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It is better to suffer than to sin.
Following up on Monday’s overview of 1 Peter, here’s some good observations from one of the commentaries I’m using. There’s a great life-nugget in here, as encapsulated in the title of this post. Read on for the explanation:
The Christians to whom Peter wrote were suffering because they were living by different priorities, values, and allegiances than their pagan neighbors. These differences were sufficiently visible to cause unbelievers to take note and in some cases to heap abuse on those living out faith in Christ. Are Christians today willing to suffer alienation from our society out of obedience to Christ? If statistics tell the true story, it would seem that most Christians today, even those who call themselves evangelicals, are in some important ways not very distinguishable from unbelievers. We divorce at the same rate. We have the same addictions. We seek the same forms of entertainment. We wear the same fashions. And so on. First Peter challenges Christians to reexamine our acceptance of society’s norms and to be willing to suffer the alienation of being a visiting foreigner in our own culture wherever its values conflict with those of Christ.
Even those Christians who do not suffer persecution for the faith are called to the suffering of self-denial. Sin is often thought of as being motivated by the temptation for pleasure. But perhaps the real power of sin lies in the avoidance of pain and suffering.
It is better to suffer unfulfilled needs and desires than to sin.
Is this not what self-denial means? Jesus linked self-denial with following in his footsteps when he said, “Those who would be my disciples must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (Mark 8:34). For instance:
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Isn’t the temptation to lie often an attempt to save face rather than face the consequences of the truth?
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Isn’t the temptation to cheat on an exam an unwillingness to suffer the loss of reputation or other consequences that failure might bring?
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Isn’t sexual sin often the alternative to suffering by living with deep emotional and physical needs unmet?
According to Peter, the pain and suffering that self-denial brings is a godly suffering that is better than yielding to sin (1 Pet. 4:1-2).
from1 Peterby Karen Jobes, p. 4-5
A First Look at First Peter: Notes from Last Night
Last night, if you missed it, we began our series studying 1 Peter by reading the entire letter and thinking about its contents as a whole. After the time of discussion in small groups, I offered these observations:
1. The apostolic writings are authoritative, and we need them.
(1:1) “An Apostle” – The New Testament is made up of the writings of the men who saw Christ (Matthew, John, Paul), and of their close associates who worked with them (Luke, Mark, James). In other words, it is the apostolic witness to what God revealed and did in Christ (see 2 Pet 1:16-18). These writings are way God has decided Christians of all times could know what they needed to know about Christ and what He means for us today. Make them your life’s authority!
2. We are not in our home. We are “out of joint” with our environment.
This should affect what we expect out of life. Peter expects suffering. As he describes in this letter, we have a divine identity (1:3-5, 2:5) which leads to a giving up of old, ways of life (which are socially acceptable, but out of God’s will) (2:11-12) which leads to misunderstanding (4:3-4) and finally persecution (4:12 & 16)
3. This letter is a manual for how and why to “be different.”
We might have often said things like, “I want people to see something different about me.” To mature in our discipleship, we need to put biblical content to our vague ideas about the Christian life. 1 Peter will help us by filling in these empty spaces in our thinking and bringing focus to our living.
4. There is an authentic Christianity, and there are many false versions. (See 5:13) This takes us back to #1. The apostles gave witness, once and for all, to the truth about Jesus.
I’m looking forward to spending this Fall travelling through Peters writings with you all.
Common problems, then and now
While studying for tonight I found this list of the problems the first readers of Peter’s letter seem to be dealing with. I thought it was interesting how well this lined up with the things many of us face on a daily basis. Things like this remind us of how connected we are with believers who have gone before us, and of how applicable the writings of the Apostles are for us today!
Problems it seems the recipients of 1 Peter were facing:
1. Physical and psychological persecution (1:6-7; 2:15; 4:12, 16-17, 19; 5:10)
2. General social ostracism and exclusion (1:17; 3:16; 4:4)
3. Potential familiar pull from the past-former pagan way of life (1:14, 18)
4. Surrounding, seductive non-/anti-Christian worldview and lifestyle (2:11; 4:2-4)
5. Tensions and inconsistent behavior within the fellowship (1:22; 4:8-11; 5:2-3, 5)
6. Spiritual doubts about the reliability of God’s promises and the future (1:3-5; 5:10)
7. Satan’s constant, deadly temptations and trials (5:8-9)
–by Ernst Wendland
God is not impressed.
In Psalm 2, one of the things we have is an interesting “God’s-eye view” perspective of humanity, especially in terms of cultures, governments, and geo-political events. In the first verse, we see that the nations of the world are “raging.” Their primary issue is an unwillingness to live under God’s authority: “Let us break their bonds in pieces and cast their cords away from us.” But this is not only an unwillingness to live under God’s authority, it is also expressed as unwillingness to be under Christ, referred to in verse 2 as God’s “Anointed.” Of course, God is not threatened by their declarations: He “laughs” (verse 4!) and declares, “I have set my king on my holy hill in Zion.” Issue settled.
The nations are given to this king as His rightful inheritance (verse 8) and the former rulers of the nations are instructed to “Kiss the Son”–in other words, show submission and loyalty, fast.
But something else occurred to me recently as I thought through this psalm. The King who is set in Zion, the Anointed, the Son who we all must kiss, the authority that can not (and will not) be resisted, is not some usurping dictator or palace-child monarch. He is the Man of Sorrow, the Humble One, who washed our feet and carried our sins to the cross.
Has He not earned our allegiance?
To rage against Him is to rage against grace and truth and self-sacrificing love. It is to rage against our only hope, all that will fix the world, and our very life itself.
God is not impressed.
How to Spend the Day with God
Richard Baxter, a puritan pastor England in the 17th century, loved to give practical, pastoral advice. Here’s his take on how to spend the day with God:
How to Spend the Day with God.
A holy life is inclined to be made easier when we know the usual sequence and method of our duties–with everything falling into its proper place. Therefore, I shall give some brief directions for spending the day in a holy manner.
Sleep
Measure the time of your sleep appropriately so that you do not waste your precious morning hours sluggishly in your bed. Let the time of your sleep be matched to your health and labour, and not to slothful pleasure.
First Thoughts
Let God have your first awaking thoughts; lift up your hearts to Him reverently and thankfully for the rest enjoyed the night before and cast yourself upon Him for the day which follows. Familiarize yourself so consistently to this that your conscience may check you when common thoughts shall first intrude.
Think of the mercy of a night’s rest and of how many that have spent that night in Hell; how many in prison; how many in cold, hard lodgings; how many suffering from agonising pains and sickness, weary of their beds and of their lives.
Think of how many souls were that night called from their bodies terrifyingly to appear before God and think how quickly days and nights are rolling on! How speedily your last night and day will come! Observe that which is lacking in the preparedness of your soul for such a time and seek it without delay.
Prayer
Let prayer by yourself alone (or with your partner) take place before the collective prayer of the family. If possible let it be first, before any work of the day.
Family Worship
Let family worship be performed consistently and at a time when it is most likely for the family to be free of interruptions.
Ultimate Purpose
Remember your ultimate purpose, and when you set yourself to your day’s work or approach any activity in the world, let HOLINESS TO THE LORD be written upon your hearts in all that you do. Do no activity which you cannot entitel God to, and truly say that he set you about it, and do nothing in the world for any other ultimate purpose than to please, glorify and enjoy Him. “Whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” – 1 Corinthians 10:31.
Diligence in Your Calling.
Follow the tasks of your calling [that is, your regular work] carefully and diligently. Thus:
(a) You will show that you are not sluggish and servants to your flesh (as those that cannot deny it ease), and you will further the putting to death of all the fleshly lusts and desires that are fed by ease and idleness.
(b) You will keep out idle thoughts from your mind, that swarm in the minds of idle persons.
(c) You will not lose precious time, something that idle persons are daily guilty of.
(d) You will be in a way of obedience to God when the slothful are in constant sins of omission.
(e) You may have more time to spend in holy duties if you follow your occupation diligently. Idle persons have no time for praying and reading because they lose time by loitering at their work.
(f) You may expect God’s blessing and comfortable provision for both yourself and your families.
(g) it may also encourage the health of your body which will increase its competence for the service of your soul.
Temptations and Things That Corrupt
Be thoroughly acquainted with your temptations and the things that may corrupt you, and watch against them all day long. You should watch especially the most dangerous of the things that corrupt, and those temptations that either your company or business will unavoidably lay before you.
Watch against the master sins of unbelief: hypocrisy, selfishness, pride, flesh pleasing and the excessive love of earthly things. Take care against being drawn into earthly mindedness and excessive cares, or covetous designs for rising in the world, under the pretence of diligence in your calling.
If you are to trade or deal with others, be vigilant against selfishness and all that smacks of injustice or uncharitableness. In all your dealings with others, watch against the temptation of empty and idle talking. Watch also against those persons who would tempt you to anger. Maintain that modesty and cleanness of speech that the laws of purity require. If you converse with flatterers, be on your guard against swelling pride.
If you converse with those that despise and injure you, strengthen yourself against impatient, revengeful pride.
At first these things will be very difficult, while sin has any strength in you, but once you have grasped a continual awareness of the poisonous danger of any one of these sins, your heart will readily and easily avoid them.
Meditation
When alone in your occupations, improve the time in practical and beneficial meditations. Meditate upon the infinite goodness and perfections of God; Christ and redemption; Heaven and how unworthy you are of going there and how you deserve eternal misery in Hell.
The Only Motive
Whatever you are doing, in company or alone, do it all to the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31). Otherwise, it is unacceptable to God.
Redeeming The Time
Place a high value upon your time, be more careful of not losing it than you would of losing your money. Do not let worthless recreations, idle talk, unprofitable company, or sleep rob you of your precious time.
Be more careful to escape that person, action or course of life that would rob you of your time than you would be to escape thieves and robbers.
Make sure that you are not merely never idle, but rather that you are using your time in the most profitable way that you can and do not prefer a less profitable way before one of greater profit.
Eating and Drinking
Eat and drink with moderation and thankfulness for health, not for unprofitable pleasure. Never please your appetite in food or drink when it is prone to be detrimental to your health.
Remember the sin of Sodom: “Look, this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: She and her daughter had pride, fullness of food and abundance of idleness” – Ezekiel 16:49.
The Apostle Paul wept when he mentioned those “whose end is destruction, whose god is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame — who set their minds on earthly things, being enemies to the cross of Christ” – Philippians 3:18-19. O then do not live according to the flesh lest you die (Romans 8:13).
Prevailing Sin
If any temptation prevails against you and you fall into any sins in addition to habitual failures, immediately lament it and confess it to God; repent quickly whatever the cost. It will certainly cost you more if you continue in sin and remain unrepentant.
Do not make light of your habitual failures, but confess them and daily strive against them, taking care not to aggravate them by unrepentance and contempt.
Relationships
Remember every day the special duties of various relationships: whether as husbands, wives, children, masters, servants, pastors, people, magistrates, subjects.
Remember every relationship has its special duty and its advantage for the doing of some good. God requires your faithfulness in this matter as well as in any other duty.
Closing the Day
Before returning to sleep, it is wise and necessary to review the actions and mercies of the day past, so that you may be thankful for all the special mercies and humbled for all your sins.
This is necessary in order that you might renew your repentance as well as your resolve for obedience, and in order that you may examine yourself to see whether your soul grew better or worse, whether sin goes down and grace goes up and whether you are better prepared for suffering, death and eternity.
May these directions be engraven upon your mind and be made the daily practice of your life
If sincerely adhered to, these will be conducive to the holiness, fruitfulness and quietness of your life and add to you a comfortable and peaceful death
Why “There is no God” turns into “Everything is God”
Inciteful comments from Vern Poythress, on the inevitable drift into superstition and pantheistic speaking and thinking, even by the most advanced technological societies–especially when we try to shut out the idea that there’s anything in the universe except matter, time and chance. (I don’t know about you, but I feel like this kind of stuff is everywhere…)
If matter is at the bottom of everything, there is continuity between human beings and trees. This conviction may lead some people to dismiss what is uniquely human: they could say that consciousness and moral judgments are illusory. But they could also travel in exactly the opposite direction. They could try to commune with trees and imagine that trees too must dimly possess quasi-human characteristics.
A hard-nosed scientific materialism in one part of the mind can actually be combined with a soft yearning for communion with spirits; people can travel toward new forms of animism, spiritism, polytheism, and pantheism.
Everyday people within advanced industrial societies are looking into astrology and fortune-telling and spirits and meditation. That direction might seem paradoxical. But actually it is not surprising. In principle a thoroughgoing materialism breaks down all hard and-fast distinctions within the world. If a materialist viewpoint is correct, all is one. And the many—the diversity of phenomena—all flow into this one. This result has a name—pantheism—that shows its religious commitment.
Such religious commitments may begin to populate the world with many spirits and many gods, which are semi-personal. When a viewpoint includes spirits and gods, it may in a sense appear to be personalist. But ultimately it is impersonalist, because the “one” dissolves what is distinctive to persons.
–From Inerrancy and Worldview, pg. 31-32
Fall Studies in First Peter
On Monday night we’ll be beginning our study through the first letter of the apostle Peter. There are some distinctive things about both Peter’s writing and subject matter, and I’m looking forwards to exploring them as we move towards another winter. And in the spirit of Pastor Joe, who regularly exhorts us to read ahead, I wanted to list some ways you might study 1 Peter on your own to enhance what we discuss on Monday nights.
It’s a great thing to make a habit: studying yourself what we are studying together in church. So as we get started, here are some ideas to help you do your own self-study, either to get prepared before we begin or to study along as we go.
1. Visit a Bible website like biblegateway.com and use it to copy, paste, and print out the the letter for yourself. Make wide margins on the page, put your print-outs into a binder, and then grab a pencil and start studying along by making notes in the margins, circling (squaring, starring, etc…) things and drawing lines to connect ideas, blocking or underlining main ideas, making visual outline notes, and anything else that helps you see things in the letter. The idea is to be able to mark it up without worrying about having trouble reading that page in your Bible later. You can get the whole letter in the New King James Version here.
2. Get a journal to take notes in, and as you read give yourself questions to answer. For instance, you could read the letter all the way through and write out the main message of the letter in one sentence. Then try to rewrite the letter into one paragraph in your own words.
3. Look for any quotations from the Old Testament or from Jesus. Where are they from? Why does Peters use them? You could use this document to work off of…
Here’s the list of places Peter quotes the Old Testament:
| 1Pe 1:16 | Lev 11:44 |
| 1Pe 1:24, 25 | Isa 40:6 |
| 1Pe 2:3 | Psa 34:8, 9 |
| 1Pe 2:4 | Psa 118:22 |
| 1Pe 2:6 | Isa 28:16 |
| 1Pe 2:7 | Psa 118:22, 23 |
| 1Pe 2:9 | Exd 19:6 |
| 1Pe 2:9 | Deu 10:15 |
| 1Pe 2:9 | Hsa 1:10 |
| 1Pe 2:10 | Hsa 2:23 |
| 1Pe 2:17 | Pro 24:21 |
| 1Pe 2:22 | Isa 53:9 |
| 1Pe 2:24 | Isa 53:4, 5 |
| 1Pe 3:6 | Gen 18:12 |
| 1Pe 3:7 | Pro 17:13 |
| 1Pe 3:10, 11, 12 | Psa 34:12-16 |
| 1Pe 3:14, 15 | Isa 8:12, 13 |
| 1Pe 3:20 | Gen 6:3, 12 |
| 1Pe 4:8 | Pro 10:12 |
| 1Pe 4:18 | Pro 11:31 |
| 1Pe 5:5 | Pro 3:34 |
| 1Pe 5:7 | Psa 55:23 |
4. Create your own outline of the letter. Making an outline is always a good way to help yourself understand a book of the Bible as a whole.
5. If you never have before, check out one of these free online Bible websites: Blue Letter Bible or Great Treasures. They both take a little practice to use well, but they are both pretty powerfule study tools. And they’re both free.
6. If you’ve never used a commentary before, maybe you’ll want to go to the bookstore and see what we have in stock. You could follow along and read it straight through.
6. Pick key passages and memorize them. This is one of the most fruitful ways for you to study and meditate on scripture. And, while you’re at it, why not consider something that you may think is impossible, but isn’t? Why not try memorizing the whole letter? If you think you can’t, check out our resources pages for ideas on how you might do it, and if you really want to try it, come talk to us for help.
Have you got any other ideas? Let me know and I can share helpful here.
Peter’s letter is intensely practical and challenging. Let’s take this Autumn to seriously seek God in His word together and let Him shape our lives on Monday nights.
“She could not have trained herself more wisely…”
During the High School ministry trip I was on at the beginning of the month, Jayme Lykon gave a devotional study for the girls in which she read this quote about the Ann Judson, the first wife of Adoniram Judson. The Judson’s were American missionaries to Burma in the 1800’s. The quote describes Ann at the age of 17, before she was married or knew she would do missionary work. As we often discuss how to prepare for Gods plan for our lives, this presents an interesting, challenging portrait of a young woman God was preparing for His use…
She thirsted for the knowledge of gospel truth in all its relations and dependencies. Besides the daily study of the scripture with Guise, Orton, and Scott before her, she perused with deep interest the works of Edwards on Redemption. She was instructed, quickened, strengthened. Well do I remember the elevated smile that beamed on her countenance when she first spoke to me of its precious contents. When reading scripture, sermons, or other works, if she met with anything dark or intricate, she would mark the passage, and beg the first clergyman who called at her father’s to elucidate and explain it.
How evidently to us, though unconsciously to herself, was her Heavenly Father thus fitting her for the work he was preparing for her. Had she known that she was to spend her days in instructing…idolaters in religious knowledge, she could not have trained herself for the task more wisely than she was thus led to do.
–From The Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons by Arabelle Stuart, page 21
“He invaded death’s abode.”
A hymn by Anne R. Cousin:
To Thee and to Thy Christ, O God,
We sing, we ever sing;
For He the lonely wine press trod,
Our cup of joy to bring.
His glorious arm the strife maintained,
He marched in might from far;
His robes were with the vintage stained,
Red with the wine of war.
To Thee and to Thy Christ, O God,
We sing, we ever sing;
For He invaded death’s abode,
And robbed him of his sting.
The house of dust enthralls no more,
For He, the Strong to save,
Himself doth guard that silent door,
Great Keeper of the grave.
To Thee and to Thy Christ, O God,
We sing, we ever sing;
For He hath crushed beneath His rod
The world’s proud rebel king.
He plunged in His imperial strength
To gulfs of darkness down;
He brought His trophy up at length,
The foiled usurper’s crown.
To Thee and to Thy Christ, O God,
We sing, we ever sing;
For He redeemed us with His blood
From every evil thing.
Thy saving strength His arm upbore,
The arm that set us free:
Glory, O God, forevermore
Be to Thy Christ and Thee.
Yes, I know God. But more importantly…
I saw this on another blog the other day and thought it was well worth passing along. Another great section from J. I. Packer’s Knowing God:
What matters supremely, therefore, is not, in the last analysis, the fact that I know God, but the larger fact which underlies it—the fact that he knows me. I am graven on the palms of his hands [Isa. 49:16]. I am never out of his mind. All my knowledge of him depends on his sustained initiative in knowing me. I know him because he first knew me, and continues to know me. He knows me as a friend, one who loves me; and there is no moment when his eye is off me, or his attention distracted from me, and no moment, therefore, when his care falters.
This is momentous knowledge. There is unspeakable comfort—the sort of comfort that energizes, be it said, not enervates—in knowing that God is constantly taking knowledge of me in love and watching over me for my good. There is tremendous relief in knowing that his love to me is utterly realistic, based at every point on prior knowledge of the worst about me, so that no discovery now can disillusion him about me, in the way I am so often disillusioned about myself, and quench his determination to bless me.
—Knowing God (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1993), 41-42, emphasis added