A New Series on the First Letter from Peter

Katey is a young, tired friend who has trouble grasping the beauty of submission and suffering. I hope the following posts will help her.

Katey, I’ve listened to your explanations and my heart aches for you. You are missing so much and I truly believe there is no other answer to your dilemma except to read the Holy Scriptures.

I know this is hard for you, and I understand. Most people on this earth find the Bible rather dry, confusing, and boring. I get that.

But what many people do not get is that is because they are not born again and they do not have the “Bible gene” in their make-up yet. However, I am somewhat confident of better things for you. I am confident you will discover that the Bible is alive.

We shall see. I know that when we finally are “in” Christ, the old ways drop off us and everything becomes new again. That is a given. This is why the Bible makes sense and delivers people of their old garbage AFTER they come to Christ.

In fact, people who do not even own Bibles or cannot even read will begin walking in brand new love of God’s will after they are born again, just because that is how it happens. We come to God first, for real, to what they call “saving knowledge” and after that we begin to grasp what He was saying to us all along.

Okay, so open your Bible and to the work.

Peter changed.

What made Peter change we shall find as we study 1 Peter, the first letter we have from one of Jesus’ first disciples. He was the blustery one, the one who spoke first and then had to take some of it back, yes, but you know he changed as he came to saving knowledge, too. In the end, he probably was crucified.

We also know he was married, since Scripture speaks of his mother-in-law.

So, as a married man, he teaches us about the dynamics of marriage. And I think he would admit he blew it a few times, if we could ask him. Still, he changed, he saw the right and wrong of this creature we call marriage.  And he recorded his wisdom for you and me to read and absorb, whether he knew he was doing that or not.

Peter’s revelation about marriage is profound.

As the perpetrator of any marital hurt his wife might have felt, Peter speaks to men and women about marriage as a form of suffering. Linking ours to his Master’s suffering, and linking all husbands to Christ and all wives to the church, he makes marvelous connections for us and, contrary to what we might expect, he uses promises of suffering to calm and encourage the agitated and weakening married soul. Or should I say the “marriage-weakened soul?”

Do read the first chapter of First Peter, and please ask if you have a question. Then you might be ready for Part 2, here.