1Pe 2:2-3 | KingComments | STEP | . This verse connects to the previous section. This is evident from the opening words “therefore, putting aside”. Those words sound like a logical result of what is said earlier. What has to be put aside is all displays of the flesh, the ego, bringing down others in favor of yourself. ‘To put aside’ means to radically and immediately break with these things and in no way allow them to control you again. When Peter appeals to put these things aside it implies that they occur among the readers of his letter and that they can also occur among us. Or don’t you recognize that you can also behave like that at times? It is also not about a display at times on a certain occasion, but it is about “ all malice and “ all deceit” and “ all slander”. 1. How easy do we feel “malice” arise from ourselves for various reasons, 2. how easy do we make use of “deceit”, 3. do we deceive others in various situations and do we pretend ourselves to be better (“hypocrisy”) or 4. do we begrudge others all kinds of things they possess (“envy”). 5. And let us not forget the “slander”. How easy we make ourselves guilty of that in all kinds of conversations. Inwardly distance yourself from it, do not be tempted by it, and condemn it immediately if you feel any of the things Peter mentions arise in you. . Besides these things seriously damage the relations among believers, they are also great hindrances for the spiritual growth. Peter speaks next about this. If you are born again you have new life. That life longs for food, just like a newborn baby longs for it. You do not have to encourage a baby to drink. He naturally gives a sign for that. The food of a believer is the “pure milk” of the Word of God. A healthy spiritual growth is extraordinarily important. Even like in natural life, health in spiritual life also depends on the kind of food you consume. Therefore you should put aside everything that sabotages the brotherly love, which hinders the growth. That is . Instead, you must drink in the good Word, as a baby at the mother’s breast does because he senses that there is the life that is needed to grow. That is . The point here is not the first stage of the spiritual growth, about a person who is newly converted. It is not about a phase in the spiritual growth (like in ), but it is about a feature that applies to both babies in faith and spiritually matured believers. It goes for each believer that spiritual undernourishment arises when there is no hunger for it and no consumption. If a believer does not hunger for the Word there is definitely something wrong. A spiritually healthy Christian continually hungers for the milk of God’s Word. By nourishing yourself with God’s Word you grow to salvation, that is to the full salvation. God’s Word has saving power, not only for the future, but also for the path that brings you there. There are three aspects attached to salvation. The first is that you are saved for eternity. The second is that you are kept safe in all kinds of dangerous situations you encounter on your path of faith by obeying the Word. The third is that you are saved when you are with the Lord. If you stuff yourself with light or even foolish reading material you will not grow spiritually and you will grow crooked. Easily readable, cheap novels with a little bit of the gospel do not protect you against the attacks of satan who is seeking to make you sin. If you read such reading material as a kind of spiritual candy, you will spiritually get sick. It is even more damaging if you consume reading material that contain poison, for then the end is death. Then nothing will be left of your testimony as a Christian than a corpse. Recently I read a report on Habakkuk, a digital daily magazine, on the internet, that I would like to pass on to you at the end of this section. It has got everything to do with integrating God’s Word within yourself. The report reads as follows: ‘How do you properly transfer knowledge? … the French writer and a former teacher Daniel Pennac … argues: Education needs slowness and a revaluation of work as an activity of the spirit for the long duration. Only by slowness you can integrate something within yourself ….(Trouw, Dutch daily newspaper 15-12-2008) According to Pennac you do a great favor to your pupils if you help them to develop a ‘mental library’. Pennac managed to make his own students fanatically learn phrases by heart. ‘A mental library’, isn’t that an awesome possession! It’s like always having a piece of Kafka or Marquez at hand. It’s not about learning something by heart which you later forget. No, it is about penetrating in the phrases step by step. And as soon as you have understood the phrase, it is a question of repeating and repeating, like someone who really knows what he’s talking about. Then you should practice of course and remain repeating, but you will not manage without understanding it.’ Without being conscious of that Pennac proposes a great challenge to Christians … We have the Bible often in snippets in our head … Wouldn’t that be an enormous treasure if you would have complete chapters or even complete books from the Bible in your mental library? That you penetrate through the texts, step by step. And as soon as you have the understanding of a phrase, you repeat and repeat again …’ [End of report]. Now read 1 Peter 2:1-2 again. Reflection: What are you doing, in order to grow spiritually?

‏ 1 Peter 2:2-3

Spiritual Growth

1Pet 2:1. This verse connects to the previous section. This is evident from the opening words “therefore, putting aside”. Those words sound like a logical result of what is said earlier. What has to be put aside is all displays of the flesh, the ego, bringing down others in favor of yourself. ‘To put aside’ means to radically and immediately break with these things and in no way allow them to control you again. When Peter appeals to put these things aside it implies that they occur among the readers of his letter and that they can also occur among us. Or don’t you recognize that you can also behave like that at times?

It is also not about a display at times on a certain occasion, but it is about “all malice and “all deceit” and “all slander”.

1. How easy do we feel “malice” arise from ourselves for various reasons,

2. how easy do we make use of “deceit”,

3. do we deceive others in various situations and do we pretend ourselves to be better (“hypocrisy”) or

4. do we begrudge others all kinds of things they possess (“envy”).

5. And let us not forget the “slander”. How easy we make ourselves guilty of that in all kinds of conversations.

Inwardly distance yourself from it, do not be tempted by it, and condemn it immediately if you feel any of the things Peter mentions arise in you.

1Pet 2:2. Besides these things seriously damage the relations among believers, they are also great hindrances for the spiritual growth. Peter speaks next about this. If you are born again you have new life. That life longs for food, just like a newborn baby longs for it. You do not have to encourage a baby to drink. He naturally gives a sign for that. The food of a believer is the “pure milk” of the Word of God.

A healthy spiritual growth is extraordinarily important. Even like in natural life, health in spiritual life also depends on the kind of food you consume. Therefore you should put aside everything that sabotages the brotherly love, which hinders the growth. That is 1Pet 2:1. Instead, you must drink in the good Word, as a baby at the mother’s breast does because he senses that there is the life that is needed to grow. That is 1Pet 2:2.

The point here is not the first stage of the spiritual growth, about a person who is newly converted. It is not about a phase in the spiritual growth (like in Heb 5:12), but it is about a feature that applies to both babies in faith and spiritually matured believers. It goes for each believer that spiritual undernourishment arises when there is no hunger for it and no consumption. If a believer does not hunger for the Word there is definitely something wrong. A spiritually healthy Christian continually hungers for the milk of God’s Word. By nourishing yourself with God’s Word you grow to salvation, that is to the full salvation.

God’s Word has saving power, not only for the future, but also for the path that brings you there. There are three aspects attached to salvation. The first is that you are saved for eternity. The second is that you are kept safe in all kinds of dangerous situations you encounter on your path of faith by obeying the Word. The third is that you are saved when you are with the Lord.

If you stuff yourself with light or even foolish reading material you will not grow spiritually and you will grow crooked. Easily readable, cheap novels with a little bit of the gospel do not protect you against the attacks of satan who is seeking to make you sin. If you read such reading material as a kind of spiritual candy, you will spiritually get sick. It is even more damaging if you consume reading material that contain poison, for then the end is death. Then nothing will be left of your testimony as a Christian than a corpse.

Recently I read a report on Habakkuk, a digital daily magazine, on the internet, that I would like to pass on to you at the end of this section. It has got everything to do with integrating God’s Word within yourself. The report reads as follows:

‘How do you properly transfer knowledge? … the French writer and a former teacher Daniel Pennac … argues: Education needs slowness and a revaluation of work as an activity of the spirit for the long duration. Only by slowness you can integrate something within yourself ….(Trouw, Dutch daily newspaper 15-12-2008)

According to Pennac you do a great favor to your pupils if you help them to develop a ‘mental library’. Pennac managed to make his own students fanatically learn phrases by heart. ‘A mental library’, isn’t that an awesome possession! It’s like always having a piece of Kafka or Marquez at hand. It’s not about learning something by heart which you later forget. No, it is about penetrating in the phrases step by step. And as soon as you have understood the phrase, it is a question of repeating and repeating, like someone who really knows what he’s talking about. Then you should practice of course and remain repeating, but you will not manage without understanding it.’

Without being conscious of that Pennac proposes a great challenge to Christians … We have the Bible often in snippets in our head … Wouldn’t that be an enormous treasure if you would have complete chapters or even complete books from the Bible in your mental library? That you penetrate through the texts, step by step. And as soon as you have the understanding of a phrase, you repeat and repeat again …’ [End of report].

Now read 1 Peter 2:1-2 again.

Reflection: What are you doing, in order to grow spiritually?

A Holy Priesthood

1Pet 2:3. So it is important that you spiritually grow. To do that properly you should not depend on a good intellect, but on your spiritual taste. The things Peter is speaking about do not address the intellect, but the heart that has “tasted the kindness of the Lord”. It is about the word of the Beloved, and love is in the first place related to the heart, with the feelings that are in there for the Beloved. If you have tasted the kindness of the Lord you cannot help but long to know Him better. And how do you manage to know Him better? Through His Word. The more you read in His Word the more you will grow in your knowledge of Him.

Once you have tasted the Word and you have acquired the taste for it, your hunger for more will increase more and more. You may have heard the remark that he or she has ‘a good taste’, by which people refer to the clothes a person wears or the way a person has decorated his house. Someone’s taste appears in that way. Your taste for God’s Word becomes apparent from the value that God’s Word has for you. Do you read it and do you live up to it? Then you will certainly grow.

1Pet 2:4. The growth also has a purpose. It is God’s purpose that you behave as a priest, that you serve Him as a priest in His house. That is what the following verses are dealing with. Considering the priest service, it is of importance that you do not grow improperly. In the book of Leviticus, the book that is especially about the priest service, there is mention of members of the priestly family that are not allowed to exercise that service because of a defect of the body (Lev 21:16-23).

If we apply that spiritually, it means that a person cannot exercise priestly service if he hasn’t got a good view on his position as a believer, due to wrong teachings. You may think of a person who has always heard that it is not possible for you to know for sure whether you are saved, or that a believer who surely knows he is saved, thinks that he still can perish.

The priesthood of the believer is directly connected to the growth of the believer. These two aspects are connected to one another through the Lord Jesus as “a living stone”. You came to Him when you converted and He accepted you. Coming to Him is however not an action that you do only once, after which you can continue to go your own way again. Now you have become a child of God, it is important that you continue to go to Him. He is the living stone. He has risen from the dead. Remember that for you there is life in Him alone. Therefore you are to be and remain connected to Him.

To grow and to be edified you are dependent on Him. You see that Peter changes metaphors. First he speaks about growth and now he speaks about a stone and later about a house. He uses all these metaphors to make clear how your relationship to Christ has become.

You come to Him Who “has been rejected by men”. You clearly see that in the four Gospels. You read there how His people and the Gentiles have crucified Him and chose Barabbas instead of Him. Once you also rejected Him, but now you have come to Him and you continually come to Him. In Him you have discovered the most precious, which He always has been for God. You read here that He “is choice and precious in the sight of God”. That is much more than what He means to you, but at the same time it is something that you fully agree with. He is chosen by and precious to God and also to you.

1Pet 2:5. Because He is the living stone and you have come to Him, you now also have become a living stone. That implies that you have His nature. And there is still more. You are not the only one who became a living stone. To build a house you need many stones. That is how Peter also presents it. Together with all other living stones, which means together with each believer, you are built up “as a spiritual house”.

The purpose of this house is clear. It is a house in which God dwells and in which the believers also may dwell (Eph 2:19-22). This house is built on the Lord Jesus as the Son of the living God (Mt 16:16-18). He is the living stone, the rock (petra in Greek), and you and all believers are ‘Peter’ (that means: stone, a piece of the rock). You see here a beautiful play of words.

Peter, however, doesn’t see the believers as God’s household , but as priests. Therefore the house here is a dwelling place of priests and their task is to offer up spiritual sacrifices. You are a priest and together with others you form “a holy priesthood”, a generation of priests. As a living stone together with other living stones form a spiritual house, you form as a priest together with others priest a priesthood.

The task of a priest in the Old Testament is to offer sacrifices. The task of a priest in the New Testament is not different. What is indeed different is the offering service. That does not consist of literal sacrifices, but of spiritual sacrifices (Heb 13:15). To God only the sacrifices that refer to His Son and the work He has accomplished, are pleasing. You come to offer up these sacrifices if you see how precious the Lord Jesus is to God.

The priesthood is a ‘holy’ priesthood. It is a priesthood that is totally for God, but it is also set apart by Him. Human efforts are excluded. It is one of the many and major deceptions of roman-catholicism to let literal priests, on the ground of a human training, function as a separate group between church people and God. This mediation is a denial of the general priesthood that God has established for all believers.

You are a priest and each true child of God is a priest. Any appointment, consecration or blessing ceremony by men is against what God has established on the ground of the work of His Son. If that’s the way God has established it, then make use of that. Offer up those sacrifices. How do you do that? By telling God Who the Lord Jesus is for you, what He has done for you. Just simply tell God what you have read in His Word about His Son. That is what He loves to hear and He will show you more and more of His Son as a response to that.

1Pet 2:6. Scripture testifies on each page of the joy that God finds in the Lord Jesus. Peter quotes from it to confirm what he has just said. With the word “behold” he appeals to look at it carefully and to make yourself aware that the initiative was taken by God. He laid “a choice stone, a precious corner [stone]” in Zion (Isa 28:16). The purpose of the use of the quotation is to make clear to you that God Himself has laid this stone.

In the quotation it is about Zion or Jerusalem, but it also applies to us. It applies to both the earthly Jerusalem and the heavenly Jerusalem that only what is built on Christ, will remain. Because you have put your trust in Him you “will not be disappointed”. That applies to everyone who does that, whatever the circumstances are in which he or she may be.

1Pet 2:7. This precious value is only for those who acknowledge the Lord Jesus as the Chosen One of God. Peter presents this precious value to the remnant of the Jews whom he addresses. And he not only addresses them. It is also true for all who believe.

There are two possible ways how people respond if Christ is presented as this precious value. The one response is that it makes a person entrust himself to Him in the awareness of Who He is to God. The other response is that one rejects Him in unbelief.

1Pet 2:8. Christ is the touchstone for each person. It is either accepting or falling. What is most precious to the believer is the most odious to the unbeliever. For those who do not believe, Christ is the stone over which they stumbles. Again Peter quotes a verse of the prophet Isaiah (Isa 8:14). God’s Word has prophesied that the unbelieving Jews will fall by stumbling over Him and they indeed fell when they stumbled over Him.

The fact that they were appointed to stumble over Him, does not mean that God has appointed them to reject the Lord Jesus. God does not appoint anyone to reject His Son. What he indeed appoints, is that he who disobeys Him, will stumble over the word that He has spoken over His Son. The inevitable consequence of disobedience is the rejection of the Word.

You can compare it to a fine that someone receives, for example, for parking incorrectly. He is not appointed to parking his car incorrectly, but if he does, he is appointed to receive a fine. This is how someone with a rejecting mind toward the Lord Jesus is appointed to stumble over the Word. But that is not the case with those to whom Peter writes, neither with you. That will be explained in the next portion.

Now read 1 Peter 2:3-8 again.

Reflection: How does your priest service look like?