1 Peter 1
by Philip Layton
Peter begins with praise to God for a living hope
Discussion Questions
- What’s the difference between foreknowledge and predestination (v 2)?
- How does Jesus Christ’s resurrection from the dead give living hope (v 3)?
- Have you been ‘born again’ (v 23)?
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Going Deeper From 'Words of Life'
Today we think about man’s holiness. The basis and source of man’s holiness is God. In his love for man, God has decided to share his holy nature with us. Without holiness, man cannot see or approach God. So man has been made holy by God as an act of grace.
What does it mean for us to be holy? When God told the people of Israel to be holy in Leviticus chapters 11 and 19, he was instructing them to be distinct from the other nations by giving them specific regulations to govern their lives. Israel, as God’s chosen nation, was apart – his special people – and consequently given standards that God wanted them to live by so that the world would know they belonged to him.
When Peter repeats the Lord’s words in today’s reading he is talking specifically to believers. As believers, we need to be ‘set apart’ from the world, consecrated to the Lord. We need to live by God’s standards, not the world’s. God isn’t calling us to be perfect, but to be distinct from the world.
Peter describes believers as ‘a holy nation’. It is a fact! We are separated from the world; we need to live out that reality in our day-to-day lives, which Peter tells us how to do in today’s Scripture passage.
Prayer
Give me a holy life, Spotless and free,
Cleansed by the crystal flow Coming from thee.
Purge the dark halls of thought,
Here let thy work be wrought,
Each wish and feeling brought
Captive to thee.
Beverly Ivany
Video produced by Gary Rose