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1 Peter 2:9-10
Introduction
We continue in our study of first Peter today.
In the last passage we were reminded of the perils of unbelief.
This is true within the church as well as without.
Peter warned the believers that rejecting Jesus would cause one to stumble badly.
It also served to remind us that we have an obligation to warn those outside the church, the very people who reject us when we became Christians.
Having dealt with this, Peter goes back to the theme of the preciousness of being a Christian, something he does throughout the epistle.
It is a style similar to that of the Book of Hebrews which intersperses warnings to the believers not to fall away between sections of teaching material.
1 John also has this spiral structure.
In modern times, we tend to dislike repetitions, especially in written discourses.
It is good to remember that many of the members of the churches were illiterate, this is why there was an office of reader in the church.
In spoken speech, there is no rewind button or the means of going back to a previous page.
So repeating the main points serves to amplify and explain what Peter wants them to understand.
One of these things is that the Christians are valued by God, even if they are valueless to those outside the church.
Peter reminds the church that they must undergo suffering for a little while so that they might be refined and approved.
Peter reminds them that the suffering and rejection they are suffering is not punishment from God for wrongdoing.
Peter reminds us of the work of evangelism as we noted.
So if Peter finds it necessary to refresh his hearers about these things, so shall I.
Exposition of the Text
But You are a chosen race — In the previous passage, Peter had described the fall of those who refused to believe.
Israel refused to believe in Jesus and had stumbled.
The Jews in the Old Testament were known as “The Chosen People.”
Yahweh had chosen them for His purposes.
Part of this purpose is that Israel might serve as a witness to the other nations.
For example, we read in Isaiah 60:1-3:
The message Israel was to bring to the Gentiles (other nations) served two purposes.
The first was a judgment against the evil practices and idolatry of the Gentiles.
The other was a call to repentance and to believe in Yahweh, the God of Israel.
the life Israel lived was to testify of the goodness and grace of the LORD and draw the Gentiles in.
Although there were Israelites who took this call seriously, the nation as a whole failed to live up to expectations.
Instead of being light, Israel itself stumbled into the same darkness which characterized the other nations.
So now Peter applies the epithet “Chosen People” to address the churches to whom he was writing.
We don’t know the ethnic makeup of the churches in these areas, but God wanted a church composed of both Jews and Gentiles.
It is the church which now is tasked to be a witness both to Israel as well as to all the other nations.
The church is a chosen race.
Although the word can also be translated “generation”, the choice I have made to translate the Greek “genos” as race is made in the light of our current world situation.
It seems that the term “racist” is thrown around as a means to smear people and to assert one’s moral superiority.
Racism in which one promotes their ethnicity as superior to other ethnicities is certainly wrong.
It is wrong in the world.
but more importantly, it is biblically evil.
The net result of racism and the corollary race-baiting is to cause division and multiply hate.
So how does “chosen race” being applied to Christians sound to those outside the church?
We recognize that the church is to be composed of people from every race, color, and ethnicity.
the church is not to discriminate between one ethnicity or another.
It is not to discriminate based upon economic status, or whether one is male or female.
It is a race composed of all the races of the world.
This should be reflected in our local congregations as well as the church at large.
We must not give ammunition to the enemy to call us out on this matter.
The other issue we need to look at is that we are chosen.
There is a lot of jealousy against those who are elite.
The poor in this world envy the rich, and the rich despise the poor.
There is something in the world called “virtue signalling,” something the Bible calls “hypocrisy.”
Peter has already admonished the churches, and us, to be sincere in out conduct and in our love.
The virtue signalers of this world are famous of trying to make a claim of moral superiority over the masses when their conduct is anything but moral.
We need to remind ourselves that we were not chosen because of our moral conduct.
Quite the contrary!
We were chosen simply because of the grace of God in Jesus Christ.
So, we need to be humble in our conduct and boast about Jesus and not ourselves.
A sobering reality of our current situation in this world is that we are a “chosen race” in that we are called to carry our cross and follow Jesus.
We are for a short season appointed to suffer for Christ as a witness to the world.
Peter addresses churches who are suffering for the faith.
The world had rejected and opposed them.
Whatever status they might have once had in this world is gone.
It is replaced by the fact that we are chosen by God.
A royal priesthood — We see this idea in Revelation 1:6 also.
The concept of Israel serving as royal priests to God is found throughout the old Testament as well.
In particular, Peter seems to be thinking about Exodus 19:6 as the next term “holy nation” appears there as well.
The biblical idea of a priest is a man who acts as an intermediary between God and man.
This emphasizes that the church’s mission is to reconcile men of God through the preaching of the gospel.
It is a royal priesthood because we are commissioned by King Jesus and equipped for the task.
It is also royal because King Jesus is also the great High Priest, We share in his priesthood.
A Holy Nation —Peter uses the idea of the believers being set apart to His service from the beginning of the epistle.
This is the main definition of “Holy.”
The fact that we have been set apart by God who is altogether righteous, graceful, and loving implies that we are called to reflect His character.
The image of God is in us through Jesus Christ who is the perfect image of God.
So “holy” is rightly associated with conduct becoming our calling (holy living).
Whereas every individual Christian is called to be holy, the emphasis upon “nation” here is talking about our joint conduct within the church.
A peculiar people — Although it is probably a better translation to follow the NKJV in rendering this “His own special people,” there is something to be brought out by the King James rendering of “a peculiar people.
This is because this is just what the world thinks of us; they think we are peculiar, as in very strange.
To God, we are His own special people, but to the world, we just do not fit in.
Being special to God is a two-edged sword.
It gives us the greatest sense of security and hope when we believe the Good News.
Although Peter uses different Greek words to describe being a stranger other than the usual “Xenos,” he addresses them as resident aliens scattered throughout the provinces.
The believers are foreigners in their own land.
The others in the areas where the churches resided had what could be called a bad case of xenophobia.
We see some of this in the Western world when migrants start flooding into the land.
The attitudes that the citizens hold to strangers would are those which face the Christian pilgrim, other than that the Christians were once their fellow-citizens.
We also can see how the elite of this world use this division to their own purposes.
Many in this country feel that the migrants have more rights than they as citizens have.
The elite try to separate people by race and culture to which we have already stated.
They want to divide people based upon vaccination status.
They certainly wish to diminish the influence of Christians in society and replace christian values with their own values.
Day by day, Christians feel the alienation that this causes.
What the Christians undergo today in the West is not new.
Nor is this sense of isolation particular to the West.
Christians are despised most everywhere in the world because their conduct condemns the world.
Having said this, the Christian must not treat others the way they are treated.
One might question the motives of migrants and the organizations that exploit them.
But we are called to overcome evil with good.
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