Hospitality (1 Peter 4:9)

In light of the coming end of the age, Peter exhorts his readers to pursue three areas: (1) vigilant and sober praying (v. 7); (2) continued earnest loving of each other (v. 8); and showing hospitality to others without complaint (v. 9). Peter assumes that his readers are already practicing these Christian virtues but urges them to raise them to a higher level. He reasons (vv. 10, 11) that these are spiritual gifts for which all must give an account to Jesus when He comes to judge (1 Cor. 3:10–15; Matt. 25:35). These gifts are indispensable in building the kingdom for the glory of Christ (vv. 16, 17; 1 Pet. 4:11).

Hospitality is a major consideration in the Scriptures because of its importance in advancing the mission of the kingdom. Thus, it is an identifying mark of a true believer. Hospitality is simply welcoming strangers in order to do them good, helping them with needs and encouraging them in their journey (compare Gaius with Diotrephes, 3 John 5–8 with 9, 10; Gen. 18:1–5).

Under the Old Covenant, God’s people were expected to demonstrate the same care for the stranger that the Lord showed (Psa. 146:9). Hospitality reminded them that they were once strangers in Egypt (Ex. 23:9; Lev. 19:33, 34). Very severe judgment was pronounced against Ammon and Moab because they refused to accommodate Israel in their journey (Deut. 23:3, 4). It was so important to God that he required hospitality, among other things, as a condition for their remaining in the land (Jer. 7:5–7).

In the New Covenant era, hospitality serves both a practical and symbolic function. Christian hospitality made it possible for apostles, missionaries, and evangelists to move about safely and conveniently among the churches. Commercial accommodations were rare and dangerous morally and physically (Rom. 12:13; Heb. 13:2; Phile. 21, 22; 1 Tim. 3:2; Titus 1:8).

Hospitality is an extension of brotherly love and serves to identify with and welcome other believers as Christ welcomed us (Rom. 15:7; cf. 14:1–3). Eating with others is a way to show love and compassion (Acts 2:42–47). We celebrate the Lord’s Table as a reminder of His cordial welcome of us. Thus, we also are to encourage and help others in their spiritual walk, especially when it is difficult with trials and hardships (1 Tim. 5:10). Paul severely rebuked Peter for showing bias against Gentile believers at Antioch (Galatians 2:11–14). However, vigilance and discernment must also be used. True saints are welcomed, but false teachers and enemies of the gospel are to be renounced (2 John 9–11; Rom. 16:17, 18).

When He sent out the disciples, Jesus designated hospitality as a clear signal of willingness to receive the gospel message (Matt. 10:9–15). He, too, was received by sinners because they were open to hear His message. On the other hand, the Pharisees severely criticized Him for eating with sinners because they refused that message (Matt. 9:11).

Are you eager and willing to welcome others into your home? Do you cherish opportunities to help those who give their lives to advancing His kingdom? 

Loving and Judgment (1 Peter 4:8)

In light of the impending return of Christ and the judgment He brings to earth, Peter urges his readers to disciplined prayer, deep loving, and deliberate hospitality. These things seem a bit strange as a response to the danger and disaster that are to accompany the last days. Of course, the first admonition to pray with vigilance and sobriety is a must for the Christian soldier (Eph. 6:18). But where does loving one another earnestly and showing hospitality without grumbling fit in?

The problem with most contemporary Christians is that they have little Old Testament foundation for interpreting New Testament truth. It is not that they can never understand what Peter is saying but that they have to dig deep in order to do so. Reading the Bible through regularly helps a great deal to unlock its unity of message. One begins to see the threads and how they relate in drawing out the whole scheme.

In comparing Israel with Christ followers, similar themes begin to present themselves. God called Israel to Himself and designated that His people are to be a holy people, the Lord’s particular possession (Deut. 7:6). That applies to New Covenant saints also (1 Pet. 2:9). The purpose of this unique relationship was that the Israel of God would serve as an example of what a people among whom God dwelt should look like (Deut. 4:5; 1 Pet. 2:11–12, 4:2–5). It should be a community so distinct as to draw attention (Eph. 5:1–16).

To live a godly and exemplary life among pagans is not easy. Moses exhorted the people, “Only take care, and keep your soul diligently” (Deut. 4:9, see also v. 23). It is very easy for us to let our own sinful hearts draw us away to self-interests and to self-seeking. To avoid this, God gave us His Word with its teaching, statutes, and rules (Deut. 4:14). The whole of these rules are summed up in just two: love the Lord and love your neighbor (Matt. 22:37–39). God knows your heart, but your neighbor does not (Rom. 13:9, 10). He sees your attitude and your conduct. Will he know you love the Lord? You show your neighbor that you love the Lord by keeping His rules (Deut. 11:1). Through obedience, you love your neighbor and show Him what God is like (1 Cor. 15:34). This background fits the context of Peter’s challenge (1 Pet. 4:7–11; cf. 1:22).

 There are lots of opinions on what Peter means when he says that love covers sins (v. 8; see Prov. 10:12; James 5:20). It may be best to understand these sins as potential and that loving acts prevent potential sins that would otherwise come into judgment. Whatever this means, the first part of the verse is clear. We must love each other earnestly, as with every muscle stretched. That takes supernatural strength, for we are far more likely to preserve our presumed dignity than risk pursuing others for the love of Christ.

Will God Get Glory in 2016?

Isaiah opens with a clear message of intention from God, who will establish His house in the latter days on Mount Zion (2:1, 2). All the nations will make their pilgrimage to it. It will be a glorious thing. He will teach us His ways, and we shall walk in them as He wills that we should.

That goal is to be accomplished by His sovereign work. It is a clear fact that His creatures, created in His image, do not do so now. The land is filled with idols because every admonition from God concerning them is resisted or ignored. However, the day is coming when “The haughtiness of man shall be humbled, and the lofty pride of men shall be brought low, and the Lord alone will be exalted in that day. And the idols shall utterly pass away” (Is. 2:17, 18).

As a church and as individual members, we want the Lord to be exalted in our midst. Sadly, pride often seems to get in the way, and we end up taking pleasure in the very means we choose to exalt him. For example, we want to build church membership, and, if we are successful, we take pride in that success and the plan we used to accomplish it. A really successful effort is usually led by some charismatic individual. That person gets invited to share his plan with others who also want the same result. A book is published detailing the plan. A million copies are sold, and hundreds of churches testify to dramatic growth. Conferences are held, which are “must-attend.” But who gets the glory?

The desire to glorify God often ends up focusing on the means and/or the one who developed the means. The glory goes to the means. This applies to everything that we use—preaching, music, programs, revivals—everything. It is this way even when we sincerely desire it to be otherwise. That is because we are naturally prideful. Pride is an idol maker. We want to serve Christ, but in our present condition, our best service is full of idolatry because we start taking pleasure in the service, not the King we are to serve.

God has given us all things to enjoy (1 Tim. 6:17). Nevertheless, we tend to take those good things and abuse them in our effort to find fulfillment in the things given rather than in the Giver. The angel’s warning in Revelation 14:6, 7 is that all God’s creatures must fear God, give Him glory, and worship the Creator. Idolaters worship the creation.

An example of this is sex, a very powerful and precious gift that comes with very clear rules. Because humans are selfish and prideful creatures, the gift gets abused, and idols are proliferated. What was designed by God to enrich the lives of married couples becomes an abomination, wrecking lives and destroying nations. Fallen creatures cannot control their urge to find pleasure in gifts while spurning the Giver and His rules.

The great and glorious hope that must drive us is that because of the first coming of Jesus Christ, we are going to see the day when He will come again. Our pride will be humbled and our idols will pass away. When that is done, the glory will go to God alone. He alone will be exalted in that day. May that day come in 2016!

A Glorious Name (Matthew 1:21)

“She [Mary] will bear a son, and you [Joseph] shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21).

Joseph was bothered by the news that his betrothed Mary was pregnant with a baby that was not his. He was a just man, however. Deuteronomy 22:21 required that a woman caught in adultery be stoned to death. That law, however, was seldom carried out. (The incident in John 8:1–11 may offer us a reason for that reluctance.) The Jews opted for public humiliation; however, Joseph did not want even this lesser penalty, just a quiet end to the betrothal. He knew that she would be subject to scorn and ridicule anyway.

An angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and encouraged him to follow through with the marriage. Mary’s condition was the work of the Holy Spirit. She would bear a Son and Joseph, as acting father, was to name the child. Names held great significance to the Jews, either reflecting character or signifying purpose and calling. In this case both aspects are evident. Jesus is the Greek form of the Hebrew Yahushua (from Yeho, the abbreviated form of the Divine name, Yahweh, and shua, savior—Yahweh Saves). Jesus was indeed Yahweh, the only Savior (Isa. 43:3; 45:21; Acts 4:12).

The angel also revealed the purpose and calling of Jesus: “He will save his people from their sins.” To reinforce the significance of that statement, Matthew adds that all this was to fulfill Isaiah 7:11. Isaiah also records another name, Immanuel (God with us), which also signifies God’s purpose to dwell among His people as their God and Savior (Ex. 29:45; 2 Cor. 6:16).

Book Two of the Psalms (42–72) is filled with lament and distress at Israel’s condition due to sin and rebellion, discipline and exile to Babylon. It was designed to raise expectation and hope that Yahweh would save His people (44:1–7). This collection ends with a psalm attributed to Solomon that is regarded as the epitome of royal theology. It expresses the purpose of God to fulfill the promise to Abraham that his Seed would one day bless the whole earth. “May he have dominion from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth! . . . May all kings fall down before him, all nations serve him!” (vv. 8, 11).

Isaiah 62 expresses this longing for restoration. “The nations shall see your righteousness, and all the kings your glory, and you shall be called by a new name that the mouth of the Lord will give” (v. 2). That new name is Jesus and Joseph was commanded to call Him that. Psalm 72 joins this desire for God’s glory and His fame (name) in a unique phrase used only twice (Neh. 9:5; Psa. 72:19). “May his name endure forever, hisfame continue as long as the sun! May people be blessed in him, all nations call him blessed! Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, who alone does wondrous things. Blessed be his glorious name forever; may the whole earth be filled with his glory!”

Fear No Evil (1 Peter 3:18–22)

The passage before us has raised some interesting questions. Why does Peter bring up “spirits in prison” (v. 19)? Who are they? Why was it important that Jesus preached to them? What does this fact have to do with our suffering (v. 14)? How does this event relate to baptism (v. 21)? What does Peter mean when he declares that baptism saves us? How does baptism save us? Why does Peter bring in angels, authorities, and powers (v. 22)? One thing is clear; those to whom Peter wrote understood what he was saying.

Context is extremely important to proper interpretation. Also, we must keep an open mind and let Scripture interpret Scripture. The overall emphasis is to encourage the elect saints in their struggles to live holy lives in the midst of an evil world. Compromise is always a temptation when one is threatened for standing for what is unseen and tangibly uncertain. We are truly “strangers and pilgrims” as we live among the Gentiles (2:11). We must never retaliate with evil for the evil inflicted upon us (3:9). We are to turn away from the evil and pursue peace because the unseen Lord sees and hears the righteous (3:11–13).

Ordinarily, no harm should come to those who always do what is good (3:13). However, righteous people will suffer for righteousness’ sake (because of God’s standard of right). That is, the evil doer hates God and His righteousness as seen in His character and in His law. Thus, he will hate the godly also, and the godly will likely suffer in some way for it. So, since the Lord sees and hears all, the godly must have no fear of evil doers or be troubled by their threats and persecution (3:14). Instead, through deliberately setting the Lord Christ apart in the heart as holy, His people are to prepare to defend their steadfast (but seemingly futile) hope (that God will reward them for doing His will) in a reasonable way (v. 15). In this, one keeps a good conscience while he suffers for doing what is right.

That is the way Jesus acted (v. 18). In doing what was good in the will of God, He, the righteous One, suffered once for all in the stead of the unrighteous ones in order to bring them back to God. In His death and before His resurrection, in the spirit, He went and proclaimed (announced) something to “spirits” in prison (v. 19). These spirits are not human souls in hades, waiting for the resurrection and judgment. The Bible never uses spirit to refer to a human soul, especially those who are dead in their sins (Eph. 2:1; 1 Cor. 2:14).

There are some clues here to identify these spirits. First, they are in “prison” (literally, “to be kept under watch”). They are being kept because “they did not obey,” but we are not told the nature of their disobedience. We are told when they were imprisoned—when “God’s patience waited in the days of Noah” (v. 20). What does this mean? The obvious reference is something that occurred in Noah’s time and in connection with the flood.

More on this to follow.

Proving the Worth of God (1 Peter 3:18–22)

Peter concludes his summary of the argument that we, as followers in Jesus Christ, have been called by God to suffer, even wrongfully (1 Peter 3:8-17). “For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God’s will, than for doing evil” (v. 17).

Why would it be God’s will to suffer wrongfully? The simple broad answer is the cosmic conflict between God and Satan. God’s soldiers are His people on earth, living out the gospel in the grace and power of God. Satan and his minions will do everything that they can to defeat God’s army through compromise, deception, discouragement, and persecution.

Yet, there is an even greater purpose for suffering than warfare. John Newton, the famous slave-trader-turned-preacher and author of the hymn, “Amazing Grace,” had a profound understanding of suffering and its purpose. He saw trials as heavy weights on a grandfather clock, necessary for the Christian life to operate properly. We are sinners, but heaven is our home. We are as ships on the open sea, navigating to our destination. Everything we encounter has been appointed by God and made subservient to our sanctification and happiness.

Tony Reinke* has gleaned ten specific things from Newton’s letters about God’s sovereign design in our trials. I offer three. First, trials reveal the hidden idols of our hearts that we tend to overlook and think less vile than they really are. Trials smoke out these vile and evil vipers. Reinke writes, “Trials make us feel the power of the sins residing in our hearts, and such awareness is essential to the cure.”

Second, suffering drives us to prayer. We have a natural aversion to prayer, and we make every excuse to avoid it. We find it a chore to commune with the Almighty. Our praying is often mindless and remote. As Newton saw it, “We are dragged before God like slaves, and we run away from prayer like a thieves.” Suffering breathes necessity and desperation into our praying, bringing new energy to our seeking after God.

Third (number 8 in Reinke’s list), trials reveal God’s grace in our lives. Suffering reduces life to the bare essentials. It drives us to Christ and His Word, and we see just how much we need Him and how tightly we cling to His promises. In that hour, when all the artificial supports are gone, we begin to understand that our lives are anchored in His grace. We could not survive without it. That realization is massive to our faith and confidence. We see that He never fails us, and that is strong medicine in our most painful hours.

One of Newton’s favorite metaphors was to compare the suffering saint to Moses’ burning bush (Ex. 3:2). Christians are called to a disproportionate amount of suffering so that they might be a spectacle of grace to the world. Those outside the church will see them as burning, yet unconsumed. Only God’s amazing grace enables this miracle. It is this perseverance of faith by which Christians prove the worth of God in this sinful world.

*Newton on the Christian Life, by Tony Reinke © 2015, Crossway, from chapter 9, “Discipline in Trials.”

Ready to Shame Revilers (1 Peter 3:8–17)

In Acts 16, leaving Phrygia and Galatia, Paul and Silas were forbidden by the Holy Spirit to go into Asia Minor. They turned to go north into Bithynia but were stopped there also. In Troas, Paul had the vision urging him to cross the Aegean Sea into Macedonia and Greece. Arriving at Philippi, they found no synagogue of Jews but spoke to a few women gathered at the riverside for prayer and worship on the Sabbath. A stranger, Lydia, from Thyatira, a city in the forbidden Asia Minor, was the first convert to Christ.

Returning to the place of prayer, the company was met by a slave girl possessed by a demon of divination. Her supernatural skills brought great profits to her owners. For some reason, this girl began to follow the apostle, loudly proclaiming that he and his helpers were servants of the Most High God. After many days, Paul, greatly annoyed, commanded the spirit to leave the girl, which, of course, meant that the girl was useless to her owners’ fortune-telling enterprise. They seized Paul and Silas, had them arrested on trumped up-charges, beat them with rods, and turned them over to the Roman jailor to imprison them. Bruised, bloodied, and bound, they sat in the darkness of the inner prison, no doubt, confused and questioning God’s purpose. However, instead of complaining, protesting their ill treatment, and demanding that their rights be upheld, they worshiped the Lord in prayer and song for all to hear.

The Lord wanted a Roman jailor for His kingdom. The means He used to secure him was the odd behavior of two strange prisoners and an earthquake at midnight. All of this illustrates Peter’s instructions in 1 Peter 3:8–17.

Summarizing his argument developed from verse 3 in the first chapter, Peter reiterates the point made in 2:20 and 21. We have been called to suffer wrongfully, and as we respond in a godly way, God uses our testimony against sinners. Thus, Peter repeats his command that his readers to be unified, sympathetic, loving, tender-hearted, and humble (v. 8). With this state of mind, we are to face persecution and tribulation. When wrongfully treated, we are to bless, just as Jesus instructed (Luke 6:28; Rom. 12:14).

Peter quotes Psalm 34:12–16 for support because this kind of response is not natural. Even those who are guilty of the crimes for which they are being punished will loudly protest their treatment as unfair and excessive. On the other hand, what harm comes to those who are good and do good?” (v. 13). The natural law of fairness demands that those who do good be rewarded in kind. However, what are we to do when we suffer for righteousness’ sake? We are to honor Christ the Lord, ready and able to make a defense to any who would ask a reason for the hope in us—that living hope unto which we were born again (1:3). We must do so for the sake of our good conscience and as a testimony to shame those who would revile our good behavior.