1 Peter, 1:22-25

Initially, before diving into our passage, I want to kind of highlight something, because it shows up in this passage, and truth, 1 and 2 Peter, that we'll be continuing to go through here, and it looks like the schedule is putting us into the middle of June, or towards the end of June, before we're done with these two books. But as we go through them, something to observe. We've already touched on one passage. We will look at another one here this morning, and we'll be looking at it again next week.

Peter is one who, for the eight chapters that he wrote in these books here, for the eight chapters, gives lots of insights into God's Word. Some of those insights are unique. That is, there are insights that are not repeated in some other place in scripture. Or some nuance is unique. Other places, like one we'll see here this morning, it's in perfect agreement with and reproduces the same idea. In other instances, he gives us unique insights. So let's keep our eyes and ears open for that as we go through these two books here.

Let's go down the bullets the Holy Spirit spoke through the Old Testament prophets. That's one we saw in verses 10 and 11 Our new birth is through as we'll see in this morning's passage the living and enduring Word of God Those are messages that are found elsewhere in both the Old and New Testament. We'll look at that here this morning By the word of God, we are to grow spiritually. That's a passage that Gene will be addressing next week.

And by the way, 1 Peter chapter 2, that's one of my favorite chapters. That's just good stuff. Okay, we have the prophetic word made sure, which is not of private interpretation, made by men carried along by the Holy Spirit, spoken from God. Okay, so those are kind of three key points. Here's the prophetic word made sure, not a private interpretation.

What does that mean? You can't do it in a closet? You can't study the Bible by yourself? That's against the rules? What does he mean by that? Yeah, the Holy Spirit guides us. Every believer has the Holy Spirit in common. So that's one thing. This is a Holy Spirit thing, not a personal thing, me by myself, right? It is amazing to ponder, we have both the Holy Spirit working to bring the Word of God before us, inspiring the authors, and we have the Holy Spirit working on our side to bring us to the truth in that respect. So the Holy Spirit's involvement in the Word of God comes from both directions, doesn't it? To bring the Word of God to you, and to bring you to the Word of God. Really cool. So now, spoken from God. Isn't that something? This is spoken from God. So it isn't just sort of godly thoughts or religious thinking or something of that sort.

We are reminded by the words spoken by the Old Testament prophets and by Christ and the apostles. So notice, why is he bringing all these different authors together there in that passage? We'll get there. Why would he bring all those together? He's sort of saying this is, these are the Holy Scriptures, these are, all of these are written by the hand of various men, they are God's Word. Yeah, interesting, he makes reference to Old Testament Scriptures, so you've got the Old Testament, which of course, that was what was present and available there when Christ walked the earth, right?

Then he mentions there, and by Christ, so here's the Gospels, And then some of the quotes, even like in the book of Acts, in the end of Revelation, and in earlier parts of Revelation, which you have by Christ, and you have those by the apostles, or, because this is kind of a summary, there are those who are under apostolic sponsorship. For example, Luke was not an apostle, right? But the sponsorship he had was Paul. Mark was not an apostle, but the sponsorship that he had was Peter. So there are apostolic sponsors. Yes?

Well, this seems to be talking about revelation, whereas the other is interpretation. So a distinction between the two, but you bring up a good point. It's good for us to kind of think through what's been revealed to us. Okay, how do we understand it? And to get the distinction between those two, right? And that's something, when we get there, we'll take a look at it, because that private interpretation thing is an important one.

The reality is, Paul wrote to this church at Corinth who had the, you know, I'm of Paul, I'm of Peter, I'm of Apollos, you know. He says, I urge you to say the same thing. Why? Pardon? You wouldn't get off track? And what else? Yeah, God meant one thing. And so, off track, the other thing, okay, is the wrong thing. God had a particular message through the Word, and all these various interpretations is not God's intent. If you get a set of commentaries and there are six different interpretations, they're not all right. It may be that none of them are right. But the Lord had one message in mind.

Paul's writings are scripture as well. Isn't that an interesting testimony? Paul's writings are scripture as well. Peter writes that. Wait a minute. Didn't Paul confront Peter at one point? Didn't that happen? Wouldn't you think that Peter would be just so offended at that, that he wouldn't write something like this? What do you think happened? Yeah, isn't that something?

Yeah, there's humility represented here. The other thing that continues to amaze me, and we'll point it out as we go through it, When Peter and Paul speak on the same subjects, what they say either is in perfect agreement, or in many cases, we'll find 1 Peter 5, Acts 20, Paul and Peter writing from different places and being different people, and only, so far as we can tell, having spent a few weeks together, chose the exact same words, even the same verbs and verb forms. Yes.

Yes, and that's the amazing thing is we have individual authors and yet inspired by the Holy Spirit. Paul will write as Paul writes with Paul's style and yet still inspired by the Lord. Peter will write as Peter writes, and still inspired by the Holy Spirit. John writes very simply. He also writes very consistently. He, unlike Paul, avoids a lot of compound words, unless he has to use them. And yet, with each of the different authors and their different backgrounds, they're all inspired by the Holy Spirit. Amazing accomplishment.

Yes, Steve? How would you explain the influences of opinion, how people are mounting, like if there are five commentaries but they're all off track, those writers are saying, yeah, we're convinced that that's what we want to hear. How does that process out?

Ah, you ask a huge question and one we're not going to be able to get our arms around entirely. But let me say a few things that might be helpful. Some of the reasons for different interpretations are, one, somebody failed to observe something. It's a, gee, I didn't see this. And oftentimes if I'm, because I use commentaries, but one of the things I'll look for is, did this guy see this? Did he notice this here? You look at that, you look at did he pull in something else that's invalid outside of scripture to interpret this.

A lot of people use tradition to interpret things and start pulling that back into the passage. Another thing that people will do is as they interpret, they will have an assumption that they read into the passage. And that assumption actually can end up overriding what would be otherwise the direct meaning of the text. So those are just quickly some things that put people off in different directions. Let me give you a very quick example.

1 John 2 says that Christ is the propitiation, not only for us, but for the whole world. That propitiation means that Christ's death was the satisfaction of God's character, God's holiness, God's love, God's grace. that God was satisfied with Christ's death. Of a Calvinist set of presuppositions, again, that the assumptions get read into the text, they will say, the satisfaction of the sins of the whole world, well, they'll say the sins of the whole world only of those who are the elect, who God chose. And if you aren't the elect, your sins were not included in Christ's death on the cross.

The assumption then is read into the passage, and therefore you're unable to simply say, what does the text say? The assumption overrides the obvious meaning. So it'd be an example. Assumption gives us the conclusion rather than what does the text say. But anyway, there are those kinds of things that frequently play into why we have all these varying interpretations.

Real quickly, did you have a thought there or just scratching your head? OK. All right. Alright, last bullet here. In growing in the grace and knowledge, that's okay, my head itches too sometimes, of the Lord Jesus Christ, we have it that the growing, this osano, okay, is by the Word of God.

That word osano, I particularly point out, Gene's going to be touching on it, but also it connects very nicely because it's the exact same word in 2 Peter 3.18.

But grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. We're going to be touching on both of those verses next week on that first one, and there's a special connection between them we want to pay attention to. But growing in both cases is by the Word of God. The Word of God is a necessary ingredient in that growth.

Alright, he also quoted Old Testament passages and or concepts often, and we're going to see that shortly even in today's passage. Peter is one, I don't say that he breaks the record, but he substantially draws upon Old Testament scripture when he writes these things, and we're going to see that as well beyond today as we continue to study. One of the things to make note as you look through this, because people will say, well, gee, that's a quote of the Old Testament. And then they look at the Old Testament passage and they'll do like Gene was and kind of scratch their head.

And here's one of the things we want to explain. The Old Testament is translated directly from Hebrew into English. A few exceptions in parts of the Old Testament, Daniel, Ezra, where there's some Aramaic. But by and large, you're talking Hebrew. then translated into English. What we have often in the New Testament is quotes from the Old Testament that went from Hebrew to Greek to English.

And so by that you have room for some shades of meaning to get changed some. And so that's why you'll look at a passage and say, well, that's not exactly like the Old Testament passage. It may sort of mean the same thing, but have a slight difference. That's why, is you've got two translations coming into the New Testament where it quotes the Old.

Nancy? Well, if you have slight shades of variation, how do you make interpretation of that Yeah, when you when you have a difference, how do you deal with it? Let's answer Nancy's question. That, by the way, is something that is people put a lot of time into because it can sometimes be a little puzzling.

Here's I think one of the things to see. When people in the Old Testament times read the Old Testament, they didn't have the New Testament insight to work with, right? So we need to understand the Old Testament from that perspective. However, in the New Testament, frequently they would bring things across because we're not talking about somebody who's just quoting the Old Testament and that's it. They're often quoting and adding additional insight. And so you want to take a look at the New Testament passage and recognize that different things are being brought forward. An example would be, Peter had earlier talked about us being made holy, and he underscores something in how he brings it across, that we are being made holy.

That's not how the Old Testament saw it. The Old Testament, it's you be holy, it's your job, right? He brings it into the New Testament, and it's still, we are holy because God is holy. God is a holy God, therefore, us being holy makes sense. Morality is not based on a God just sort of thinking, gee, I'd like you to be moral, whatever that is. But God is a moral being.

The Old Testament, it's your job. The New Testament, It's his job to do in your life. Big difference. And that nuance, Peter brings out. So he'll quote the Old Testament, but bring it over in the sense of this is God's making you holy, not you doing it.

So the answer to your question, to kind of summarize it, read the Old Testament for what it was and understand the way that they read it. When you see the New Testament quote, Take the New Testament for what it says, recognizing that the New Testament author may well be adding some depth of understanding and truth or difference of understanding based on the New Testament believer. Okay? Does that help? That's a quick answer, but it's kind of like Steve. Steve's question is, write below, describe the universe, and give three examples, you know? But that's the quick one, okay? Alright, here's the answer to Nancy's question. Another reason why New Testament quotes of the Old Testament sometimes differ from the exact Old Testament passage is because the authors of the New Testament sometimes made new applications of the verse or added new insights to the passage.

We are going to see that this morning in the Isaiah study. Paul in 1 Corinthians 10 made reference to Moses striking the rock. And water came out, and he says, the rock is Christ. Do you see that in the Old Testament? No. But he makes it clear. Here's a New Testament insight to an Old Testament passage. So that's an example in answering your question.

They were not immediately apparent in the Old Testament context. Peter's use of the Old Testament was relatively frequent. Among the New Testament authors, as was his reference to the value and character of the Word of God, he gives some really good insights, as we've summarized before here. We do well to listen to what Peter has to say, including this morning and next week, since he often provides fresh insights.

Plus, here's the other thing. Here is a man who is writing the Word of God. He is writing about the written Word of God. He is writing about the living Word of God with whom he walked and talked. Isn't that something? Here's a guy that's a Galilean fisherman, and yet the Lord is using him to add insight to Old Testament passages. He's using him to testify about the Lord of glory. He's using Peter to convey to us things about the Word of God in writing and the living Word of God. This is just amazing stuff. Okay, now, let me get a drink of water so that I don't grumble and growl for the whole time. Let's turn to page two. Alright, let's dig into the passage here.

Since you have an obedience to the truth, purified your souls for a sincere love of the brethren, fervently I was about to say frequently, but nah. Fervently love one another from the heart, for you have been born again, not of seed which is perishable, but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring word of God.

Here's something we run into in both the King James and in this version, the New American Standard. By the way, that N-A-S-U is New American Standard Updated, even though it sounds like a sneeze. The King James and the New American Standard both add this seeing and sense.

Actually, neither of those are in the Greek. Because Peter writes in a way, he writes so much of things in action, sometimes the translators have a hard time, you know, how do I carry this over into English? He doesn't actually put that there. And the same thing with 4 that begins verse 23, that's not there either. The since and for kind of language is more like Paul's writing, isn't it? Because Paul's, you know, since, before, therefore, because, you know, he's all into the logic. Peter's into action, okay?

And so, the reality is, it's just, you're doing this, is the way that the sentence just starts off in action. So verse 22 starts off with a Greek text literally, the souls of you having been purified. That's how it comes off. So your souls having been purified. That's how he begins it.

This purified is a word that's pretty, it's not extremely rare, but it's kind of unusual in the New Testament. But the words that it is related to having to do with purity and with the word holy, saint, that family of words, if that's not unusual. But this purified here is a perfect active participle, so it's a done deal. Perfect, completed past action, ongoing results into the future. And by the way, the perfect tense, I remind you, also implies permanence, unless there's something in the context that indicates otherwise. So when he says, you've been purified, it's not like you've been purified kind of sort of along the route most of the way. No. Done deal. Completed past action.

So how about this obedience to the truth? Is it our effort to do the right thing? This word pair, the truth, points to the gospel of salvation in the context. That's the character of it. Purified indicates a completed past action. It was that salvation that's completed in the believer, that salvation from the penalty of sin, that comes upon belief. You believed, you were purified, saved, done deal. In the language that it has, it implies permanence. Perfect tense. You were completely purified, completely saved, done deal, all complete.

The word translated obedience means to listen under. And that's an important thing because oftentimes in our English use of the word obedience, we can kind of get external. Ever hear kids or hear somebody joke about kids saying, you know, I'm obeying on the outside but inside I'm not? This is a word that says to listen and place yourself under what you've heard. So it involves an inside obedience, not just outside and inside being two different things. It's an inside obedience. And then, in the present it leads to a sincere love of the brethren.

The words love of the brethren, we have in English four words, it's all one Greek word, and you're going to recognize it, Philadelphia. Philadelphia. Peter didn't write, and this is important to note, he didn't say, love one another as if you were brothers. Why wouldn't he say that? He's saying that the brethren relationship, that family relationship, is there. It's not something you try to simulate. And in Carol's points well taken, that a lot of brothers have trouble, he's saying that there is a family relationship there. It's reality that the love there is intimately connected with that family relationship.

Right? Yes. Yes. Yes. Is that in the case of possibly the people that started that? It could be. It could be. I mean, it's certainly that's the Greek word, you know, so that they seem to have taken that. I mean, it's and it's not even just sort of like it. That's it. Right. Yes.

Yes, they try to connect that. I'm not sure every single person in Philadelphia would agree with that, but you're right. Yeah, be careful. And if you have gold caps, crowns and stuff, don't smile so much. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, you got shakers and Quakers. Also Quakers. Yeah. Yeah. Uh huh. Yeah, you have some interesting history there that's unique to that area. So notice this genuine, sincere love of the brethren is based on actual family relationship. Let's look through a few different passages.

Romans 8, 29, for those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son so that he would be the firstborn among many Brethren, I was emailing with Elishka, who's liking to be called Ellie. I guess that's the nickname that she goes for. And she says, do you mean to tell me that we in Christ are brothers? I said, yeah, that's what it says. So Christ is the firstborn, and we're among those, so we're brothers with him. How about that?

This is a common spiritual birth is the intended meaning. We feel a little warm and fuzzy more than usual or something. This is an actual spiritual relationship of kinship. Ephesians 2, 19 and 20. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and are of God's household.

And then Hebrews 2.11, for both he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are all from one father, for which reason he is not ashamed to call them brethren. All from one father.

So this is amazing. This is a household family relationship. No cistern? Yeah. Well, this is a funny thing about our word brethren, you know. It implies all the brethren and the cisterns. Yeah. Well, let's put it this way. There aren't any, but there are also no men. Okay.

Since that sincere love of the brethren is a key part of the present outcome, from our having been saved by faith, Peter takes it to its logical and practical conclusion. Now notice, it's not just logical, it's practical. Fervently love one another from the heart. You have a family relationship. There is a, because of that family relationship, a love that is fitting. He says, therefore, and then, now, he comes out with more action. You know, Peter's into that. He comes out with more action, and that's where he uses, because the other was Philadelphia, which is brotherly love, right?

This is Agapao, which is that unconditional love. It's loving that has God as its source and does not depend upon the actions or inactions of the recipients, who in this case are our brethren in the Lord, the one another. So what is the intensity of that unconditional love to be?

Peter says, fervently, not occasionally, half-heartedly, mildly, but fervently. Does that include, we definitely love them unconditionally, but we may not like them? This is interesting. Think about that. Where does the unconditional love come from? It comes from the God. He is the source of it. Let's talk about this not liking thing. Where does that come from? It comes from us.

So it's interesting, at a purely human level, let me say that there are some things I don't like about that person. And yet what happens is the unconditional love, he's saying, that overrides it. And it may mean you have instances on a personal level, on a human level, where you say, gee, something doesn't jive, and yet it says, I love them anyway. Let's take it to an extreme case, and it's beyond just personalities.

A few centuries after the New Testament era, In North Africa, they had a wave of plague that went through. We hear about the plague and a lot of times we hear about things more in the Middle Ages. This is still fairly ancient times. And yet in this instance, what the church leader said was, we need to show love to those people who have the plague.

And so while everybody else was running and getting out of town and not touching these people, the Christians went in and cared for the people with the plague. Now, did they like the people having the plague? And did they like touching these people and dealing with it? No. That was not enjoyable from a human standpoint.

But God's love was expressed in spite of their, from a human level, aversion and repulsion. That's an extreme case because it's beyond personalities, but it's an example of where at a human level we might go, ugh, you know, or worse. And yet what came through is that the believers helped, and they were the only ones who did, they helped those people with the plague. And so here you have this strange contrast where the Agapao love, this love, this love went beyond what was humanly natural and considered to be the normal thing to do, the normal reaction. And that's something. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

It's and it's interesting, even even in the Old Testament, because really, the Sermon on the Mount is Old Testament context. Remember, in chapter 5, Jesus went through, you have heard that it was said, but I say to you. One of the things that he corrected was a teaching of the group called the Essenes. And the Essenes taught that you hate your enemy. And Jesus said, no, but I say to you. And he corrected that.

And it's amazing, the Lord has got, you know, corrections of our natural inclinations throughout Scripture. What we might ordinarily do, He says, no, God has something else in mind, because the love is His and not originating from human beings and then ourselves.

Verse 23, Peter returns again to expand upon the truth. He said the truth, now in verse 23 what he's going to do is talk about what is this truth that he's talking about earlier. In the positive, and as I've taken out a couple of negative phrases there just to get the overall point across, you have been born again of seed which is imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring Word of God. What he's done is, although he's made reference to the Word of God, the focus in this passage has to do with salvation. And he's going to give us some characteristics then of the gospel in relating to salvation. Peter had introduced this idea of being born again before, and that was in verse 3 of the same chapter here.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again of living hope. through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. This being born again fits with what Peter had written in verse 22 about the believers all having a family relationship as brethren, right? You've been born again. Born? What does that mean? You've been born into a family. It's the new birth. It's the birth that makes you brethren, spiritually speaking. To a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. This word, anagonao, is a perfect passive verb. It says there, having been born again is a completed past action with ongoing results into the future, implying permanence.

Boy, have we heard that again? Isn't that interesting? People will talk about, gee, you can lose your salvation if you do this or that. Peter just keeps harping on it. You've been purified. Done deal. Okay? Perfect tense. Now, you've been born again. Completed past action, ongoing... No. As far as Peter's concerned, he's nailing it. He says, you've been born again, you've been purified, it's completed, it's done. Nothing left to do.

OK? And then, it's a passive, it's God's accomplishment in us. How many of you were born... I'm sorry, what? That's why it's lasting. Ah! That's why it's lasting. We cannot undo it. Excellent point. Excellent point. Carol is saying, that's why it's lasting. We cannot undo it. It's God's doing.

It's not ours. It's not ours to do. It's not ours to undo. We were saved by faith, but it's by means of faith, but the faith is not the activating The faith itself is not the thing that saves us. It is our believing by which God saves us. God does the saving, not us.

Now, how about Peter's reference to seed here? What does he mean by that? The word seed here in the Greek is the only place that's used in the whole New Testament, this particular word here. It isn't referring to a plant seed, at least not in this context. but in the sense of the truth of the gospel, that truth that's planted, that sense here, and it's providing the essential for that spiritual rebirth. In the natural realm, things eventually die. Anything you plant eventually dies.

Have you ever seen some of these really, really old, like bristlecone pine? Plants and some of them around I've seen some of them in the Sierras and I'll talk to some tree expert because when we'd have resource Specialists and arborists and whatnot, you know up in Carson City area and I was working for the consulting firm They'd point to a tree and see that tree there was was growing when Christ was on the earth So I'd say that's an old tree, you know, and some of them they'd say that tree was growing when David was on the earth. I So some of them are really old trees, ancient trees.

But eventually they die. Eventually they die. Peter says this is a seed, when it's planted, it doesn't die. It doesn't just last a long time, it doesn't die. It's imperishable. That is, through the living and enduring Word of God, this is what this imperishable seed comes to. That's how it gets explained. Peter says living and enduring. So let's take a look at that.

Next page, author of Hebrews, Hebrews 4.12. For the word of God is what? Living. So here's the author of Hebrews and Peter agree perfectly. And then the author of Hebrews gives additional definitions for us. The Old Testament word of God enduring. Peter is about to underscore that in this passage that he quotes out of Isaiah.

This is 1 Peter 1, 24-25. For all flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers and the flower falls off, but the word of the Lord endures forever. And this was the word that was preached to you. The word of the Lord endures forever. He appears to be quoting Isaiah chapter 40.

By the way, one of the things we pointed out going through Isaiah earlier, how many books in the Bible? How many chapters in Isaiah? Okay. And how many books in the Old Testament? 39. So the first book of the New Testament is number 40. Okay. And so the gospel This starts with what by number would be the beginning of the New Testament, right? Matthew. So, interesting. So you have Isaiah 46b, that is the last half, and then verse 8. That appears to be what he's drawing from there. Verse 7 is partly a repetition, which may be why he dropped it out and skipped over it.

So the word of the Lord has an enduring quality in contrast to the things of the service because of the character of God Himself. That character of God Himself is something that we've underscored before in our Isaiah studies. But Psalm 90 verse 2, Before the mountains were born, or you gave birth to the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God. Everlasting to everlasting.

Malachi 3.6, for I the Lord do not change. Most of you are pretty glad that I do, but anyway, I the Lord do not change.

And then James 1.17, for every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow. See, we can count upon what God has written for us, because we can count upon the God who has given himself for us. We can count upon that he hasn't changed.

We don't wake up one morning and come to church and I come up in front of you and say, I'm sorry, the Lord changed. It's just no good anymore. It's too bad. I don't have to do that because the Lord doesn't change. This is the enduring Word of God. And it's not going to be, you know, hey, this is all great stuff. Take it to the hill because at midnight on December 31st, it's all done. We don't have to do that. We can count on the Lord's Word. Yes? Immutability. Yeah. Unchanging. The Lord does not change. He never has.

Well, and so we can count upon what He has said. If He says, He is love, that is a permanent and enduring statement, not a, it's good for this year. You ever see some of these warranties? Some of them will say lifetime, but a lot of them will give a date or a certain period of time, and then they're done, right? The Lord doesn't do that. He says, this is who I am, and it's guaranteed for eternity. And by the way, it always was. before anything was made. That's real good and that's real different than anything we're used to.

Think of that, Peter's writing to a people. What kind of things change in the lives of the people he's writing to? Pardon? Yeah, you think about the people he's writing to. Here are these people that they're in the area of the Roman Empire, kind of the northeastern portion of it.

You got political changes, changes in emperors and changes in governors. They've had changes in laws just like we do, things like that. Well, within our own lifetimes, we've seen so many social and technological changes. Yeah, in our own case, lots of social and technological changes. Yeah.

People come and go. They were a whole lot more subject to things like weather. So a weather change, you know, a billion of rain this year. Or, boy, that's a whole lot of water coming down off that mountain. Lots of things very subject to it, and we have extremes like that now. There's parts of our own country that are trying to grapple with that. Things in this world change. The Lord doesn't. His word does not. We can count on it, always, for good, forever, for eternity. And that's Peter's message here. We've run plum out of time.

On the last page there, you have a supplemental handout. And I put it in there because it shows where 1 Peter and 2 Peter stand in relationship to the other books of the New Testament. And it kind of gives you a sense, when Peter was writing, and writing, for example, about the writings of Paul, It was near the end of Paul's writings, but what he had there may not have included the letters to Timothy, Titus, and the last books. So as he was writing, Peter may not have been aware of those.

Yeah, Marilyn? and how do you explain that? Because somebody that's not a believer... Ah, okay. Marilyn's asking the question that the Lord doesn't change, but the way He has dealt with different groups has changed. I think the thing is, if you look at it, the Lord created variety. And we see that in the physical realm, all sorts of different animals and plants and things of that kind. Even among spiritual beings, do you create all spiritual beings of one kind? No. You also have the angelic creatures who have a different character. So the primary distinctions that you see within scripture are Gentiles, Jews, and the church.

And so it is not that the Lord has changed. but that the Lord has set up different arrangements with these different groups, and that those arrangements still have things in common. For example, no matter which group you are with, you're saved by faith. The Lord's provision for all is Christ. Christ died for the sins of the whole world, so there's commonality, and yet there is variation and variety But that variation and variety is still all fulfilling God's eternal purpose, that the Lord might be glorified, to declare and share and reveal and share his glory, the Lord might be glorified.

So, for example, the Jews In the end, they will be happy that they are Jews and can glorify the Lord in that way. The church has its unique position. Gentiles will not be somehow feeling like they're second-class citizens or something of that sort. They will also be happy with the way that they get to glorify the Lord eternally.

Yeah, Bud? Yeah, basically it's recognizing just those distinctions that there are different groups that the Lord has set aside. Even within that, you can see subgroups. You know, you look at the table of nations in Genesis. There is variety among the different languages and tongues and peoples and ethnic groups and genetic differences. Those are all changes too. And when we talk about dispensations, we're just recognizing the larger categories of differences in the way the Lord has worked. The Lord's worked differently over time, hasn't he?

Just think, here's Noah, he and his family are getting off the ark, and the Lord's saying, hey, I'm going to change some things. Before, you were to eat plants. Now you may eat meat as well. Before, you know, I caused a worldwide flood. You're not going to have that anymore. So there are also changes in time. Yeah, Nancy? It really is not a change of his character. It's not a change of his character. It's just a change of his...

Well, those of us who are parents know you love all of your children the same. You discipline one child a little bit differently than you discipline another perhaps because because of their personalities, you need to adjust the discipline to fit that child's personality.

This is things that, to use Nancy's examples, you know, I have different kids. I love all three of my kids, but real different directions. Randy was far more inclined towards music and things of that sort. Far more inclined towards things mechanical and love those kinds of things. And here's Becky, you know, not anything like the boys and so different things that she enjoyed. So I did different things with each one of the kids.

The fact that I dealt with them and did different things with them, it doesn't indicate that one's somehow less valuable, more valuable, etc. They're just simply different and different expressions. And overall, the variety is good. An example, we have an orchestra, you bring all these different instruments together. It doesn't mean that one instrument is better than the other, but bringing the different ones together creates a symphony. And so the variety is a good thing, not a detriment and not a reason for one to somehow feel left out, second class or anything of the sort. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yeah.

In terms of Peter's conditions or what the circumstances was under, the one thing we know is that things had, you know, had gotten to the point where the false teachers all of a sudden get to be a big issue. So the environment that he's addressing is apparently different. The other thing is, it's pretty clear that. Things are far more stressed. The Jews had rebelled, probably by the time of the writing of 2 Peter, and Peter being a Jew would be one of those who would be just for that reason under stress. Then being a Christian on top of that, just boy, extra levels of stress because of that.

That's a quick answer, but... Yeah, a few years apart between them, and that's a good point, a good observation. And it is enough to make a big difference in what Peter addresses, because he doesn't address the false teaching thing anywhere near to that level. He does address hardship in the first letter, but the second letter, false teaching, is a big issue. And it's also clear as he goes through it, he is kind of thinking a little differently, as we'll see when we get into the book.

Interestingly, both of them, he keeps underscoring God's Word. Isn't that something? Let's pray, because we've run way out of time. Alright. Lord, we thank you for how marvelous and deep your Word is. And we thank you for what is there to feed us, for us to feed upon and to grow. And we thank you for the insights that we have into the very character of the eternal God, our Lord and Savior, in whom we are and with whom we're seated. We thank you for that, Lord. Thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.