Bible Study and Devotional
Welcome to our online Bible Study page. I am a strong believer in personal Bible study. The Bible was written so that everyone could read it and understand its main message to us. But God also inspired the Bible so that we gain even more understanding when we learn together and encourage one another with its message. This study is intended to spark that conversation as we allow the Bible to speak to our lives today.
May God bless you as you read and apply his word to your life.
Ken
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A study in 1 Peter
This weeks study: Read 1Peter 1:1-13
Here are some thoughts on this passage.
• Verses 1-2: “God’s elect” / “have been chosen” -you were not an afterthought of God’s but he has planned you to be part of his family from the very beginning.
“strangers in the world” –we are not citizens of this world. Our allegiance is to another kingdom so we should not get too attached to the things in this world.
• Verses 3-5: God’s plan for us is an eternal one, a life with him that never ends.
• Verses 6-8: We will have trials in this life. Being a Christian doesn’t mean we won’t face difficulties but we are told about their effects.
1. Trials are only temporary.
2. We are protected from their impact in our lives (they cannot defeat us).
3. Our faith is tested and grown as we respond correctly through trials.
• Verses 9-13: The goal of our faith is salvation. From the very beginning God created us for a relationship with him. Salvation through faith in Christ restores that relationship with God and allows us to have the inheritance God planned for us all along.
Thoughts on 1 Peter 1:13-25
v13-16 Now that we understand how amazing this salvation is that we have, lets prepare ourselves to start living in a way that lines up with the grace God has given us. When we have hope in this great future God has for us, it gives us the strength to live a holy life and not get wrapped up in living a self-centered, “live for the moment” type of life. God is holy and he wants us to be holy too.
v17-21 The Message Bible puts it this way “You call out to God for help and he helps—he’s a good Father that way. But don’t forget, he’s also a responsible Father, and won’t let you get by with sloppy living.” We need to understand the high price God paid in giving his Son for us and we should live in awe of what he did.
v22-25 One way we live out our faith is too treat each other with love and respect. The things of this world are temporary but love is forever. Let’s focus on the important things.
Have a great week as you focus on the important things and living a holy life before God.
1 Peter 2:1-12
This whole section has a number of different metaphors but they all relate to the same topic, being built up and growing in the faith.
v1-3 The first example is a growing baby. Sins like malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander are all equated with unhealthyt food for a young child. And the example is a good one. The sins mentioned are primarily attitudes of the heart and, if not dealt with, will destroy us from the inside, just like unhealthy food for a baby.
Instead, we are to crave pure spiritual milk, those things that help us grow in character. You cannot expect to grow spiritually if you are not eating good spiritual food. We need to be filling our minds and spirits with healthy things (Bible, prayer, good friends, etc.) Unhealthy activities end up weakening us and making us spiritually unhealthy.
v4-5 The spiritual house Peter refers to is the temple in Jerusalem. Peter is telling us that together we are the temple and each of us is a stone in the temple.
v6-8 This building needs to have the right foundatation otherwise it won’t stand. Peter reminds us that Jesus Christ is the foundation of our lives. We need to base our lives on his example and his teaching and his Spirit.
v9-12 Gods people are no longer citizens of this world but have their citizenship in heaven. Peter encourages us to live according to the priorities of our new kingdom. Let us choose to live by a higher standard. As a spiritual house, we have the Holy Spirit in us to help us live according to the values of our new kingdom rather than the kingdom of this world.
This week, let God change any priorities and habits in your life that need adjusting. Even a little change can have a snowball effect on other areas as well.
1 Peter 2:13-25
One of the key themes in the Christian life is submission. Jesus called his disciples to become followers not leaders. Yet in learning how to follow -how to submit- we truly become effective leaders.
v13-17 As Christians, we are to submit to the earthly authority around us; to be good citizens.
• “For the Lord’s sake”: submitting to authority is honouring to God. How we treat others (including authority) reflects on how people view God.
• Silences the foolish: those who try to create trouble. The person who respects authority and does what is right builds a good reputation and people have a hard time finding bad things to say.
• “Live as free men”: In Christ we are free but we are not to use that freedom to be rebellious. Rather we use that freedom to serve God and others.
Peter lists different forms that a submissive attitude takes:
• Proper respect for everyone.
• Love for the believers.
• Fear of God (a Bible term for the highest form of respect and awe)
• Honour for king
• Slaves submit to masters. He elaborates on this point by saying that our submission should not be only when it is easy but even when it is hard.
This week, let’s use the freedom we have as Christians to serve those around us.
Someone asked me a great question about how a person can be a Christian if they commit certain sins. I know different people have different views on this but I thought I would briefly comment on my understanding of the issue. Here is what I wrote back.
To try to understand someone else’s relationship with God is always hard to do. Here are some scriptures that speak to this issue.
Galations 3:1 You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. 2 I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law, or by believing what you heard? 3 Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort? 4 Have you suffered so much for nothing— if it really was for nothing? 5 Does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you because you observe the law, or because you believe what you heard?
1 Corinthians 6:9 Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders 10 nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
As I understand these scriptures, there is nothing we can do to earn favour with God but also there is no sin that God will not forgive (other than blapheming the Holy Spirit -Mark 3:29- which many people believe means to reject Jesus). In otherwords, when we repent and ask God to forgive our sins and we believe in Christ, he will forgive us of anything we have done.
But the result of accepting Christ is a changed life so we should see people’s lives change after they become Christians. I know mine did and it still is changing.
However, we need to be careful in judging how fast or how much someone else needs to be changing. God may be doing something in a person that we cannot see.
My goal is not to get overly analytical or to judge harshly but encourage people to avoid sin and get closer to God. That is what I want to do for myself as well.
1 Peter 3:1-7
Peter continues on the theme of submission as the normal lifestyle for a Christian but he brings it into the home where it gets very personal.
Before we can have a chance of hearing what the scriptures are saying about submission in the home, we have to first understand and really believe that as Christians, we are to live a life of submission and that the most abundant, free and influential life we can live is a life of submission.
v1 “Wives, in the same way, be submissive” -Peter has just been talking about how Christ (the creator of the universe) submitted himself to his accusers, even to the point of death, and now he is asking us to have that same attitude. Wives are expected to show this submission to their husbands. This was the normal social order of the day and Peter is asking these godly women to model the attitude of Christ to their own husbands and families, some of whom still weren’t believers. Peter suggests there is a better opportunity to see their husbands come to Christ through their actions than through their words.
Peter uses feminine terminology and encourages these women to focus on “inner beauty” rather than outer beauty. He defines inner beauty as a “gentle and quiet spirit”. This is the same quality that Jesus had. It is a fruit of the Spirit, and is a requirement for leadership in the church. In a violent, explosive culture, gentleness was seen as a great strength.
v7 “Husbands, in the same way, be considerate” -again Peter suggests that husbands need to have a Christ-like submissive attitude toward their wives and treat them with consideration (meaning to put their wife’s needs ahead of their own) and respect (value the role they play and honour their viewpoint and opinions).
Peter now uses the idea of strength to talk to the men by mentioning the wife as the “weaker partner”. Peter is telling the men to use their strength to protect and bring honour and respect to their wives and treat her as an equal before God (“heirs together”).
Husbands and wives must never use their God given abilities to abuse or control but rather to build up one another. A husband with a Christ-like attitude toward his wife will see her beauty grow. A wife with a Christ-like attitude toward her husband will strengthen him.
1 Peter 3:8-13
Verse 8: “Finally” after all this discussion about living with an attitude of submissive, Peter summarizes all that he has said.
1. Live in harmony –work together for the common good
2. Be sympathetic –understand the feelings of others
3. Love as brothers -no one above another,
4. Be compassionate –tender-hearted toward others
-these all describe how we relate to others. Next Peter tells us the attitude we should have about ourselves.
5. Be humble -Humility is not thinking lowly of yourself. It is not allowing yourself to be self-absorbed, whether in a positive or negative way.
Verse 9: We are to show these qualities even when others don’t show them back. This is true faith put into practice.
Verse 10-12: a poem taken from Psalm 34:13-17 reminding us that, whatever others may think, God is with us when we do right and he opposes us when we do wrong. We are given two areas to be righteous: (1) Our words, (2) Our actions.
Verse 13: Peter reminds us that, generally, if you do good to others, we will be treated well by others. But there will be those who will treat us bad for no reason and we are blessed by our response of not retaliating or giving in to fear.
This week, let’s choose to get our minds off our own situations and be a blessing to others. Who knows what blessing you may receive back.