Monday, October 12 –
It’s Monday and we continue our reading thru the New
Testament in a year. Our reading today
is from 1 Peter 2:4 – 3:7. Please come back here after you’ve finished your
reading.
The first part of 1 Peter proclaimed the joy of salvation through Christ
Jesus. Now, this next follows with an appeal
to make Christ’s life make a difference in our lives. Most of what he writes about in this section
has to do with humility – not a humility based on weakness, but a humility
modeled after Jesus, who “who, though he was in the form of God, did not
count equality with God a thing to be grasped” (Philippians 2:6). There is a bit uncertainty of when Peter
wrote this, but we must remember that he, like Paul, was arrested and taken to
Rome, and also was executed because he was a Christian leader. It is with this in mind that we begin to
understand Peter’s call to see life through the lens of faith in Christ Jesus,
the cornerstone of the church – the body of Christ.
“As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but
in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones
are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer
spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For it
stands in Scripture: ‘Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen
and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.’ So
the honor is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe, ‘The stone
that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone,’ and ‘A stone of
stumbling, and a rock of offense.’ They stumble because they disobey the word,
as they were destined to do” (2:4-8).
Christ is a “living stone”, a cornerstone of the church. We as the people of Christ are “like living
stones” because of our union with Christ.
The house he speaks of looks backward to the Temple as the dwelling
place of God. In the Temple, Priests
were appointed to serve as mediators between God and the people, but Peter sees
all believers as a “royal priesthood”.
Although many do not see Christ this way, he is a cornerstone for the
church and a stumbling stone for those who reject Him.
The teaching of a “Priesthood of all believers” was one of
the main recovered teachings of the Reformation leaders. Martin Luther said – against the Roman
Catholic hierarchy of priests and Popes – that Christ’s true followers are a
“priesthood of all believers”.
“But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy
nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies
of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you
were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy,
but now you have received mercy. Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and
exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your
soul. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they
speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on
the day of visitation” (2:9-12).
The church should not be thought of as a “new idea” from the
standpoint of God’s purposes. The Old
Testament priesthood served the purposes of God until Christ Jesus came. After Christ’s death, resurrection, and
ascension, the Priesthood was no longer based in the Temple, but in heaven
where Jesus Christ reigns over the church as a High Priest over a new
priesthood. In that sense, Israel of the
Old Testament continues in the Church of the New Covenant. As Christ’s Priesthood the contrast to the
world of those who do not confess Christ as Lord is clear. We who belong to Christ should live with a
sense of our holy calling as a priesthood of Christ’s people. Peter writes of believers as sojourners – a
word that implies a person living in a place for a short time without settling
down. He also calls us exiles – i.e., living
in a place that is not their home. So,
we live with an awareness that our conduct matters. “Once we were not the people of God, but
now – because of God’s mercy and grace – we are the people of God” (my
paraphrase of 2:10).
It’s at this point that Peter drives the application of our
identity – who we are – as God’s people, to live in submission to a land, and
people, who we serve. Beginning in 2:13
through 3:6, this theme dominates. We
learn to live humbly primarily through submission. It’s a subject that is hard to teach and
understand, in our culture of ‘rights’.
Our nation values individuality and the “rights” accorded to us in a
democratic society. The first-century
church grew out of an autocratic culture.
Rome’s emperor was a dictator, and quite often a cruel one! The governors of Rome’s provinces were given
a similar measure of autocracy in their rule and they also often became cruel
in their response to Christians who did not embrace the Roman culture. In 2:11 – 17, Peter calls the believers
scattered across the Empire to submit…do good …live free, but not to do
evil…live as servants of God! He sums
it up in verse 17 – “Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor
the emperor” (2:17). The fact that
he says “honor everyone, including the Emperor” is beyond the scope of
our modern world’s ability to agree with unless we believe that Scripture is
correct, and our rights-orientation is not.
The idea of “honoring” a politician we disagree with is a spiritual
action that very few Christians, that I know, practice. Yet, it is the act of submission to
authorities that helps us keep our focus as sojourners.
The humility of a sojourner is that this isn’t my world, so
I must be a servant, not a master. In
2:18 – 25, Peter drives this point home in addressing “servants” (ESV), or
“slaves” (NIV). Again, he reminds them that they need to adopt a posture of
humility in submission to their masters – and not just the good ones. The church was a minority group, it’s Jewish
believers already persecuted by orthodox Jews.
Yet, Peter, Paul also, taught Christians who were slaves to submit, and reciprocally,
taught Christians who were masters, to treat their servants, slaves, with
respect. While the circumstances would
often vary, the fundamental principle for the Christian was not based on how
harsh things might exist: “to this you have been called…leaving you an
example” (2:21) – which means that in suffering we are united with Christ
in his sufferings as well as in his resurrection (John 15:18-20). As Jesus suffered unjustly for us (2:22), without
retaliating, or threats, but instead trusting the Father’s purposes (2:23),
he did so in order to achieve a higher purpose – “He himself bore our sins”
in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for
righteousness; ‘by his wounds you have been healed.’” (2:24). That last
sentence is intriguing. Why did he say,
“For ‘you were like sheep going astray,’ but now you have returned to the
Shepherd and Overseer of your souls” ((2:25)? I believe he’s reminding them that even
though he has called them to humble submission, they have Christ as their
Savior and shepherd…the Bishop of their souls.
Only Peter could remember how he had once denied the Lord Jesus and
swore that he did not know him, yet Jesus had reached out to bring him back after
he had gone astray, and had forgiven him and restored him – a shepherd who
found his lost sheep!
There’s one more part in this call to new life practices in humility
through submission, and it has to do with wives and husbands. As a husband of almost 50 years, and a Pastor
of a church that is more than 50% women, I tread carefully here! I’ll be honest, the first century that Peter
writes in and the 21st century I live in, could not be more
different! Yet, I’ll stick to the
principle, that the issue isn’t primarily cultural, or historical, it’s
biblical. The humility that demonstrates
itself in voluntary submission is what Peter has been teaching since 2:13. He
begins “in the same way”, referring back to the example of Christ who
voluntarily humbled himself, even to the point of death. When he adds, “wives, be submissive”,
he uses the same verb – “hypotasso” – which means “to subject oneself”. The implication goes back to what he had just
written to Christians in relation to governing authorities, and Christians who
were servants, or slaves, under Masters.
It’s clear that many in the early church were women whose husbands were
not Christians.
“Wives, in the same way submit yourselves to your own
husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over
without words by the behavior of their wives” (3:1).
Submission is not an act of inferior people, but one that is
Christ-like in humble trust in God who is greater than the person. Does it mean that a woman is to suspend her
brain and live in an abusive marriage?
Absolutely not! In the Roman
world, a wife was expected to adopt the religion of their husband. The fact that a woman was a Christian and her
husband was not provided a great deal of suspicion in Roman society. Peter appeals to women of non-Christian
husbands to adopt a posture of submission that reflects the inner “purity
and reverence” of their life before God.
In actuality, the appeal to Christian women is not at all unlike like
servants and citizens. All of these, Peter
reminds are humbling submitting because they look beyond those who have
authority and see that they are really serving God.
Peter in this same context adds a command to husbands also
that balance the way in which a husband looks at his wife, and treats her as a
Christian –
“Husbands, in the same way be considerate as you live
with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs
with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers”
(3:7).
A husband is to treat his wife “considerately”, “with
respect”, as “a partner and heir with you of the gift of life”. There is no inequality in a godly
marriage. As a man, husband, and leader,
I see in this passage a greater weight of responsibility on the man in marriage
than we often currently see in distant, busy husbands. What does he mean by speaking of a wife as “the
weaker vessel”? It might be a
reference to physical differences, but it most certainly is not a reference to
spiritual abilities. Passages like this
have the potential for both error and controversy. The rule for interpretation is to enter into
the culture as it existed, and then find the principles that are true still
today. Biblically, humility, submission,
love, trust are not any different today than they were then. Marriage is holy before God, and when done
with the mutuality of love that Scripture speaks of, it will give joy to both
husband and wife. Humble submission
might not be culturally popular, but is “the meek who are blessed, and will
inherit the earth” (Matt. 5)
Peace
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