Daily Meditations on the Bible / We stand with Israel
Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult. On the contrary, repay evil with blessing…
Summary: What is evil? Anything you don’t like might qualify. Peter tells us to respond to things we don’t like with a blessing.
Continue reading “1 Peter 3:9 (a) — Essence of Evil”
… love one another …
Summary: Peter tells us to love one another using a rare word that means ‘brotherly love.’ This kind of love is not caught up in arguments but is the oil on the water that calms arguments. It allows brothers and sisters in the same family to get along.
Continue reading “1 Peter 3:8 (c) — Oil on the Water”
“He himself bore our sins” in his body on the cross…
Experimenting is an age-old way of testing something to see if it is true. For example, when somebody says, “Try this, you’ll like it!” you might believe them or you might not. When I was twelve, my uncle handed me an oyster and gave me that line. It tasted terrible! “Try it again,” he said. I did. It didn’t taste any better the second time. So he took the oyster, tried it, and spit it out. “No wonder,” he said, “it’s rotten!” So I still don’t know if I like oysters or not, but I do know that I don’t like rotten ones.
There is another kind of experiment that can be helpful. It is called a thought experiment. In this kind of experiment, we imagine a situation and then ask ourselves questions about what we see. I think it might be helpful to do an experiment like this to help understand today’s passage.
Continue reading “1 Peter 2:24 (a) — Innocence Found”
Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly.
Who is the “him” who judges justly? And what does it mean to “judge justly?”
I gotta be honest about the “him” part of this. The Bible does not talk about God “judging” a lot. It is mentioned a few times, but the references are oblique for the most part. So if you don’t mind, I am going to fudge a bit on this one.
Continue reading “1 Peter 2:23 (b) — Things in Common”
When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats.
This is a test: Someone you know well is angry and they express that anger by insulting you.
Question: How do you respond?
Our response to this test says a lot about who we are. The same is true for a similar test: How do we respond to suffering at the hands of someone else?
Continue reading “1 Peter 2:23 (a) — This is a Test”
… love the family of believers …
Peter’s theme is submission. He wants us to “submit … for the Lord’s sake.” We are to put ourselves under others in importance. By doing this we lift others up. They become more important in our eyes.
This feels counter-intuitive to our egos. The part of us that stands apart from God does not want to submit. We glory in our independence and our power. We enjoy taking control of our lives and living large. At least as long as things go well.
Continue reading “1 Peter 2:17 (b) — Family Love”
Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
I once attended a church whose pastor was a master storyteller. I have never in my life had the pleasure of being entertained by someone so gifted in making a story come to life. Often, the story illustrated a Bible passage. One Sunday, he told a story about the parable of the wedding banquet from Matthew 22: 1-14.
The story was told in his unusual, vivid style. I remember it to this day. The mental images he conjured in my mind are indelible. Sadly, his telling of the story seemed to muddle the point of the Biblical account.
Continue reading “1 Peter 2:10 — Party Clothes”
…offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
This may be one of the most important verses in the Bible. Oh, I know…it looks benign. You can read it and think, “Nice verse…” and go on with your reading. But when I look at this verse I see all the threads in the Bible coming together into one place.
I can guess what you are thinking. You are probably thinking, “Okay, Jeff. Go ahead. Show me how this ties together all the threads in the Bible. But remember, this is ThreeMinuteBible.com, not TwentyYearBible.com, okay?” Okay. Fair enough. Since we are constrained on time, I will use large brush strokes again and see if I can paint a picture of what I see.
Continue reading “1 Peter 2:5 (c) — At the Foot of the Cross”
He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake.
It is hard to know how to approach the text here. We just blasted through two whole verses with a story about a shepherd who was kidnapped to be a slave four millennia ago. We could have taken a week or more to parse those same two verses. Today’s passage is similar. Today’s verse hangs in the sky as if it were a neon sign. Each word is like a beacon of light that illuminates dozens if not hundreds of passages throughout Scripture.
The “He” Peter refers to is Jesus, of course. Peter referred to the “blood of Christ” in the prior verse.
Jesus, he says, was, “…chosen…”
Continue reading “1 Peter 1:20 — Let’s Agree”
For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.
Imagine, if you will, that the year is 1912. BC. Before Christ. It is many years after the flood, and Noah’s family has repopulated the earth. Everyone you know is a relative, but like today, not all the relatives get along.
Tribes have separated and arguments break out. Already some people have turned their backs to God. There is a shortage of manpower and it is not unheard of that one tribe will raid another. Children and women are taken and used as slaves. If the men cannot be subdued, they are killed. Life is hot, difficult, and harsh.
Continue reading “1 Peter 1:18-19 — Many Moons”