Avoiding Spiritual Drift: Peter’s Three Words Every Christian Must "Know"

If there’s ever been a moment when the church needed to recover Peter’s understanding of the word “knowledge”, it’s right now. We are living in an age in which spiritual “knowledge” is minimized, while spiritual apathy is maximized. It is an age marked by spiritual drought—where the soul quietly withers, only appearing alive. It is an age in which false teaching intimidatingly goes unchecked, and cynicism is popularized and celebrated as a virtue. The sad result of such an apathetic spiritual state often is wayward believers walking a pathetic road away from the cross.

"They deny the Master who bought them." 2Peter 2:1

Peter recognized this trend in his own day, and he wrote a letter that speaks to his moment in history. That letter has become a letter for our moment in history as well.

Not all knowledge is equal. Some knowledge inflates the mind. Some inflates the ego. Some deflates the truth with nothing more than hollow awareness. But the knowledge Peter calls epignōsis — that knowledge saves our souls.

Peter builds his letter of 2Peter around three words that share the same Greek root for “knowledge” — epignōsis, gnōsis, and proginōskō. Together they form the anatomy and the heartbeat of his message.

Without a clear distinction between these three words and how Peter uses them in his day, today’s believers are left to drift in apathetic confusion, instability, and ultimately forgetfulness about the very truths meant to anchor their souls.

Epignōsis is saving knowledge: the deep, relational, transformative knowing of Jesus that offers salvation and produces godly character, spiritual stability, and fruitfulness (1:2–8). When obtained by faith (1:1), epignōsis is designed by God to be cultivated and deepened. 

Gnōsis is hollowed‑out knowledge: the thin, powerless residue left when a healthy strong, vital and personal relationship with Jesus is abandoned, not cultivated nor deepened.

Gnōsis is the shallow and hollow result of not maintaining epignōsis. It is the kind of empty awareness that marked the false teachers who stopped spiritually growing, forgot their cleansing, and eventually drifted back into corruption (1:9; 2:20–22).

When exchanged for epignōsis, gnōsis is the inevitable outcome of apathy as it runs its course to fruition.  However, it can be avoided. How?

Proginōskō is foreknowledge: the Spirit‑given warning that apostasy can indeed occur within believers, as evidenced by those false teachers who become the example of Peter's warning, and the very reason he writes — so his readers will “know beforehand” and not follow their example and lose their stability (3:17).

Proginōskō, is the forewarning which gives the believer the ability to see danger before it dings them, to recognize drift before disaster, to stay spiritually awake in a world that wants them to stay spiritually away.

When heeded, proginōskō is the solution to gnōsis - the drifting away from Jesus. Knowing beforehand that just as an unattended garden withers and becomes unproductive through lack of attention, so does epignōsis, one’s relationship with Jesus.

One’s relationship with Jesus is as healthy as the amount of attention one gives him.  So, Peter’s warning that drifting into gnōsis is not only possible, it is inevitable in the context of unchecked apathy, and it must be taken seriously.

These three words interact like a spiritual anatomy: To miss the connection between epignōsis, gnōsis and proginōskō is not only missing Peter’s entire message for the church in his day, but it could lead to missing the message of obtaining the salvation of one's soul in our day. (1Peter 1:9)

Peter shows his readers how it is possible for a believer with epignōsis to begin to apathetically drift into gnōsis and eventually wind up on a road walking away from Jesus. When believers neglect epignōsis and fail to spiritually grow — when they do not “add” to their epignōsis (1:5–7) — they become “blind,” “short‑sighted,” and forgetful of their cleansing (1:9) and eventually “deny the Master who bought them.” (2:1)

Their epignōsis deteriorates into gnōsis — a powerless residue of awareness that is powerless to keep them from returning to the corruption from which they once escaped (2:20–22). Their collapse was not sudden; it was the predictable outcome of arrested spiritual development.  And Peter has some harsh words for these once-believers turned deniers.  He says that judgment for them in their “last state has become worse for them than the first.” (2:20)

So, the question is...How Does a Believer Avoid Gnōsis?

When Peter reaches chapter 3, he shifts from the saving knowledge to the knowledge that keeps one from being blindsided. From epignōsis to proginōskō.

“You, therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, guard yourselves…” (3:17).

Peter’s letter is a training manual in anticipatory discernment directing his readers to perceive the progression from faith to apathy to destruction. He writes to prevent his epignōsis readers from collapsing into the same indifferent, apathetic gnōsis that destroyed the false teachers. Because of their indifference to their epignōsis, and because they deliberately overlooked the value of the scriptures (3:5), and because they did not “add” to the faith they obtained (1:5–7), they lacked the spiritual growth they needed to maintain their epignōsis (1:9). As a result, they became spiritually forgetful (1:9), corrupt (2:20), and ultimately apostate (2:1, 2:15).

So Peter urges his readers,

“You therefore, beloved… be on guard” (3:17). And then he gives the remedy: “Grow in the grace and knowledge (proginōskō) of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (3:18).

Stagnation is the danger. Growing in the foreknowledge is the safeguard.

In Peter’s logic:

Epignōsis provides stability. Apathy leads to Gnōsis. Proginōskō protects the believer from the spiritual instability of gnōsis. 

Obtain epignōsis, and you obtain the secure outcome of your soul - salvation/eternal life (1Peter 1:9). Heed proginōskō and you retain protection for that secure spiritual stability. Lose epignōsis, and you become spiritually hollow (1:9) and start on the slow path to apathy and gnōsis. Lose both epignōsis and proginōskō , and you follow the false teachers into collapse (2:20–22).

This is why so many believers today feel spiritually fragile. We have information, but not epignōsis - no real experiential relationship with Jesus. Infrequently do we converse with him. Rarely do we read about him. Only occasionally do we rely on him for life's struggles. Sporadically do we thank him for enduring the cross for us. Seldom do we expect him to return for us. Hardly ever do we think about him and miss him. Seemingly never do we long to be with him. We simply have opinions, but no proginōskō that protects our epignōsis. We know the Bible selectively, but not the Jesus of the Bible experientially. As a result, we know Jesus vaguely, but not deeply.

Peter’s message is urgent, simple, and sharp:

Grow in your knowledge of Jesus.