Virtue

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Virtue

MP4 Video - 720p (98.81 MB)
MP3 Audio (1.5 MB)
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What do violins have to do with our Christianity?

Transcript

 

[Steve Myers] There was once a man who made instruments, and in his shop he decided that there would be no instrument that would leave that shop unless it was as close to perfection as possible. It had to be an instrument that was just finely crafted, that was excellent in almost every way. And sure enough he became the best in producing the finest of instruments. And in a way I suppose you could sum up his philosophy in one sentence. He was supposedly to have said, "Other men may make violins, but no one will make a better one."

Now, you've probably heard of that man. His name was Stradivarius, and even today hundreds of years later he is still known as making the finest violins. Now, there is a biblical connection to his story, to Stradivarius' story, and it's the concept of excellence. And in the Bible it sometimes uses the word virtue instead of the word excellence. There's a good example of this. It's over in 2 Peter. 2 Peter chapter 5 and throughout this section—I'm sorry, 2 Peter 1:5 is where it starts and then continues on from there. And it's probably a familiar section of scripture. It's the passage that says, "Add to your faith…" and then it goes on to list a number of things. Well, the first one that's mentioned there is virtue.

And so for the same reason he says add to your faith virtue, or the Lexham English Bible says this, he says, "For the same reason apply all diligence and supply with your faith the excellence of character." And I got to thinking about that when I heard the story of Stradivarius, that he wasn't about to let any violin go out of his shop that wasn't as close to perfection as possible, he strived for excellence in every way as they produced these violins. And that was something that took persistence. It was something that took practice. It took a desire to do the very best.

Boy, when you think about what Peter said, to strive for that kind of excellence in our life that's what we're supposed to be doing. We're striving to be like Christ. And so we should pursue it. We should be persistent about it. We should put it into practice absolutely as much as possible in our lives. I mean, imagine if we went to that amount of energy and effort as Stradivarius did with his violins, as for you and I, producing godly character. Shouldn't we do that much and even more? I think that's what our goal is, to strive for excellence as God's people. You know Stradivarius, today it's synonymous with excellence in violins.

When someone thinks of your name, what's the word that comes to mind?

For BT Daily, I'm Steve Myers.