Tag Archives: 1 Peter 2

Daily Bible Study

December 22, 2023 Bible Study — Living Good Lives

Today, I am reading and commenting on  1 Peter 1-5.

Twice in this letter Peter tells us to be alert and sober.  I think by this he means “straightforward and serious; not exaggerated, emotional, or silly.”  I do not believe that Peter means by that that we can never exaggerate, or be emotional, or even never be silly.  I believe he means that when we exaggerate, we make sure that people understand that we are exaggerating, when we are emotional it is controlled and appropriate, and when we are silly, we do so consciously and with boundaries.  We should remain alert in order that we may observe the things for which we should pray.   Additionally, Peter tells us that we should remain alert and sober since we were redeemed from an empty way of life by Christ’s sacrifice on our behalf.

Therefore, we should allow ourselves to be purified by obeying the Truth which God has given us.  The result of doing so will be love for one another.  In order to be purified we must rid ourselves of all malice and deceit.  Of course that makes sense because we cannot love others if our interactions with them involve malice and/or deceit.  Peter goes on to warn us that evil desires wage war against our souls, we damage ourselves when we give in to evil desires and commit sins.  For this reason, Peter tells us to abstain from evil desires.  We should live such good lives that, even though they will accuse us of wrongdoing for not supporting and behaving according to their depraved ideals, the nonbelievers around us will glorify God.

 

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Daily Bible Study

December 22, 2022 Bible Study — Live So That Those Who Hate Us Cannot Help But Praise God

Today, I am reading and commenting on  1 Peter 1-5.

Peter repeatedly writes that we should live such good lives that those who hate us because of our faith will have nothing with which to accuse us except lies.  As part of that we should submit to government authorities and do good so as to silence those who claim that Christianity is evil.  When others do us wrong, seek ways to repay them by doing good to them, when they insult us, let us seek to speak good about them.  Let us live lives so that when we suffer at the hands of others, those who witness it will see it as unjustified.  If we do the good to which God calls us, we need not fear attack.  And if someone does attack us, we can rejoice in being counted worthy to suffer as Christ suffered.  We live among those who live lives of reckless, wild living, who will make fun of us for not joining them in such behavior.

I find myself continuing to write more because I cannot get the words to express the thoughts I am having, so I am going to stop here.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Daily Bible Study

December 22, 2021 Bible Study — Repay Evil With Blessing

Today, I am reading and commenting on  1 Peter 1-5.

Peter begins his letter by reminding us that God has chosen to give us an inheritance in His estate which will last in value for eternity.  This separates it from anything on this earth, because everything on this earth will eventually become of no value.  We may suffer now, in fact Peter writes that we probably will, but that which God has given us cannot be taken from us by those who persecute us.  So, because we have such an inheritance we should be holy, just as Jesus is holy.  Peter does not just tell us to be holy, he tells us what he means when he says that.  He writes that we should rid ourselves of malice and deceit, hypocrisy, envy and slander.  We should respond to evil with evil, or insult with insult.  Instead we should strive to bring a blessing on those who do evil to us, and build up those who insult us.  Peter writes that suffering will come upon us, let us live so that the suffering results from the good we have done, rather than from wickedness which deserves to suffer.  Let us love one another and offer hospitality to those around us.  If we suffer for being a Christian, let us praise God that we are counted worthy to share Christ’s suffering.  If we prosper in this world let us seek out how we can serve others as a result.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Daily Bible Study

December 22, 2020 Bible Study Living Our Lives So As To Embarrass Those Who Malign Christ’s Followers

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on 1 Peter 1-5.

Peter warns us that we will face trials and suffering for our faith.  However, these trials and suffering will bring us great joy if we remain strong in our faith.  Later in this letter, Peter tells us that when we suffer for following Christ that suffering will remove from us the wish to satisfy our own desires and instead make us anxious to do the will of God.  Peter tells us to live such lives that when people malign us they will be embarrassed by our behavior.  By that he means that we must be done with deceit, hypocrisy, and unkind speech.  IF we live such lives, those who seek to portray us as hateful bigoted people will have their claims rejected by those who know us.

Some time back, my wife was unhappy about the negative things which our nonbeliever friends said about Christians.  She felt like the terrible things which others who claimed to be Christians did made our friends think badly about us.  It occurred to me that when our friends said these things they did not think about the fact that we were Christians.  So, I told her that the next time one of them expressed opinions about how terrible Christians were, she should apologize for behaving in that manner.  The thing is, many of our nonbeliever friends don’t actually know any other people who openly profess to be Christians (or, if they do, they do not think about them as Christians any more than they think about us that way, because, you know, Christians are all hateful people and those people aren’t hateful).  Sure enough, when my wife did that, our friends said, “Oh no, I didn’t mean you.”  To which my wife replied, “Who else do you know whose a Christian?”  My wife and I are definitely less than the ideal people of faith, but we had behaved as Peter recommends in the presence of these friends (or, at least, my wife had).

Daily Bible Study

December 22, 2019 Bible Study — Remaining Faithful In the Face of Suffering

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on 1 Peter 1-5

In this letter Peter has several themes he returns to again and again.  I believe he he does this because these ideas are intertwined with each other.  He primarily focuses on doing good and publicly acknowledging Christ even when it means suffering.  In fact, he writes that doing good and publicly acknowledging Christ will lead to suffering, at the very least in the form of ridicule.  In addition Peter emphasizes the importance of loving one another and having humility.  These latter are the primary expression of what Peter means by “doing good”.  It would be easy when reading this letter to think doing good for our fellow believers would satisfy what Peter means when he writes that we should “lone one another”.  However, we should remember that Jesus told the story of the Good Samaritan in response to the question, “Who is my neighbor?”

Daily Bible Study

December 22, 2018 Bible Study — Living Holy lives means loving those around us

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on 1 Peter 1-5.

As I started this letter from Peter I was struck by the contrast with the one from James I read yesterday. James built a logical case for why we should behave as God wills. Peter, on the other hand, takes a different approach and focuses on applying God’s love in our lives. Because God has shown His love to us we should love those we encounter. That means getting rid of evil behavior: deceit, jealousy, hypocrisy, and unkind speech.

Peter goes on to tell us to respect those in authority, in fact, he tells us to respect everyone. We should show this respect even when people insult us and mistreat us for doing good. Let us live our lives so that those who accuse us of wrongdoing will be shown to be liars and frauds. IF we always do the right thing, the godly thing, there are those who will persecute us and mistreat us. We should rejoice when that happens because similar, even worse, things were done to Christ. If we continue to do what is right, even when we suffer for it, we will provide a compelling witness for the Gospel message. Peter stresses that suffering in and of itself is not a good thing. If we suffer for doing wrong, there is no redeeming feature to the suffering (except possibly that it inspires us not to do wrong again). Our joy in suffering should not lead us to do wrong in order to suffer more. It would be easy to read Peter as suggesting that we should seek suffering, but I believe he is not saying that. He is telling us to do what is right, even if that means suffering. He goes a little further than that. I am going to step a little bit out of what I am sure of here. Peter tells us that if we have two courses of action which both seem right, but one of them will lead to our suffering, we should probably choose that one.

Daily Bible Study

December 22, 2017 Bible Study — Living Our Lives To Contradict The Bad Things People Believe About Christians

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on 1 Peter 1-5.

    This is the third day in a row where the passage instructs us to rejoice in the suffering we experience. However, we should strive not to do anything which would justify that suffering. The suffering we should seek is the suffering for doing good. We should be proud to suffer for doing good. There is nothing to our credit if we suffer for doing wrong, but if we suffer for doing good we are to be commended. Peter connects his instruction to rejoice in our suffering to his further instructions for us to live holy lives. The process for living such lives is to live sober lives, ridding ourselves of malice and deceit. When Peter says that we should remain sober, I do not think that he is referring to abstinence from alcohol (although I do not believe he would condone getting drunk either). Rather he is referring to not becoming irrationally exuberant. On the other hand, I do not believe that he means for us to be somber, considering that he just wrote that we should rejoice.

    Once more I struggle with the transition to the next thing I want to write about. Peter writes that we should live such good lives among the non-believers around us that, despite the fact that they will accuse us of wrongdoing, they will see our good deeds and glorify God. At least part of this applies to something I started advising my wife to do several years ago. I told her that when our non-Christian friends complained about the terrible things Christians do and say, she should say she was sorry, she hadn’t realized she was doing that. Her response was that they would say, “Oh not you, but other Christians are like that.” I pointed out to her, and told her to point out to them, the two of us are the only Christians most of those friends associate with. If we are not acting in those terrible ways, just exactly who is? My point here is that you are likely the only Christian, or one of only a very few Christians, your non-believer associates actually know. Peter is telling us to live our lives so that, when the time is right, we can ask them who do they trust more, the total stranger who is telling them how terrible Christians they have never met are, or their own judgment?