Last year my wife and I attended the Forge Conference in hypocrisy. Please… don’t judge. We had been courting each other for almost a year, but since we still had some relational hurtles to overcome, we opted to attend pretending like we weren’t an item, just friends. Towards the end, a few folks saw through our feigned disinterest and we enjoyed the amusement of taking them into our confidence. This year we get to attend with unfeigned love.
As we approach this year’s conference with it’s theme of “Taming the Tongue,” I am meditating on a passage in 1 Peter: the last few verses of chapter 1 and the first few verses of chapter 2. Shanna and I just finished reading 1 Peter and we found ourselves encouraged and challenged by it in many ways. I’ve meditated on three major thoughts in this passage, and am mulling them over in my head in preparation for the teaching we will enjoy at this year’s Forge Con.
1 Peter 1:22-2:3
Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently: being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever. For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away: but the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you. Wherefore laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings, as newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby: if so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious.
MEDITATION #1
Do you eat pure? Do you enjoy the fresh air out in nature? After working hard all day, doesn’t a nice shower refresh you? How about spiritually? Do you enjoy the peace of a soul free and pure? Peter links two ideas to spiritual purity: obedience to the truth and unfeigned love for our church congregation members. How obedient are you to God’s revealed truth in His word? How well do you love? We often think of these ideas as separate issues, but the Apostle Peter, having imbibed the teaching of Jesus for three years, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, proclaimed both Christian holiness and Christian love without excluding each other.
Ironically, those known for the highest view of holiness and the strictest adherence to the word often do not have the greatest reputation as loving Christians. Sometimes they seem to view the scriptures as a way to get the advantage over others. We may invent many excuses for our doctrinally-correct, obnoxious bretheren, but perhaps they think of the Bible as a playbook for knowing how to do life right. Perhaps if they thought of it as how to love right, they may get closer to the intent of this passage.
Unfortunately, those known as loving churchgoers may not know how to read their Bibles well. They may even believe ideas contrary to the truth of God. Many of them could not obey the truth because they do not know the truth. Often some of their very dear beliefs do not come from the Bible but from their culture. This form of ignorant sentimentality likes to feel just and gracious without understanding how God thinks about justice and grace.
The Apostle Peter does not think of holiness and love as exclusive qualities at war with each other, but instead as intimately connected virtues. Love acts in a holy manner. Holiness loves. And this isn’t the last time he connects the two. Later in this book he goes into more detail, linking the two virtues with the fruit of the tongue.¹ But that passage will be another meditation for another day.
The Apostle Paul also agrees, showing love and holiness growing from the rich soil of the knowledge of Jesus’ sacrifice for us, His dearly beloved people. Paul especially likes to contrast how in our pre-salvation state, we lived in unholiness and self-love, sinning against each other and against God. Naturally, this war on God and His ways, brought guilt before the judgment seat of God, and we had no hope to undo our wickedness or make up for it on our own. Before salvation, we headed to hell, fully invested in this corrupt world system, unable to shake free.² But God came into this world in flesh as a sacrificial substitute, Jesus dying in our place, the just for the unjust, that we should be set free to a holy and loving life in Him.³ Jesus lived a holy and loving life not merely as an example but also as the means, His sacrifice infusing our souls with the grace to serve each other in holy love.⁴
As our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ said, “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.”⁵ Our Christian life comes down to holy love, the fervent love we give each other as the outworking of obedience to the truth through the Holy Spirit.
MEDITATION #2
The Apostle Peter’s first statement may seem ironic, almost like he’s employing a form of double-speak. It sounds like he’s saying, “Since you love the bretheren, make sure you love the brethren” And I think he is.
A local church does not have members with the same maturity level. At least it ought not. Members who enjoy a closer walk with the Lord should worship shoulder to shoulder with the spiritual novices they disciple.
Thus, even though he recognizes the pure love of the Christians “scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia,”⁶ he also recognizes that not all of those who trusted in Christ had reached the maturity to love purely. In fact, he calls out several very serious heart and tongue sins which prevent Christians from loving purely: malice, deception, hypocrisies, envies, and all forms of “speaking against.” These activities do not honor God, and rebel against His loving character. Peter calls Christians to engage in pure loving acts, instead of doing activities that work against love.
At it’s base all wickedness or perversity works against love. Jesus said that “all the law and the prophets” hang from the two laws to love God and to love our neighbor.⁷ Paul succinctly states that “love is the fulfilling of the law.”⁸ As we think about lawlessness, we realize that it exists in sharp contrast to everything loving.
For instance, we do not respect those we deceive. When we pretend to be something we clearly are not, we display a love for self instead of a love for others. Envy pretends to love, but really wants to take from others. And the sins of the tongue, when we speak against one another, all belie a heart that does not love.
These sins not only offend our neighbor, but they offend the Lord who created our neighbor. And no matter how much religious talk we can muster, when we do not love, we display a rebellion against God and His ways.
If we think about the inverse of these sins, we see something interesting. We may say the opposite of malice is benevolence, or perhaps graciousness. To not practice deception, we must exercise honesty. To avoid hypocrisy, we live in sincerity and integrity. Envy cannot long endure when we cultivate a thankful and giving heart. Instead of speaking evil about and to others, we should encourage them, building them up, speaking what is pure, lovely, or virtuous.⁹
Not surprisingly, when we look for the opposite of sin, we see a list of virtues rooted in the rich soil of love… and a bit more. Those who lay aside sin, speaking and acting in love, display the character of God.¹⁰ By loving sincerely, we automatically put away sin and honor God.
MEDITATION #3
God works in us to love. It shouldn’t surprise us to find that Christian love does not emerge from within ourselves, but is instead Divinely inspired. We love because God first loved us,¹¹ Christ set the standard for our love,¹² and the Spirit bears the fruit of love in our lives.¹³ But this passage directly links our love with the work of God’s word in us.
Immediately, Peter declares that the Word birthed us. Originally, we could not understand, much less do loving holiness, because we were dead in our sins. Dead plants do not bear fruit, and dead souls can not bear the righteousness God intended for us to bear. Aside from the dramatic miracle of spiritual life from God, we have no hope. That miracle first comes through the Word that, as Peter stated, is preached to believers. God’s truth will never age to barrenness, as old seed does. Bury the Word in the deadest heart and let God breathe on it. Let the Spirit water it. Life will grow.
The Word can sufficiently provide for our Christian love, as Peter explains, because it nourishes our souls. He describes it as seed, a bundle of nutrient-rich life-potential. For those who listen with ears made to hear, the Word lives and grows. It’s like a small mustard seed with a strong tree inside it. It’s also like milk to a newborn baby. A mother does not merely feed a baby with her milk. Antibodies accompany proteins, vitamins, minerals, enzymes, hormones, and other nutrients. As we are birthed from the death of this world to life in Christ, we desperately need spiritual food designed for our unique needs. God has provided His Word to nurture our souls, with truth that teaches, proves, corrects, and trains us.¹⁴ We need not search for meaning anywhere else. He satisfies fully.
And that satisfaction shall not fade. The Word abides forever. Because the word emanates from God, it has existed since the beginning and will always exist.¹⁵ God’s truth endures.
I find it hard to describe that truth positively, relying mostly on negative associations: everyone we depend on to support our dreams or even our basic survival will fail us at some point, but the scriptures have unfailing resources. The strong weaken, the young age, and the sure shake, but God’s truth endures. Kingdoms and all human systems that we depend on eventually collapse, but the Word of God stands millennia after millennia. Rarely do we consider how institutions change and will someday close, yet as they do God and His Word remain immutable. We trust ourselves, our knowledge, our intuition, our guts, our vision, and we falter and fall. Those who handle the Bible will misunderstand it at some point, but the Bible itself does not fail. It’s hard to describe something infallible without saying that it’s not like something that is fallible.
But God’s Word is also like a tree, with roots deep and leaves that never fade, that shelters many creatures in it’s arbor. The sun at midday can be likened to the Word, that shines brighter than our glories so that all can see through our pretenses, judging us by setting blinding perfection near us. The full moon on a cloudless night reminds me of how the Word shows us the way through the darkest night. When we climb mountains, we see mountains beyond them, just as large, and the Word is the same, with truths we scale only to see further truths just as monumental. A rock reminds me of the Bible’s firmness through the ages. As the smallest particles in the known universe scintillate, defying our categorizations, so the scriptures dazzle the hearts devoted to them.
Finally, Peter encourages us to desire this Word. Why would we not want something so life-giving, life-changing, and eternal? Perhaps our hearts have feasted so long on junk that they do not recognize true nutrition. Perhaps, as Peter suggests, they have never truly tasted God’s grace. Where God has worked through His Word and His Spirit, He fills hearts with new desires. Let us seek to co-labor with God in this work He is doing in us.
Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently: being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever. For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away: but the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you. Wherefore laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings, as newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby: if so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious.
1 Peter 1:22-2:3
NOTE: You can find pictures of Shanna and I feigning disinterest on the Forge Facebook page. I defy you to find a picture of us together.
FOOTNOTES
¹ 1 Peter 3:8-12
² Romans 3:9-20; Ephesians 2:1-3, 11-12
But God came into this world in flesh as a sacrificial substitute, Jesus dying in our place, the just for the unjust, that we should be set free to a holy and loving life in Him.
³ Romans 5:1-11; Ephesians 2:4-7
Jesus lived a holy and loving life not merely as an example but also as the means, His sacrifice infusing our souls with the grace to serve each other in holy love.
⁴ Romans 12:1-21; Ephesians 2:10, 13-17; 4:1-16
⁵ John 13:34
⁶ 1 Peter 1:1
⁷ Matthew 22:37-40
⁸ Romans 13:10
⁹ Philippians 4:8 lists ways of thinking that honor God, but we can easily also say that these subjects make good topics for conversation.
¹⁰ Thankfulness, while not an attribute of God, correctly responds to God’s gracious nature. In fact, we learn thanksgiving by studying Jesus, God’s Son, which the Bible records giving thanks many times during His earthly ministry. Jesus responded to God’s love with gratefulness. All the other qualities directly reflect perfections of God.
¹¹ 1 John 4:19
¹² John 15:12
¹³ Galatians 5:22
¹⁴ 2 Timothy 3:17
¹⁵ “Thy word is true from the beginning: and every one of thy righteous judgments endureth for ever.” — Psalms 119:160
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