Sermon Central
-
1 Peter Commentary —chapter 1 Series
Contributed by John Lowe on May 18, 2021 (message contributor)
Summary: Peter’s first epistle is addressed to Gentile believers among the dispersed (the scattered) of Israel. They have been released from the futile way of life they learned from their ancestors (1:18). Those who were at one time, not a people, had become nothing less than the people of God (2:10).
1) We are told two things about the prophets. First, they searched and inquired about the salvation which was to come. Second, the Spirit of Christ told them about Christ. Here we have a great truth: inspiration depends on two things—the searching human mind and the revealing Spirit of God. Furthermore, the passage tells us that the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ, was always at work in this world. Never has there been any time in any nation when the Spirit of Christ was not moving men and women to seek God and guiding them to find him.
2) Such passages tell us that the Prophets spoke of the sufferings and the glory of Christ—such passages as Psalms 22 and Isaiah 52:13-53:12, found their consummation and fulfillment in the sufferings of Christ. Such passages as Psalms 2, Psalms 16:8-11, and Psalm 1:10 found their fulfillment in the glory and the triumph of Christ. We need not think that the prophets foresaw the actual man, Jesus. They did foresee that someday there would come one in whom their dreams and visions will all be fulfilled.
3) This passage tells us for whom the Prophets spoke. It was the message of the glorious deliverance of God that they brought to the people.
13 Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ;
Peter has been talking about the greatness and the glory to which Christians may look forward; Christians can never be lost in dreams of the future; they must always be strong and powerful in the present battle. So, Peter throws out three challenges to his people.
1. He tells them to gird up the loins of their mind. The phrase’s English equivalent would be to roll up one’s sleeves or take off one’s jacket. Peter is telling his people that they must be ready for the most strenuous mental endeavor. They must never be content with a flappy and unexamined faith. They must learn to think things through after praying about it.
2. He tells them to be sober. The Greek word, like the English, can have two meanings. It can mean that they must refrain from drunkenness in the literal sense of the term, and it can also mean that they must be steady in their minds. They must become intoxicated, neither with intoxicating liquor nor with intoxicating thoughts.
3. He tells them to set their hope on the grace that will be given to them when Jesus Christ comes. It is the great characteristic of Christians that they live in hope, and because they live in hope, they can endure the trials of the present. For Christians, the best is always still to come. They can live with gratitude for all the mercies of the past, with a resolution to meet the challenges of the present, and with the sure hope that in Christ, the best is yet to come.
Peter wrote this letter to believers in five different Provinces, yet he said they all belonged to one “spiritual house.” We belong to each other because we belong to Christ. This means that we must not let our differences destroy the spiritual unity we have in Christ. We ought to be mature enough to disagree without in any sense becoming disagreeable.
