faithful Bible characters have shown. In particular, when it comes to pleasures, to the things we enjoy of themselves, such as food and drink, sex and recreation, do we need self-control if we would do the wise, the loving and the right thing.

“Supply to Your . . . Knowledge Self-Control”

“For this very reason, by your contributing in response all earnest effort, supply to your faith virtue, to your virtue knowledge, to your knowledge self-control.”—2 Pet. 1:5, 6.

1, 2. (a) Why is Peter’s admonition to supply to our knowledge self-control so fitting? (b) Why does exercising self-control not come easy?

GOD’S Word places great stress on our acquiring the knowledge it contains. Such knowledge is indispensable to our gaining everlasting life, even as Jesus said: “This means everlasting life, their taking in knowledge of you, the only true God, and of the one whom you sent forth, Jesus Christ.” (John 17:3) But as we have just seen, knowledge without self-control will not gain us life, and therefore most fittingly the apostle Peter counsels us: “For this very reason, by your contributing in response all earnest effort, supply to your faith virtue, to your virtue knowledge, to your knowledge self-control.”—2 Pet. 1:5, 6.

² Great as are the value and the need for exercising self-control, so great might be said to be the effort required to do so. Why? Why must even mature Christians be ever on guard to “go on walking worthily of God,” although admittedly it takes a greater effort on the part of some than on the part of others? (1 Thess. 2:12) Because, under present conditions, adhering to the course of rectitude is the very opposite of following the lines of least resistance, which, in turn, is due to the three foes that we as Christians have pitted against us, the flesh, the world and the Devil.

 3. What foe within us makes self-control difficult, as seen by what Scriptural testimony?

³ First of all there are the inherited fallen tendencies of the flesh. Yes, just as we have inherited various physical infirmities from our forebears so we have also inherited moral weaknesses or flaws in personality. We cannot escape it, “The fathers were the ones that ate the unripe grape, but it was the teeth of the sons that got set on edge.” As Jehovah himself said about humankind right after the Flood: “The inclination of the heart of man is bad from his youth up.” And it seems that the more gifted or forceful the personality is, the more difficulty its owner has in exercising self-control; a fact borne out innumerable times not only by secular history but also by Scriptural examples. In particular is the problem that all servants of Jehovah have in exercising self-control well stated by the apostle Paul: “For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, there dwells nothing good; for ability to wish is present with me, but ability to work out what is fine is not present. For the good that I wish I do not do, but the bad that I do not wish is what I practice.” No question about it, Paul