Pondering First Peter (3)

 

What do you see in 1 Peter 1:1 – 2:10? What is the story?

 

What do you see about God? The Trinity? The Father? The Son? The Holy Spirit?

 

What do you see about yourself and about the People of God?

 

What are the mysteries? The things that you don’t know, that…at least for now, and maybe forever…are hidden?

 

If 1 Peter 1:1 – 2:10 were a painting in a gallery, how would you describe it?

 

If this passage were a forest, how would you describe it as you walked around it, viewed it from a nearby hill, and as you flew over it in a helicopter?

 

I’m not asking you to describe individual trees, I’m asking you to describe the forest. If we can’t describe the forest, we’ll not see how individual trees contribute to the forest and we will run the danger of making individual trees define the forest…which is what we typically do with the Bible and the books within the Bible.

 

The thing is, when it comes to seeing the forest, is that it takes more than a quick glance to do so. In fact, it takes trip after trip after trip to “see” and soak in the forest – in one sense it takes a lifetime, for what is 1 Peter becomes 1 & 2 Peter, then it becomes the NT Letters, then the entire NT, then elements of what we call the Old Testament, then the entire Old Testament; our vision and understanding keeps expanding as we see Jesus Christ and His People – the glory and texture and wonder are renewed and heightened and our hearts beat more passionately for Him with each day, each step, each breath.

 

Can we see that this forest, this story, begins before the foundation of the world? God’s work in our lives is “according to the foreknowledge of God the Father” (1:2), and Jesus the Lamb “was foreknown before the foundation of the world” (1:20). Can we see that the story, the forest, extends into eternity? For we have “an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you” (1:4).

 

Do we see that our faith and salvation reach back into eternity past and into eternity future and that it has a dynamic present? We see God’s foreknowledge in 1:2; we see the future glory of our salvation in Jesus Christ in 1:7 and 13; and we see our present reception of salvation in 1:9.

 

Can we see the Trinity throughout our passage?

 

Can we see that it is God who works upon us, and that it is not us who work upon God? That is, it is God who brings about our total and complete salvation.

 

It is God’s foreknowledge (1:2). It is the sanctifying work of the Spirit (1:2). It is God the Father who causes us to be born again (1:3). It is the power of God that protects us (1:5). It is the blood of the Lamb that redeemed us (1:18 – 19). We have been born again by the Word of God (1:23).

 

If 1 Peter 1:1 – 2:10 were a tapestry, what would you see? How would you describe it? What threads and images and motifs would you see running through it? If we were to see a tapestry depicting this passage, would we say, “These images depict the story of 1 Peter 1:1 – 20”?

 

It is possible to memorize a verse or a passage of Scripture and not “see” it, not understand it. In fact, to memorize a passage of Scripture, to memorize many passages of Scripture, without seeing those passages in their respective contexts, can be a path to spiritual blindness and self-deception. The Pharisees knew the words of Scripture, but they did not know the Word contained in Scripture. Paul reminds us that though the prophets were read every Sabbath, that the rulers and people of Jerusalem recognized “neither Him [Jesus] nor the voices of the prophets” (Acts 13:27).

 

I am learning things all the time that I wish I had known earlier in my life in Christ – what about you? How is it that men and women, generally well – meaning and intelligent, can go to “church” all their lives and reach the final season of life and not know much more about the Bible and a relationship with Jesus Christ than they did when they were in their twenties? How is it that they will accept dumbed – down Bible studies and Sunday school curricula, and be typically unable to open the Bible with other brothers and sisters and read it, share it, and experience it in Jesus Christ – building one another up, edifying one another, in the Holy Trinity?  

 

Why don’t we have the courage to admit that something is wrong, something is terribly wrong? This is a collective failure.

 

The initial challenge in just about every small group or Sunday school class I’ve ever participated in is to “stay in the Biblical text, to work through the Biblical text, to allow the text to work through us, and to obediently respond to the text.” We have attention spans shorter than a two-year old’s, we want to give our opinions, we want to judge the Bible and force the Bible to submit to us. Jesus Christ is knocking at the door of our hearts in His Word and we have the music up so loud in our lives that we can’t hear Him.

 

Let me tell you what would likely happen with 1 Peter 1:1 – 2:10 in a small group. We would read the entire passage but few, if any, would pay much attention to what we read because they would be fixated on these words in 1:1 – 2, “…who are chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father.” (See also Ephesians 1:4 and Romans 8:28 – 30). In other words, most people in a group would see this unusual and mysterious tree in the forest and they would miss the beauty of the forest because of their fixation on this one tree. Instead of seeing this tree’s relationship with the other trees, most people would be fixated on how this tree got to be in the forest.

 

We would have endless discussions about predestination and election, and we’d rationalize this and that and fall back on preconceived notions and things we’d read or heard and we’d become like a room full of puppies chasing our own tails. We’d do this instead of being in awe and wonder of our God and His works and His amazing love for us; instead of rejoicing in His knowing us and choosing us and desiring us to be His sons and daughters in Jesus Christ, we would spout our speculations. I can write this confidently because I’ve seen groups get sidetracked over much less – otherwise intelligent people no longer seem to be able to focus on the text and to submit themselves to the Word of God. The reasons for this are myriad, and it is getting worse.

 

Let 1 Peter 1:1 – 2:10 soak into the pores of your skin, let it fill your heart and mind, ask the Lord Jesus how He is calling you to see and understand and obey this passage; ask Him to reveal Himself to you through this passage. This means reading the passage, and reading it again, and again, and again. It means pondering the passage, meditating on it, ruminating on it – breathing it in and out. It means knowing the furniture in the passage the way you know the furniture in your own home, knowing it so well that at night you don’t need to turn the light on to walk through the room…and after all, this is the way we are called to know the Bible, the Word of God.

Pondering First Peter (2)

 

“Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who reside as aliens…”

 

I am amazed at how little we consider the question, “Who were the writers of the New Testament letters writing to?” This is such a foundational question that if we don’t know the answer we will not know how to read these letters, and it is, in some measure, because we don’t ask the question and answer it correctly that we misread much of the New Testament. Well – meaning Christian leaders woefully lead their people astray by not submitting themselves to the clear Biblical answer to the question, “Who were the writers of the New Testament letters writing to?” This is a tragedy of the first order for it enslaves the People of God by shackling them with the identity of slavery to sin rather than affirming their true identity as the holy sons and daughters of the Living God in Jesus Christ. (Romans 6:8 – 11; 8:12 – 39).

 

Consider Peter’s affirmations in 1 Peter 1:1 – 9, ponder the assurances that the apostle gives to his readers. How many do you see? How many more do you see as you continue to read through 2:10? Why O why would we want to rob our brothers and sisters of their glorious inheritance and identity in Jesus Christ? Why would we want to rob ourselves of our collective identity as God’s holy priesthood, His Living Temple (see also Ephesians 2:19 – 22), His Holy Nation, God’s own possession?

 

Are we residing as aliens? In 2:11 Peter also writes, “Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers…” Is this our mindset? Are we on pilgrimage? Are we on a journey from here to There? Are we passing through this life and its surroundings to our eternal Destination in Jesus Christ?

 

In Hebrews 11:8 we read that Abraham “by faith” lived “as an alien,” and that our forefathers (11:13 – 14) “confessed that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For those who say such things make it clear that they are seeking a country of their own.”

 

Are we “making it clear” to those around us that we are “looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God”? (Hebrews 11:10). When people see us, when they come to know us, do they identify us as tourists who are passing through this life?

 

Now when I write “tourists” I mean it only in the sense of passing through, of this world not being our home; I do not mean it in the sense of leisure (though we do rest in God). For we are on mission to those around us with the love and grace of Jesus Christ; we are called to serve our generation with the Word of the Gospel and the works of God – not living for ourselves but for Christ and others.

 

The thing about tourists is that you can often recognize them, which is why I’m using the word right now as an illustration. Living in the Boston area, I often saw tourists – they had cameras and maps. Growing up in the Washington, D.C. area and frequenting its many galleries and museums, I saw tourists; they were often in groups, having cameras and maps. Tourists can have a distinctive look about them which locals easily identify. As God’s People, do we have a distinctive look? Do we have a distinctive speech?

 

Unlike average tourists, we are not here to observe and to be entertained, but to give to others, to leave people and places better than when we arrived. Unlike most tourists, we are not here to take things home with us, but to bring others with us to our heavenly home in Jesus Christ. We are not to be tourists laden down with baggage, but we are to travel light so that we may focus on eternal things, on people – giving ourselves away to others as we breathe the Divine atmosphere of our heavenly home in Christ.

 

As strangers and pilgrims we travel with a heavenly passport in Jesus Christ, knowing that our “citizenship is in heaven” (Phil. 3:20).

 

Why then do we live as if this world were our home? Why do we adopt the identities of this world? Why do we deceive ourselves into thinking that certain nations are the equivalent of the Kingdom of God? Why do we allow ourselves to be manipulated as slaves to the political, social, religious, and economic agendas of this present age?

 

Well…Peter is writing to aliens, to strangers and pilgrims…

 

Am I one of them?

 

Are you?