God saved you to be holy, so be holy.
Bible Study Ideas and Commentary for 1 Peter 1:13-25
Peter transitions into the first section of his letter: because we have been given a most priceless gift from God -- salvation in Jesus -- we should treat it as priceless and choose to live our lives the way God intended, as His holy people. This begins with resisting the conforming influences of the world and loving your fellow Christian/church member.
As obedient children, do not be conformed to the desires of your former ignorance. (1:14)
When We Studied This Passage in 2016
I smashed a lot of topics into those notes:
Looking back on 9/11
How people misuse the word "holy"
"Be holy"
Prophecies of salvation
Jesus, Lamb of God
Our old way of life
Lots of discussion question ideas
Getting Started: Things to Think About
I'm going to start with two rather run-of-the-mill ideas. Safe, versatile, quick.
But I also have two more unwieldy ideas I've been mulling over. They really fit any of the upcoming lessons, so you may want to sit on one for future use. Or they may just make for a useful illustration at some point.
This World Is Not My Home
This topic comes from a wonderful question in my Serendipity Bible --
Are you more like a pilgrim, an explorer, or a landowner on this earth?
In 2016, I added the option "or a tourist?". This year, I'm adding the option "or a refugee?"
So that turns into the following setup:
If you step back and look at your relationship with the world you live in, would you describe yourself more like a pilgrim, an explorer, a landowner, a tourist, or a refugee?
Those are some pretty thick words, and you could spend some time defining what you think they mean. No matter what, you should bring it back around to the most important question: what kind of relationship does God want us to have with our world?
Some wise and godly writers have used some version of each of the options to describe their "spiritual pilgrimage through life", but I think the Bible would give us another world entirely: ambassador. (Note: our passage this week uses the word "stranger" in this context -- you can be sure that I'll bring this topic up again!)
How does being an ambassador differ from the options given above?
My singing group in college sang the old song, "This World Is Not My Home", and I have to admit that it greatly affected my understanding of my life when I later became a Christian. If you don't know the song, there are lots of versions of it; here's a bluegrass-heavy one.
Based on my suggestion of the word "ambassador", what would you think I would love to see added to this song?
How Do You Handle a Truly Expensive Gift?
What's the most expensive (or perhaps precious) gift you have received? How did you handle it?
As a kid, I was rather flippant with gifts. I didn't really appreciate their value. And thus when I inevitably broke/lost them, I didn't mourn the loss as I should.
I've gotten better about this as I've aged. I recognize a gift that's far nicer than I deserve, and I treat it with care. This also applies to heirlooms -- perhaps not something "expensive", but quite valuable in meaning.
What's the best way to appreciate a precious gift? Your group will probably say things like keeping it safe, using it appropriately, and saying thank you. What else?
Now -- what's the most precious gift we have truly received? Our salvation. How have we been treating that gift?
Be Committed to Your Religion -- for Your Kids' Sake
Last week (2/26), Pew Research released one of their bigger and more important surveys. I'll talk about it more in the "Bid Idea" below; but for this topic idea, I want to focus on one part of the survey.
Do you think religious upbringing is "sticky"? Why or why not? What factors might make it more or less sticky?
By that, I mean "do you think that a person brought up in a Christian home is more or less likely to be a Christian than someone who was brought up in an atheist home? Why?"
One part of the Pew survey revealed something no one should find surprising:
The importance of religion in the childhood home had a direct correlation with the importance of religion to that person as an adult.
You probably noticed that the correlation isn't too impressive though -- a significant proportion of the people surveyed were less religious than they were brought up to be.
This next chart makes it a little easier to see:
~40% of people attend religious services less often than as a child
~60% of people attend as often or more than as a child
~1/3 of people say religion is less important to them than to their family
~2/3 of people say it is as important or more than to their family
(I kept this graphic shrunk because there's a lot of fine print.)
That's a lot of stickiness. So, parents, if you want your children to become a Christian, you had better take your own Christianity very seriously.
Obviously, it's not that simple -- if you use this topic, there's a good chance that someone in your group will want to dig deeper. Do so, but keep track of the time; this is the kind of topic that could take your whole morning. (This might be the time to say, "Hey, why don't we go out to lunch today and continue this conversation!")
As a Bible-believing Christian, those numbers seem easily explained to me, especially when we consider that Christianity isn't like other religions -- salvation isn't as simple as writing your name on a roll. But I'll be curious to know what you think!
Children brought up in a religious household are more likely to be told the beliefs of that religion, therefore they are more likely to believe them than someone who has not been taught those beliefs. However -- Christianity is not something you are born into or can intellectualize your way into. Becoming a Christian is a spiritual event based on personal faith. History shows that not every child of Christian parents becomes a Christian, and that may have nothing to do with the parents' best efforts.
Children can detect superficiality and hypocrisy in a parent's religiosity. My assumption is that a healthy percentage of the adults who self-identified as Christian are not actually saved, making it impossible for them to raise children in a "Christian home". Those kids who are disappointed in their parents' lifestyles may very well be less interested in having anything to do with the God they claim to worship.
This leads to one of my favorite topics: understanding Proverbs!
Start a youth out on his way; even when he grows old he will not depart from it. (22:6, CSB)
You might know it from the King James: "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it."
Many parents have understood this verse to mean that if their child strays from Christianity, it's the parents' fault. They didn't train up their child well enough. That's not what it means.
The book of Proverbs is not a book of promises. It's a book of sayings, or better yet, a book of warnings. If you don't start your child off on the right path, his/her future is cloudy.
Back to 1 Peter. Here's my point: Peter calls Christians to live as obedient children to God. But there's a double value to it -- it helps keep us in right relationship with God, and it helps our children (and everyone else) see that our Christianity is precious to us.
That's a long discussion setup. If you use it, be more concise than I was :)
How to Survive in an AI Economy -- Be More Human
This topic is going to become a bigger and bigger deal in the years ahead.
Depending on your industry, you are feeling the encroachment of AI tools. AI is already displacing human workers in a myriad of ways, from writing jingles to frying french fries.
So, what's "safe"? What should we encourage young people to focus on to build up job security?
The answer (and this comes from very secular sources) is exactly what Peter would say: be more human. Ask your group, what are the things humans can do that computers/robots can't? I wouldn't be surprised if they say things that robots actually can do (it's bewildering what robots can do). The things that robots can't do (from a CNBC article):
creativity,
curiosity,
courage,
compassion and
communication.
In other words, humans need to focus on being human. That will give them "job security" in the coming AI-dominated "innovation economy". (I am fascinated by the conclusions non-Christians draw about the nature of humanity.)
Where am I going with this? Well - what are the things Christians can do that non-Christians can't?
My hope is you'll realize that just as robots can do a lot of the things humans can do, so non-Christians can do a lot of the things that Christians can. So, what sets a Christian apart? In a world where "spirituality" is on the rise, Peter would say that Christians need to focus on being Christian.
In this week's passage, Peter's emphasis is on faith, hope and love, so I would steer you in that direction for answering the question. What does "faith, hope and love" mean to a non-Christian as opposed to a Christian? But there's more (for example, the focus last week -- enduring suffering as a Christian). What else would you say?
This Week's Big Idea: The Latest Pew "Landscape Study"
It's been 10 years since Pew Research released their last "Religious Landscape Study", and they dropped one last week (2/26):
There is so much information in it. I'll just give you some connections with this week's 1 Peter passage.
Btw, you might prefer their executive summary:
Here is a quote from that summary:
<block quote begins>
Large majorities of Americans have a spiritual, supernatural outlook. For example:
86% believe people have a soul or spirit in addition to their physical body.
83% believe in God or a universal spirit.
79% believe there is something spiritual beyond the natural world.
70% believe in heaven, hell or both.
But in future years we may see further declines in the religiousness of the American public, for several reasons:
Young adults are far less religious than older adults.
No recent birth cohort has become more religious as it has aged.
The “stickiness” of a religious upbringing seems to be declining: Compared with older people, fewer young adults who had a highly religious upbringing are still highly religious as adults.
The “stickiness” of a nonreligious upbringing seems to be rising.
</block quote ends>
Hopefully you can see the connection with my two proposed discussion topics above (children of Christians, and humans in the age of AI).
I'm shrinking these charts to make them smaller, but you can click on them to blow them up and make them easier to read.
Observation 1: The decline in American Christianity has stopped over the last few years.
This is just something that I think you would be interested to know.
Observation 2: A large majority of Americans believes in spirituality.
I see this as a positive and a negative. It's positive in the sense that you have fewer cognitive barriers to sharing Jesus with someone who already believes in God and the eternal soul. But it's negative in the sense that sometimes the hardest thing to do is "save someone from their religion", so to speak. Especially if those people have abandoned institutional Christianity due to some negative experience with a church.
Observation 3: Most Americans become more spiritual as they age -- but not yet for the younger generations.
This should make sense. The older we get, the more we are forced to confront our mortality. The Pew researchers pointed out that this increase is not happening in the younger generations. However, I wonder if they just aren't old enough yet. How old do you think someone tends to be to start taking death and spirituality more seriously?
But if the researchers are right, if younger generations are becoming less spiritual, that is a very big deal that Christian churches need to consider carefully in every decision they make. (Don't worry -- there are plenty of books on the subject.)
I personally think that in another 20 years, those numbers will "improve" as those generations age. But if each generation is slightly less religious/spiritual than the previous, eventually you do have a crisis.
Note: I understand that there's a fundamental difference between being spiritual and being a Christian. There is also a fundamental difference between calling oneself a Christian and being a Christian. That's why I think these trends are useful.
Observation 4: There's a cataclysmic drop-off between the oldest and youngest Americans when it comes to Christianity.
Again, I believe that these numbers will improve as those young people age and begin to think more seriously about eternal matters. But that doesn't change the present reality. Those statistics are profound.
This is where your discussion might go --
Recognizing that parents cannot "force" their children into heaven, what would Peter say is a Christian's response to these statistics?
I feel like these statistics reveal that our circumstance isn't so far away from Peter's audience. Have you ever been bewildered by the current world of young people? By their language? Their priorities? Their beliefs?
The older we get, the bigger the gap between ourselves and young adults (sorry; it's called math). Next week, I'll suggest a discussion topic about what's called "brain rot" and how bizarre youth culture can become. For now, the point is simply this: if you look at the culture around you (particularly the youth culture) as strange and even hostile, how is that different than how Peter's audience viewed the culture around them?
And the hammer: how did Peter encourage his readers to interact with the people around them?
To emphasize grace, compassion, and respectful interaction.
To prioritize their love for one another and obedience to God.
Is that how you have been responding to youth culture?
I wonder if some of the trends above can be explained by the caustic way older generations have been interacting with younger generations.
Where We Are in 1 Peter
This week's passage starts with Peter's first "therefore", meaning we have transitioned into a new section of the letter.
Last week was Peter's introduction and opening praise. He wanted his readers to start by understanding the incomparable blessing of living on this side of the cross, or knowing the salvation God provided for them in Jesus Christ. And here's the first consequence: because you have been saved by Jesus, you should "live saved".
Part 1: God Saved You to Be Holy, So Be Holy (1 Peter 1:13-17)
13 Therefore, with your minds ready for action, be sober-minded and set your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 14 As obedient children, do not be conformed to the desires of your former ignorance. 15 But as the one who called you is holy, you also are to be holy in all your conduct; 16 for it is written, Be holy, because I am holy. 17 If you appeal to the Father who judges impartially according to each one’s work, you are to conduct yourselves in reverence during your time living as strangers.
Guess what Peter is quoting? Leviticus! Do you remember our study of Leviticus well enough to realize the point Peter is making? Here's one passage we talked about, if you need a reminder.
Start with the "Therefore" -- always ask what it's there for. Here, Peter couldn't be more obvious. "You have received the most priceless gift in history; therefore, take it seriously."
This is where our background in Leviticus will be helpful. Remember that God saved the Israelites so that they would be His people in the world. And through them, God would share His purpose for humanity, and how all people could live in right relationship with Him. In the nation of Israel, the rest of the world should have been able to see what a "true human ethic" looked like -- how God created people to live. But because they did not follow God's rules, they actually brought reproach on God among the nations.
Peter saw that the experience of Israel was necessary because it demonstrated the need for Jesus. And now that Jesus has come, Jesus has prepared the way for a "new holy nation" (but more on that next week).
Peter's point here is "Christians must not make the same mistake that Israel made; we must truly live as obedient children to God." His audience must have known at least a little about the history of the Jews, else why would Peter quote the Old Testament so much!
The difference between Israel and Christianity is the Holy Spirit. Salvation leads to a "re-birth" -- a new humanity, so to speak, that has access to the power of God to help them live by God's rules. Therefore, let's live by God's rules.
That's pretty sound logic to me. (In my 2016 post, I go into more detail about this technique -- arguing "from the indicative to the imperative".)
Behavior #1: Get your minds ready for action.
What do you think this means, and how do we do it? The Greek phrase can be translated "gird". Everybody wore robes in that day. Have you ever tried to run in a robe? Exactly. So, how do you "gird up your mind"?
Perhaps think of it this way: what are the extraneous thoughts in your head that tend to slow you down, distract you, or paralyze you? Peter tells us to get those under control.
Behavior #2: Set your hope on eternal salvation.
In Peter's day, there was a widespread belief that Jesus would come back at any moment, and that is when Christians would receive the fullness of their salvation. Today, we use the more balanced phrase "until Christ returns or calls me home". How might keeping your focus on death/apocalypse help settle your priorities? You might skim through:
Behavior #3: Don't be conformed to the world.
The more famous use of this word for "conformed" is probably in Romans 12:2:
It means what you think it means: being forced into a mold. What's really interesting is Peter (and Paul) used the passive tense. Being conformed is something that happens to you. You just exist, and it happens to you. How well do you realize when the world is conforming you to its patterns of thinking?
This is why Peter begins with "getting your mind ready". If you're not prepared to resist the world's influence, you will be conformed without realizing it. That's also why he uses the word "ignorance" -- don't be caught unaware!
Note what else Peter is doing here: people without Christ are acting out of ignorance. What's the difference in how you think of someone who "doesn't know any better" and someone who "actively does evil"? It tends to make me sympathetic -- that used to be me. Peter wants us to view the people around us as strangers, but not as enemies.
Behavior #4: Be holy in all things.
This is Peter's protection for his readers: if you continuously strive to live "set apart", the world will have less opportunity to "corrupt" you (in Leviticus language, "defile" you). I put a large section about the word "holy" in the 2016 post. Here, though, I'll put the question to you:
Based on everything we just read in Leviticus, what do you think "holy living" means to Christians? In what ways does God want us to be holy?
Behavior #5: Remember that God is your Judge.
A dangerous thought that Christians need to "gird up" is the idea that we need to please someone on earth -- our parent, our employer, our government. No, remember that God is our Judge; therefore, our priority must be to consider what pleases Him.
These are basic truths; you shouldn't have anyone in your group say otherwise. But the fact that we tend to have trouble keeping them in the forefront of our mind is proof of Peter's need for urgency, right?
Fun Observation: "Stranger" ("Sojourner")
I opened with a discussion about our relationship with the world -- pilgrim, explorer, landowner. I suggested that "ambassador" is actually the mindset we should take. But here, Peter uses the word "stranger". Bible translations are quite varied in how they translate it -- "time of temporary residence" "exile" "visiting" "strangers in a strange land""foreigners".
The Greek word (paroikos) literally means "to live beside". I think that's a powerful image. We don't "live among", but we "live beside".
However, we're not just passing through. Yes, our time on earth is temporary, but it's the entirety of our one and only earthly life.
That's why I don't like "sojourner" here -- a person can be a sojourner and completely ignore/avoid everybody else. But an "ambassador" has a job, a purpose. They're only temporary -- they're on a sojourn, and they never "go native" -- but they are intentional with their time in that place.
How intentional are you with your time on earth?
Part 2: God Saved You in Jesus Christ (1 Peter 1:18-21)
18 For you know that you were redeemed from your empty way of life inherited from your ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of an unblemished and spotless lamb. 20 He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was revealed in these last times for you. 21 Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.
I'm going to do something risky. Theologically -- in terms of the kind of knowledge that Peter wants us to be clear about -- these are the most important words in the passage. Everyone in our Bible study groups must clearly understand that Jesus Christ is our perfect atoning sacrifice.
But we've talked about that at length recently,
So to save space in this already-too-long post, I'll trust that you have plenty of notes on the subject or that you are willing to do some extra reading.
Here, I want to focus on verse 20. Exactly how was Jesus "foreknown"?
To make a long story short ... You understand that God is omniscient (all-knowing), right? There is nothing that can be known that God does not know. But God is also outside of time -- He created time. That means He knows all things from our perspective of past and future.
What Peter is saying here means a little more than "God knew", though. You remember from last week that I emphasized Peter's words about the Trinity in 1:2. If we still have trouble understanding the Trinity today, after 2,000 years of collectively thinking about it, how do you think Peter's audience was doing with it, and they didn't even have a Bible!
This is Peter's way of trying to help his audience understand what Jesus had tried to help Peter understand -- everything that happened to Jesus was a part of God's perfect plan.
And in our 2,000 years of Spirit-inspired thinking about the Bible, we've further realized that this means God (Father, Son, and Spirit) had the plan to send Jesus to die for the sins of humanity before God created humanity. God created us knowing what it would cost Him.
So, yes, Peter's audience might have just recently heard about Jesus' sacrifice, but God had been grappling with it (not sure what word to use there) since before the beginning began.
(1) This means that Christians should have all the more confidence and hope in God, realizing the infinite depth of His love for them. But
(2) this also means that Christians should be all the more devoted to God. God is not some vengeful tyrant or maniacal dictator -- God is a loving Father who truly has our best interests and purposes in mind in everything He commands of us.
To hammer Peter's words home, let me call back to my AI-related idea above. How does Christian "faith" and "hope" differ from the faith and hope that non-Christians experience? And how might your answer help you in sharing the gospel? (Note: your answer had better come around to compassion.)
Part 3: Your Salvation Is Eternal, So Love One Another (1 Peter 1:22-25)
22 Since you have purified yourselves by your obedience to the truth, so that you show sincere brotherly love for each other, from a pure heart love one another constantly, 23 because you have been born again—not of perishable seed but of imperishable—through the living and enduring word of God. 24 For
All flesh is like grass, and all its glory like a flower of the grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, 25 but the word of the Lord endures forever.
And this word is the gospel that was proclaimed to you.
Earlier, Peter quoted Leviticus. Here, he quotes Isaiah 40. Some significant percentage of his audience was familiar with the Old Testament.
Let's start with something I hope you furrowed your brow about:
"We purify ourselves by our obedience?"
"We are born again by the Word of God?"
Realize that Peter is not talking about salvation by works, or about worshiping the Bible! Goodness, he specifically says that the "word" is the gospel. But his specific meaning is pretty cool.
Do you remember, in my introduction to Leviticus
I talked about the condition of a thing as either "clean" or "unclean". An "unclean" thing could be made "clean" through actions taken to "purify" it. Being "unclean" wasn't necessarily a sin -- in many cases, it could not be avoided! But it had to be dealt with because people had to be "clean" to have a safe relationship with God.
That's what Peter is talking about here. When we obey God's rules (like, for example, the Sermon on the Mount), we are being separated from sin. When we think about "good things" (Phil 4:8), we "cleanse" our minds of the junk that is in there.
It's not saving us, but it is "cleansing" us (sanctification).
Now -- about "the word of the Lord". We call the Bible "the Word of God". (Because it is.) But in the Bible itself, "the word of the Lord" is a technical phrase that describes a "divine utterance". We understand that the entire Bible is inspired by God, but it also contains specific prophetic instances that the human authors of the Bible considered "the word of the Lord". Does that distinction make sense?
[Note: I don't think Peter is using "word" is the way John used it to identify Jesus. John wrote his Gospel decades after this letter.]
And the specific "word" Peter is thinking about is the gospel message of salvation. Peter's point is that God's plan of salvation was put together before the foundation of the world. God is not going to change His mind about salvation through Jesus. Preachers will come and go. You will live and die. But the message of salvation is eternal, and thus eternally trustworthy.
In other words, Peter is echoing something Paul said in Romans 10:
So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the message about Christ. (10:17)
To Peter, the primary and necessary outcome is sincere love for one another. This is not agape (sacrificial) love. This is brotherly love (phileo, ironically used in the name of Philadelphia, the city that once booed Santa Claus). This is the "be nice to your sister" love. this is the "you live in the same house" love. There is no lip-service you can pay about this kind of love.
Next week, we will talk in more detail about how Peter describes "being holy". But I want you to consider this: why would Peter list "love for your fellow Christian/church member" first on a list of how God wants His people to live?
Seriously -- I think that's worth a lot of group discussion.
Closing Thoughts: Lent
I am posting these notes on Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent. The season of Lent is a human creation, so I don't want to get very legalistic about how many Christians observe it.
But based on what's we've read in this week's passage, what might be the value for a Christian to observe a season like Lent?