I Peter, part 6

I Peter 2:1-8

Peter continues to exhort believers to take action in their lives, particularly to put away certain attitudes or traits from their lives. Hypocrisy is still one of those traits Christians are known for. The command to not be a hypocrite has been around for a long, long time! Yet today it is no different than in Peter's day - many people are claiming to follow Christ but have no true relationship with him. This only muddies the waters for Christians and non-Christians alike to try and discern who is really "walking the walk". Verse 2 seems to give us one indicator of a sincere Christian seeking spiritual growth: long for the pure spiritual milk of the word. Just as an infant knows they are in serious need of something, so we need also to instinctively know we are in need of God's Word in our lives. Peter's "if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good" is almost a bit of a jab... he's making sure people understand that what God is after isn't a moral code of obedience but a "tasting" - an experiential knowledge - of God's goodness.

Then Peter gets into a prominent theme in Jewish culture: that of the corner stone. The corner stone was the stone that was in a certain place in the structure of any building by which everything else was built. It had to fit perfectly, having exactly the right dimensions, or it would cause the whole building to be built poorly. Peter takes what would have been a common imagery in Jewish construction, as well as a popular concept in the Old Testament, and applies it to Christ. Christ is that corner stone on which the Church would be built. Not only that, but we also are living stones, being built into a spiritual house as we all are put into place to be in line with the Cornerstone. The picture is remarkable. Christians don't need a temple... they ARE part of the living temple of God! Christians don't need a sacrificial system... THE sacrifice has already been made for them and now they make spiritual sacrifices in the name of Jesus, giving glory to God. Christians don't need priests to pray for them... We have a High Priest in Heaven and we are a collection of priests, a "holy priesthood" together coming before God in Jesus' name. This also means we can't escape under the guise of "It's not my responsibility to know Scripture and point people to Jesus, that's the professionals' job." We each are responsible to know God is good, to be able to put to words what He has done, and to represent him as priests represented God for Israel.

Peter goes on in vs. 6-8 to quote the Old Testament, showing that God had planned this all along. The "stone", or person, that would be rejected would become the cornerstone of all truth, the cornerstone of faith, the cornerstone of all hope, and the cornerstone for the spiritual house that every Christian is a part of. God always has wanted faith and not just sacrifice. God has always promised us that many will reject him but that this does not make it any less true.

Thank you Lord for being rejected and yet for being the cornerstone. Help our feeble and weak spirits to know that YOU are good, that you are the cornerstone, and that we together are being built into a spiritual house in line with the Cornerstone. We are priests together on a mission to add more building blocks to the house for your glory. Amen

I Peter, part 3

I Peter 1:10-12

We have here some of the most revealing words written about God's plan for the ages. Peter masterfully sums up what God was doing through the prophets and prophecies, and who the prophets were serving in their ministry.

Peter begins v. 10 with "concerning this salvation" - the salvation he has been explaining in the opening 9 verses. This is the salvation about the wonderful mercy of God, the resurrection of Christ, the living hope that we have as believers because we believe in a living Savior, and even the various trials we need to persevere in so that we may have a faith more precious than gold. Peter informs us that it is this salvation that the prophets had prophesied about so long ago. He does not name any one prophet but lumps them all together, as if to say "Remember all those prophets? Well every one of them were being informed in bits and pieces of the glorious grace that was to come through Someone." Though they did not name Christ as such they knew he was coming, they knew he would suffer and die for our sins, would rise again, and would fulfill many other specific prophecies as well.

Verse 11 tells us that the prophets eagerly inquired (of the Lord, I would imagine) what person this would be and when these things would take place. What anticipation they must have had! O to be one of those fortunate and faithful men, who even though many suffered and died in the service of the Lord were able to get a foretaste of things to come. Here the Holy Spirit is called the Spirit of Christ, which is a wonderful reminder that the Holy Spirit is not some rogue part of the Trinity swooping down at Pentecost in Acts 2 and taking over. He is part of the eternal Triune Godhead, involved in every part of the creation and new creation process. He does not operate on his own, but points us to Christ and is thus the very Spirit of Christ. He is the one who witnessed to the prophets, who inspired every word in the entire Book.

Verse 12 is a verse that everyone needs to memorize... and if not memorize word for word, at least become intimately familiar with the key ideas. The prophets were told that they, who lived thousands of years ago, were not serving themselves but US! Now of course, Peter is writing to a group of people here. However he is writing to a scattered and general group of people, and this is most certainly still true today. The "you" in the text is not so much specific people, but A Specific People, if you will, the people of God. The prophets were aware that they were involved in something much greater than themselves, something that would not come to pass in their lifetime even, and yet they gladly pressed in to the Holy Spirit and shared what they received from Him. So, how did they serve us? They served us by foretelling what would come to pass in Christ, namely the "things that have now been announced to you through those who preached the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven." We see here that the news continues to spread through word of mouth, through preaching.

Preaching is under suspicion in many circles today, and partially for good reason. Many preachers have abused their positions of authority, manipulated and maligned the word of God, and had self-serving goals in the pulpit. However, the perversion of some preachers does not mean that the concept of preaching is to blame! Preaching is simply proclaiming the good news of Jesus Christ, the news that He is the Savior of the world, the One who came from Heaven, died for our sins, rose for our new life, and the One who will return to judge the living and the dead. Preaching happens when we instruct, from God's Word, others to follow Jesus Christ - his example, his teachings, his heart. Preaching is still a primary tool God uses to bring people to a saving knowledge of him. Many preachers do not preach in the biblical sense, but have made it a time for counseling sessions, nice anecdotes and self-exaltation. They will be judged harshly for this, but let us not think God does not still use preaching in mighty ways today.

Finally, this news, this GOOD NEWS about Jesus Christ which the prophets of old had some knowledge of and we now have a fuller picture of on this side of the cross, this is something into which "angels long to look". This blows my mind! Angelic creatures who serve God faithfully, who worship him constantly, are floored at the concept of God rescuing sinners. Think about it though: there are many fallen angels which we call demons, who denied God's authority and sought their own. They have been judged by God already and will be finally judged forever with Satan on the last day. However, us humans, who also deny God's authority and even his very existence (which, James tells us, even demons don't do!), God has pursued, died for, and saved?!?! This is truly magnificent, altogether mysterious and head-scratching to angels looking into it. The Gospel of Jesus Christ needs to be dwelt upon more frequently, more deeply, and it needs to cause us to be in awe of God, as the angels are. We so frequently and so foolishly believe we have it all down, and perhaps this is in part because we have so simplified it that it fits onto small brochures we can pass out to people. But angels are still longing to look into the Gospel, still awe-struck at the God of the universe for doing this. We too need hearts full of wonder at God's merciful dealings with us.

I Peter, part 2

I Peter 1:6-9

We pick up with Peter's flow of thought from v. 3-10. He tells his readers in v. 6, "in this you rejoice..." They rejoice in God's mercy (v. 3) expressed through Jesus Christ and the living hope they have because Jesus is alive. In short, Peter is confident they are rejoicing in God. It makes me think, what am I most joyful for? What do I rejoice IN? The answer is easily found when trials come your way. In fact this is Peter's next thought in v. 6-7, what happens in trials. The thing I most rejoice in is revealed when trials come. Joy is robbed if your have been rejoicing (taking the greatest joy) in anything but God. Because everything else people hope for outside of God can die, break, betray you, hurt you, and so on - thus stealing our joy. Peter's readers rejoice not in themselves, their talents, their money, their spouse, children, job, hobbies, none of that. They are rejoicing in what God has done for them through Christ, because of His great mercy.

Peter introduces an idea common in the Bible in v. 7: trials are good for us as Christians. This is completely antithetical to the notion that many of us have about trials, whether we are Christians or not. We think in terms of what's "fair" or "unfair" and we base that, really, on a very Karmic idea of the world. We hope that if we do more good than bad, then more good should come back to us. And we think (even if we wouldn't admit it) that if something bad happens to us, then we are being punished - either by God himself or just by karma for something bad we must have done. What a horrible, satanic, dreadful way to live! Though God has instituted some level of cause and effect in the universe, it is not the ultimate reason for everything that happens to us. God allows, dare I say brings about, some difficulties into our lives to test the genuineness of our faith and grow us in maturity. Here testing of faith is equated to the heat that even gold can be destroyed in. But the only thing heat will do to true faith is make it more pure. It is not the heat that makes the faith, but it's the heat (trials, difficulties, suffering of many kinds) that shows our faith and purifies it.

The result of these necessary trials in our lives? "Praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ." Is your faith honorable? Is mine? This is a difficult question for me to face for I fear the answer is "no, actually, it's not". My faith wanes quickly. I want a deeper knowledge of God and deeper faith in Him. I want my faith to be honorable and praiseworthy when Christ returns and restores all things. But that's why God has given me TODAY - to take one step closer to Him, to choose Him over everything else that is vying for my attention, that clamors and claws its way into my heart. Oh Lord, may my heart grow deeper in faith!

Verse 8 is seriously an incredible verse. Remember who is writing this. We are reading a letter from Peter... the same Peter that denied Christ three times, the same Peter Jesus asked three times "do you love me" and the same Peter who was there when Jesus said "Blessed are those who have not seen and who have believed" to doubting Thomas (John 20:29). So, now read v. 8 again - Though you have not seen him, you love him! Peter saw him and Jesus wanted to make sure he loved him. I sense Peter applauding the faith of his readers, who have believed and love Jesus without seeing him (they're probably one generation after Jesus, in contact with people like Peter who DID see him). Not only that, but they rejoice in Christ with a joy that is "inexpressible and full of glory". The idea of a joy filled with glory is mind boggling to me. I'm not sure if I get it, and I definitely don't sense that this is my kind of joy... not yet at least. Christians alone can have a glory-filled joy - a weighty, beautiful, meaningful, full-of-truth kind of joy that nothing else in the universe produces outside of God himself. A joy that cannot be stolen, that is inexpressible - words cannot fully convey the glory of knowing the glorious One who made you and saved you.

What is the result of all this? Of this faith and love? Of these trials that are necessary for our good? Of this great mercy of God and this living hope? The salvation of our souls, that's what. Our belief, or faith (they seem interchangeable here), results in salvation. It results in the forgiveness of sin, the payment Christ made on the cross being credited to you as if you had paid it, and in receiving His righteousness as if you earned it. But you didn't. You (hopefully) simply believed the great news of Jesus Christ. You received as truth that could save your souls the news of who He is, what He did, and that He lives today and will one day complete everything that has been begun. What a glorious Savior. As we'll see next in v. 10-12, this was God's plan all along.

I Peter, part 1

I've been inconsistent at this whole blogging thing for the past few weeks. It's not that I don't have anything to write, but I guess I lack some motivation when every piece that I write is isolated. For some reason I feel like I need something to start and finish instead of just put random thoughts down. So I decided I am going to blog through I Peter. This is for two simple reasons: First, I love the books of I and II Peter. Secondly, I have been working my way through the New Testament for a while and just started I Peter a few days ago... yes, it's really that simple. The blogs will honestly be more for me than for anyone reading them (if anyone does). I want it to be theological and devotional at the same time. I think it will be beneficial in my walk with the Lord to have a place to put my thoughts in paragraph form (I have a notebook I jot stuff down it but it's bits and pieces of what I think about). So, let's get to work.

I Peter 1:1-5

Peter starts off by naming himself as an apostle of Jesus Christ. He knows who he is and what he has been called to do by the Lord. As soon as Jesus had ascended back into heaven, he took on his role and was instrumental at Pentecost and in Acts 10 when the Holy Spirit came in power to Gentiles as well. He was not without his faults even in this role - one such example is the racism he showed against Gentiles, which is mentioned in Galatians 2 and for which it seems he repented of. Paul is writing to Christians all over the place. This seems important because it does not get specific like Paul normally did when he wrote to a person (like Timothy) or a church with issues that he addressed (like Galatians, Corinthians, etc.). One thing I was not aware of, which my ESV study Bible points out, is that Peter is writing primarily to Gentiles. This is peculiar because he uses the word "dispersion", which was a normal reference to scattered Jews in the Old Testament, as well as the dispersion of Jewish Christians due to persecution in Acts. But the cities he references are Gentile (to the Jews, Gentile means any non-Jew) and point therefore to the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit to spread the news about Jesus far beyond Jewish borders. Peter has a pastoral heart to encourage these Christians and teach them the Gospel.

Verse 2 blows me away. Few verses have as clear a witness to the Trinity as this verse does. God the Father is mentioned as the One with foreknowledge of his elect people, God the Holy Spirit is said to be sanctifying the believers, and God the Son is the One we are to obey (as the Spirit sanctifies/matures us to do so) and the one who has sprinkled us with his blood. The sprinkling with blood is a reference to the new covenant we have with God through Jesus Christ. In the old covenant, blood was shed and sprinkled in several places around the altar, and even on the people, symbolizing their union with God as His people. Now, the new covenant has been inaugurated, the Lamb of God has come to make a permanent sacrifice, and we are symbolically sprinkled with his blood through faith in Christ, thus becoming God's people. Again, the fact that this is a Jewish guy (Peter) writing to a non-Jewish audience is critical because Peter uses a Jewish reference point (sprinkling with blood) to describe what has happened to them. Here he is clearly indicating that we are all God's people through Jesus Christ, and this is not a primarily Jewish privilege any longer.

The Trinity seriously hurts my mind to even think about. But as a quick side note I did hear a very interesting thought on the Trinity from Tim Keller. He was giving Augustine's take on the Trinity and basically said Augustine is the one from whom most well known arguments about the Trinity have come from throughout history (Augustine lived in the 5th century). Not that Augustine had everything right, but this may be helpful. Here's how the thought goes: if there is no God at all, then chaos rules the universe. If there is a uni-personal God, all by Himself, then power dominates the universe over love because love cannot exist outside of relationship. But if there is a Triune God, each being distinct yet still one God, then loving community is the basis of everything in the universe, for it existed before humans ever came into the world. Interesting idea to me.

Verses 3-5 include an opening statement of praise to God then one long run-on sentence about what God has done. I love long run-on sentences because I'm not allowed to do them in our grammar system, but they show one complete thought in the Scriptures. Verse numbers sometimes get in the way of this and even do damage to the over-arching thought because people will start from a verse that is not the beginning of the sentence, and thus may get an incomplete picture of what is being said. One thing that strikes me here is that the cross is not mentioned here directly - the death of Christ briefly is but the main focal point is what the resurrection of Jesus Christ has accomplished for us. It seems to me that Christians, myself included, spend a great deal of time understanding the cross - why Christ went to it, what was accomplished on it, and so on (which is very, very important to understand) - yet they don't think much about the resurrection. But as Paul said in I Corinthians 15, the whole message of Christianity falls apart if Christ isn't alive. Peter says in verse 3 that we are "born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead". It is not the death of Christ that gives us this hope, but the FACT that Christ is alive! We have a living hope because our Savior is a living Savior. We have an eternal hope because our God is eternally alive. A dead Savior is no Savior at all. We are also promised an inheritance that will never fade, be defiled, or perish under any circumstances. It is "kept in Heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time" (v. 5). How sweet is that! It's not our faith that guards our inheritance in Heaven (as if it were up to us to keep or lose it!), but it is guarded by God's power. Faith is important because this happens through faith, but it seems to me here that even this faith is held by God's power.

The opening thoughts of Peter describe the glorious Gospel through which we are saved. It is not only for Jews but for the whole world, as God is the one, true God of the universe. Salvation is a triune effort from beginning to end, and we are also held by God's power through faith, by the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit for all eternity. This will all be finally revealed "in the last time". At the end of history, God will fully unveil his sovereign plan and bring us into eternal dwelling with Him. It will be unlike and exceedingly better than anything we could possibly imagine!

I Hate The Fall

I hate the fall. And no, I don't mean the fall that we are entering into right now. I don't hate the leaves changing colors and the air cooling down. I don't hate the rain or the wind or any of that. In fact I very much love the fall season. I love the crisp air, I love how hot drinks make you feel on a cool day, I love turning on the fire place (I have a gas fire place, unfortunately), and I love hearing the pitter-patter of the rain on the roof and the street. Yes, all of that is great. But, I really do hate the FALL.

To alleviate any confusion, I'm talking about the fall of mankind. That's the fall I hate. I woke up this morning thinking about it because I woke up with a sore throat. And I knew it was coming is the worst part. Yesterday morning I woke up with just a little something "extra", if you will, in my throat and I knew what was coming. To be sure, people are suffering much more than me at this moment, but getting even a little bit sick reminds me that my body is decaying. I'm 25 years old, which puts me squarely in the generation who still avoids thinking about death and acts like they aren't getting older. But I am thinking about it. How did we get here?

We got here because mankind has perverted our created intent, rebelled against our glorious Creator, and have been put under a curse as a result. This is commonly called "the fall" and we need to learn to attribute much more to it than we do. Yet most people, including many in the academic sphere, avoid admitting we are all fallen and the world is under a curse. We want to believe mankind can fix themselves, that if we just get more education we will be o.k., or if we get more funding in the ghettos to clean up the streets, or more cops in bad neighborhoods, and so on, that we can save the world. But if we look at history just for a few moments, we will see nothing we have tried has worked. The truth is, we need a Savior. We need Someone who can change us, Someone who can identify with our troubles, temptations, and humanity and yet Someone who is altogether different from us.

The Someone we need is Jesus Christ. Jesus is the One who came from Heaven, came to a fallen and broken world, and died for it. He died and rose so that we might die to sin and live with and for Him forever. He didn't become fallen, but He came for the fallen world. For some crazy reason, the God of the universe, the very God who has laid a curse on this world (because He is just and must punish sin), has also loved it so much that He sent His Son (because He is merciful), Jesus, to bear the weight of the curse so that we would could come to know Him, love Him, and start returning to our created intent and be in relationship with Him (redemption). The story continues... the fall is still upon us, the consequences of our sin (sickness and death especially) are all around us, and yet our hearts and minds are changed because God has revealed His truth to us. We can now live as lights in the world as a witness to his love and truth, even in the midst of this fallen world. And we are promised that the world will, ultimately, be "re-created" - renewed by its Maker to its perfect, original place to be enjoyed by all those who know and love Him. No, we will not be chubby angels on clouds, nor will we just "sing of His love forever". I'm sure we will sing - but we will eat, dance, drink, love, laugh, and enjoy eternity with God and experience indescribable glory forever.

Yes, I hate the fall. I really hate sore throats, disease, cancer, death, accidents where children get killed, the fact that mental and physical disabilities exist (though God can, and does, redeem people with them and use them mightily for his glory), and so much more. Yet when I am reminded that the fall is not final, it is temporary and will be removed, and the curse will be lifted, I am filled with hope and joy. Christ is my Savior, my Lord, my King, my Friend, my Advocate, and so much more. The Holy Spirit lives in me to point me to Christ, teaches me about my fallen state but also about His transforming power, and works through me. The Father and all His perfection is my future.

For the record, I didn't think about ALL of this at 5:30 a.m. today... it sort of just came to me as I wrote.

Can verses become "too familiar"?

I've been thinking lately about some of the most well known verses in the Bible, and wondering whether or not some of them become too familiar to us and therefore lose significance. Many verses could be mentioned, but the one that comes to mind is Proverbs 3:5-6. In case you don't have it memorized (shame on you! Just kidding), it says, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him and he will make straight your paths." This is one of the verses we will be using tomorrow night for youth group, particularly trying to answer the question "how do I know when I'm actually spending time with God?" My thesis if you will is that simply activities such as reading the Bible, going to church, going to youth group, and other activities do not guarantee that you are spending time with God. Basically, the simple formula "reading the Bible = spending time with God" is not always true.

For me, Proverbs 3:5-6 is helpful in answering the question about spending time with God. I believe it sheds some light on the issue, namely that if reading the Bible doesn't always equate to time spent with God, trusting in God with all my heart and acknowledging him in all of my life does indicate I'm spending time with him. And if that is the case, then it can often be that the "less spiritual" things like going to school, doing homework, going to work, eating a meal, exercising, and so on can indeed be times spent with the Lord. It seems to me that Christians do a great disservice when we believe (or teach!) that the spiritual things are prayer, solitude, studying the Bible, and church attendance and other things mentioned above are not-so-spiritual. In the end, God is with us at all times by the Holy Spirit living in us, and therefore we are always spending time with God; or, at the very least every activity can be spending time with God if we are trusting in him and acknowledging him in our lives.

What other verses are "all too common" verses for us today? How can another look at them help us grow in our walk with Christ?

Money and Christianity

My wife and I have been taking part in a very interesting 13 week seminar by a man named Dave Ramsey. Dave is a well known author and speaker, and is a Christian man. The seminar is called "Financial Peace University" and is set up so that a group of people get together once a week, watch a video lecture for about an hour, and then discuss it together. We've been doing it for four weeks now and have really enjoyed it. While not all of the topics he goes through are immediately important to us, they almost all will be sooner or later. From savings to investing, from dumping debt to learning how to invest, he covers it all.

The reason I bring this up is this: it seems to me that within the Christian community and the history of our faith, opinions about money have been as different as people's opinions on whether or not Michael Jordan is the best basketball player of all time (for the record, he most certainly is). What I mean is that some people take verses of the Bible and use it to defend saving your money, leaving an inheritance for your kids, saving for retirement, investing, and so on. And then others take verses from the Bible and use it to say that we should give all our money away, keep as little as possible for ourselves, trust that God will sustain us and that we don't need a whole lot in savings and on and on. To be honest, it sort of makes my head hurt just thinking about it. Dave Ramsey uses the Bible quite a bit when giving financial principles - the interesting thing is, it seems like they are literally ALL out of Proverbs. Then other people never use Proverbs and only use certain things Jesus said about money, which may or may not even be relevant to the financial principle they are trying to make.

I don't have some grand way of wrapping this up, other than to say I'd be interested in your opinions and comments if you have any. What have you heard about money and principles about finances that you liked or didn't like? Do you understand the tension that I'm speaking of in this blog or does it seem to come from nowhere? One more thing... I Timothy 6:9 says "But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction." What sort of ruin and destruction have you seen come with the ungodly "desire for riches" that Paul speaks about - either in your personal life, the lives of those you love, or by observation of our culture.

Soli Gloria Deo

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