Hi Karen,I'm glad you liked my post.And I'm glad you asked about virtue. 2 Peter 1:5. And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge...Peter gives a list of things that he says we need to add to our faith if we want to make our calling and election sure: 8. For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
9. But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins.
10. Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall:
11. For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.So to begin Peter says we must add to our faith virtue. (But what is virtue?) To virtue we must add knowledge. Why can't we just add knowledge to our faith? Well, many Christians are trying but Jesus Himself said that this will not work if we bypass the virtue. Jesus said that we cannot be His disciple if we do not do the virtue. In other words, we might follow Him as multitudes were doing when Jesus said this to them and multitudes continue to follow Him the same way today but if we do not forsake all and die to ourself, then we cannot be His disciplined learner (disciple) meaning we will be unable to actually learn anything even though we may be following Him. We will then be what the scripture describes as "ever learning but never coming to a knowledge of the truth".Virtue is what we add when we actually by faith, present our-self to Jesus and ask Him what He wants from us and do whatever He asks for. He will give us a task that will require faith in Him to perform and when we perform it, we add to our faith virtue. It is what James was talking about when he said faith without works (virtue, or acting on it) is dead. Remember when the woman with the issue of blood touched Jesus' garment and He said, "Who touched me?" His disciples said "What do you mean, everyone is touching you...?" And Jesus said, "No, I felt VIRTUE go our from me..."Matthew 5:30. And Jesus, immediately knowing in himself that virtue had gone out of him, turned him about in the press, and said, Who touched my clothes?She had faith but that didn't get her healed until she touched Jesus and then virtue was added to her faith.My own example was that God told me that I loved my record albums more than I loved Him and that if I wanted to know Him I would have to give Him those albums (representing my whole dream of becoming a musician myself one day) and it took me a year and a half because even though I had faith I was unwilling to add the virtue because I was going to have to die to my own way if I did. Finally I did it and that was the day that I added to my faith virtue. I was trading in my ashes for His beauty. And then I began to add to my virtue knowledge as I found a whole new ability to learn directly from God what His word meant. Then to knowledge I was able to add self control because knowledge is what makes you able to control yourself. To self control I added endurance because you need to decide to keep on going and not give up. To endurance I added godliness and to godliness brotherly kindness and to brotherly kindness love. But the amazing thing is that this was going on before I discovered this list in the Bible. So, it's not like I read the list and then set out to do it but it was already happening in me before I knew that it was recorded by Peter.Unfortunately there are a lot of people and even many pastors and teachers who have never added to their faith virtue and therefore their knowledge is not the kind that God gives but the kind that James calls:James 3:15. This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish.I hope this answers it okay.