former ignorance (v.14) but rather we must be holy in all our conduct (v.15). Indeed, having purified our souls through obedience to the truth, we must love one another earnestly from our hearts (v.22).

Therefore, we must put away all malice, guile, insincerity, envy and slander (1 Pet 2:1) so that as living stones we can be built into a spiritual house, as a holy priesthood to offer sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ (v.5). Accordingly, we must abstain from the passions of the flesh that wage war against our souls (v.11), and in particular we must give a good example to non-believers (v.12). For Christ’s sake, we should be subject to human institutions (v.13), honor all men (v.17), and treat those set above us respectfully (v.18).

If we are wives, we must be submissive to our husbands (1 Pet 3:1), and our beauty must be cultivated primarily in the hidden person of the heart “with the imperishable jewel of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious” (v.4). If we are husbands, we must be considerate to our wives, bestowing honor on them, “since you are joint heirs of the grace of life, in order that your prayers may not be hindered” (v.7).

No matter our state in life, we must cultivate “unity of spirit, sympathy, love of the brethren, a tender heart and a humble mind” (v.8). We must not return evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but “on the contrary bless” (v.9). And we must keep our tongues from evil and guile, turning away from evil to do right, and to seek peace (v.10-11).

In our hearts we must always reverence Christ, and always be prepared to offer a gentle and reverent defense to those who demand that we account for our hope in Christ (v.15). We must keep our conscience clear so that our abusers can be shown to be wrong about us (v.16).

We must live no longer by human passions but by the will of God (1 Pet 4:2), avoiding licentiousness, passions, drunkenness, revels, carousing, and lawless idolatry (v.3). Since the “end of all things is at hand”, we must keep sane and sober for our prayers (v.7). Most importantly, we must be unfailing in our love for one another. This includes practicing hospitality, using each gift for the good of others as good stewards of “God’s varied grace”, so that “in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ” (v.11).

Moreover, we must not be surprised “at the fiery ordeal” which comes upon us (v.12) but rather rejoice insofar as we share Christ’s sufferings (v.13). We should be ashamed to suffer for wrong-doing of any kind, but not ashamed to suffer as Christians (v.15-16). Quoting the Greek version of Proverbs 11:31, Peter emphasizes the consequences of failing to live up to our Christian calling: “If the righteous man is scarcely saved, where will the impious and sinner appear?” (1 Pet 4:18). And rounding out his first letter, Peter devotes the fifth and final chapter to the conduct of priests.

The Second Letter

Peter’s second letter has a similar moral emphasis. As already noted, the bullet points listed earlier come from its opening chapter. In the second chapter, Peter reserves a special warning for false prophets and false teachers (perhaps popes, bishops, priests, deacons, religious and all those in consecrated life, professors, catechists, canonists…and writers…must especially beware). For in their falsity they “will secretly bring in destructive heresies…and many will follow their licentiousness”. They will lead others to revile the truth, and will exploit the faithful “with false words”. Peter emphasizes that “from of old their condemnation has not been idle, and their destruction has not been asleep” (2 Pet 2:3).

But he also emphasizes ultimate justice—that “the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trial, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment” (v.9)—and he goes on to paint a terrifying picture of such willful sinners, calling them “blots and blemishes, reveling in their dissipation” (v.13), exclaiming:

These are waterless springs and mists driven by a storm; for them the nether gloom of darkness has been reserved. For, uttering loud boasts of folly, they entice with licentious passions of the flesh men who have barely escaped from those who live in error. They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption; for whatever overcomes a man, to that he is enslaved. [2 Pet 2:17-19].

In his final chapter (2 Pet 3), Peter emphasizes that we must recognize that “scoffers will come in the last days” (v.3), but that “the day of the Lord will come like a thief” (v.10) and “the earth and the works that are upon it will be burned up” (v.10) Since this is so, he asks, “What sort of persons ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness” (v.11) if, according to God’s promise, “we wait for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells” (v.13).

Without question, Peter, the chief of the apostles, was a moralist—so let none of us make the mistake of thinking Christ Himself was not. This does, after all, seem to be the great Christian and even Catholic error of our age, in which we are so anxious to proclaim that acting on any deeply felt impulse must be good. To the contrary, this is precisely what Peter used his two inspired letters to refute. For our part, then, we must base our lives on Peter’s closing words:

You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, beware lest you be carried away with the error of lawless men and lose your own stability. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen. [2 Pet 2:17-18]

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¹ Priests and transitional deacons are obliged by Canon Law to pray the entire Liturgy of the Hours (Breviary) each day. Permanent deacons are obliged to pray those hours which are determined by their episcopal conference. In the United States, these are Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer. The requirements for religious vary with the rules and constitutions of their particular religious orders. But the Church also recommends this form of prayer for the laity.

² There are several such apps. The one I use is iBreviary. Though this link is to the website, I use the phone app downloaded from Google Play.