“Affliction doesn’t feel momentary, and it doesn’t feel light.”
Download discussion questions: 1 Peter 1:1-25
Jump to beginning of 1 Peter Discussion Group Blog
I encourage you to look at the passage in 1 Peter before you read this Blog entry. What do you see in the text yourself? What questions come to your mind? How would you interpret what the writer says? After even a few minutes examining and thinking about the text you will be much better prepared to evaluate the comments in the Blog.
This week’s discussion looked back at the entire first chapter of 1 Peter. After several discussions, sometimes separated by several weeks, it seemed appropriate to put the details of those discussions together. We are reading a letter. Particular ideas need to be understood in the overall flow of the writer’s themes. Studies of shorter passages benefit from occasional reminders of the broader context.
A Judge of Works?
We began our study time by listening to an audio recording of 1 Peter 1, and following along on the handout. The goal was to note what has been the most helpful, or encouraging, or surprising part of Peter’s letter so far. Or we could revisit parts of the passage that are still unclear or puzzling.
Detailed examination of shorter passages can be interesting and instructive. But the beginning of our discussion revealed how isolated bits can be seriously misunderstood or even misrepresented apart from context.
After our listening and reading through the first chapter, one person noted how a fragment of verse 17 could be misused, describing God as the
…Father who judges impartially according to each one’s work…
Having come from a very works-oriented church background, that phrase resonated with memories of seeking to please God, the judge of works. He also mentioned a similar emphasis from cult members who describe righteousness in terms of performance.
We discussed the question of why verses are often taken out of context (or even abbreviated), and not only by cults. Christians are not without the same inclination.
One suggestion was that we want quick answers, or we want a simple statement to prove a point. Someone else offered the technical term, “eisegesis,” reading into instead of reading out from. But a genuine desire to understand what the Bible (or any document) really has to say will not settle for shortcuts or quick simplified answers. Serious inductive study takes more effort, often requiring serious thought and interaction with other genuine seekers of truth.
Raking is easy, but you only get leaves. Digging is hard, but you may find diamonds.[1]
The person who asked about the misuse of verse 17 was asked how he might respond to someone offering a works-righteousness argument based on that verse. After a moment’s thought, he suggested looking at the whole chapter – an inductive study to see if Peter was really advocating that approach to our relationship with God.
What About the Present?
Another topic of discussion as we looked at the whole first chapter was Peter’s emphasis on hope growing out of suffering. That hope has a dual foundation:
-
- What God has done for us (His mercy, our new birth with an inheritance, redeemed from a futile way of life)
- What God will do for us (salvation to be revealed; praise and glory and honor; future grace)
That led our discussion into the problem area. What about the present? God’s work in the past is tremendous, but it can seem vague and distant. Likewise, an eternal future inheritance is a wonderful prospect, but the realities we face daily loom much larger for most believers for most of the time. Our attention is distracted by suffering or even by slight discomfort
Peter begins his letter by repeatedly redirecting his readers to the actions of a loving, wise, sovereign God – what He has done, what He will do. Whatever our present circumstances are, Peter reminds us that this is a “temporary residence” (1 Peter 1:18), what the Apostle Paul describes as “momentary light affliction” (2 Corinthians 4:17).
But it doesn’t feel momentary, and it doesn’t feel light.
A member of our group pointed out the main problem word in those objections: “feel.” Our present circumstances are supposed to be insignificant when compared with eternity. But discomfort or pain or persecution don’t feel insignificant. Someone pointed out that our difficulties tend to have a momentum. That momentum can carry us down into discouragement and despair.
Minimizing or ignoring or denying those feelings are not solutions. Peter certainly doesn’t suggest that suffering isn’t painful (“distressed by various trials,” v. 6; like “gold tested by fire,” v. 7). Instead, he reminds them (and us) of what we already know, summarized in, “This is the word that has been proclaimed to you” (v. 25b).
“Feelings lie,” as one person commented. On the other hand, faith that endures through grief or pain or any kind of trial “is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods.”[2]
Holding on Together
Community is critical for “holding on.” Too often our response to feelings of despair or discouragement is to withdraw from others, or at least to disguise our pain.
And too often when another person communicates worry or a painful event, other people offer advice or platitudes, “I’m sure it will all work out OK.” A better alternative, as someone suggested, is simply to sit with the person in their pain, to “bear one another’s burden” (Galatians 6:2). And, someone added, sitting is not “wallowing.” We can sit in silence. We can offer the comfort of our presence. We can refrain from inserting our own burden, “Let me tell you about what happened to me….”
We discussed the practical reality that those painful moments might not necessarily be the right time to make the first mention of the glories of heaven. That truth may sound hollow if used as an attempted “quick fix” for someone’s despair. Peter’s reminders of our imperishable inheritance and our eternally increasing joy need to be continuously communicated in our community. We need to be immersed in an environment of expectation and anticipation. That environment doesn’t make pain disappear. Anticipation doesn’t eliminate feelings. But the expectancy and eagerness that are part of our mindset will help us to remember what we are longing for so deeply.
Someone suggested that a familiar line from Peter’s letter might apply to believers as well as to un-believers:
Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. (1 Peter 3:15, NIV)
Certainly, that exhortation applies when our lives make a neighbor or co-worker curious about our counter-cultural response to difficulties. But in our discussion of helping each other hold on to faith through trials (“holding on to things your reason has once accepted”), it seemed that Peter’s words would apply equally. A Christian community has the opportunity to share struggles and demonstrate deeply held hope to each other. A struggling brother or sister might do well to ask about that hope. Those are the times to encourage each other’s anticipation of heaven, building a reservoir of hope for times of trials.
Self-Control
Another question, very practical, came up in our discussion. What does self-control look like in Peter’s teaching?
Therefore, when you have prepared your minds for action by being self-controlled, put your hope completely in the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
(1 Peter 1:13)[3]
Peter uses very precise grammar in that sequence of phrases (as we discussed before)[4], and self-control is an important link between “preparing your minds” and “set your hope.” Apparently, self-control is a component of our hope.
Our group struggled a bit to define or describe self-control until someone suggested the opposite approach. What does a lack of self-control look like when facing pain or discomfort? Somehow, that perspective prompted more than a few responses.
Lack of self-control
-
- Indulges the flesh to feel better
- Makes everything about me
- Shifts blame – it’s not my fault
- Exploits others to get relief
- Tends toward unhealthy introspection (“navel-gazing”)
- Believes lies about God or myself
- Focuses on despair instead of hope
- Rationalizes temptation as deserved
The lack of self-control sounds a lot like self obsession.
Every one of us is determined to make this life work to our satisfaction. We’re all addicted to feeling good, and we’ve learned that something could do the job, so that’s what we’re living for, whatever it is. We’re really obsessed with ourselves, not with God but with using God to get our lives going well enough so that we’re happy, rather than trusting God with our eventual well-being.[5]
Those descriptions of the lack of self-control (which came to all of us so easily!) stirred our thinking about Peter’s call to self-control.
Self-control means
-
- Steady, not double-minded (cf. James 1:8)
- Not spiraling into deeper despair with the “momentum” of discouragement mentioned earlier
- Continually refocusing away from bad possibilities to the sure hope of the gospel
- Consciously reviewing the trustworthy character of God: loving, wise, sovereign
- Remembering that we were created for perfect, infinite joy
- Choosing to be with others instead of retreating in isolation
Self-control sounds a lot like consciously choosing God obsession over self obsession and participating in a community that helps one another maintain that choice. That kind of self-control clearly “prepares our mind for action” and enables us to “put our hope completely on the grace to be revealed” (v. 13a, 13c). As someone observed, self-control takes us back to the truth and liberates us from the control of our feelings. We search for satisfaction in countless ways, but self-control concentrates our attention on God as the single source of genuine joy and fulfillment.
By self-restraint we are bound up and brought back into the One from whom we were dissipated into many.[6]
Our hope is “completely on the grace to be revealed” as our self-control recognizes and rejects other counterfeit sources of hope.
Our Incomprehensible Future
Clearly, Peter’s emphasis in response to “various trials” (v. 6b) is the “great rejoicing” (v. 6a) and the “joy inexpressible and full of glory” (v. 8) that results from our anticipation of our eternal inheritance (v. 4) and our assured hope (v. 3, 13, 21). So why is this so difficult? Why do our immediate difficulties and distresses often override our everlasting hope?
One person asked a simple question, “How many sermons have you heard on the glories of heaven?” There were ten of us present, some having been believers for over fifty years. The sum total number of such sermons: zero. The point was clear. Part of the problem is the fact that we are not taught to anticipate our eternal inheritance.
On the contrary, sermons and self-help books and web sites more often promote ways to make life work better. “Living your best life now” often is much more attractive than vague ambiguities about eternity. Peter, along with the rest of the New Testament writers, highlights heaven. Modern western believers prefer to emphasize making life work now. As one participant commented, “Why look at eternity when we have so much here?”
Peter makes it clear that even those of us who “have so much here” are only temporary residents (v. 1, 17). We were created for eternal, infinite joy which is only possible (as Peter will state in his second letter) as we share in the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4), in relationship with the Triune God. What one member described as “the world’s grip” on us distracts us from the true source of joy. Trials are God’s means of releasing that grip.
Our trials keep us trusting; they burn away our self-confidence and drive us to our Saviour.[7]
And
God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.[8]
The world’s grip seduces us to believe we can create our own joy. But when comfortable circumstances begin to fail, we begin to ask the right questions. We begin to understand the unique value of an “imperishable and undefiled and unfading inheritance” (v. 4).
What can we know about that inheritance? What thoughts can we turn to for hope and anticipation of eternity? Our group had several suggestions.
-
- First, as much as we appreciate and value the fellowship we have now, we can look forward to a much better version. No earthly community will ever be fully satisfying. That longing will be fulfilled in eternity.
- We won’t be able to sin. All of our desires will be for God’s glory, so we will have absolute freedom to carry out those desires.
- Peter had a glimpse of the glorified Christ at the Transfiguration (Matthew 17). Whatever it was like, he didn’t want to leave.
- We will be overwhelmed by beauty.
- We won’t have a sinful nature. We won’t face temptation.
The fact that our eternal existence is ultimately unimaginable and indescribable might seem frustrating. But on the contrary, that very character is due to the fact that it will be better than anything we could comprehend. It will be beyond anything we have even desired. Perhaps only fantasy can stir the edges of our imagination to anticipate that “joy inexpressible and full of glory.”
This excerpt from a Madeleine L’Engle novel[9] illustrates that inexpressibility for me, and it leads me into awe about eternal life.
“So maybe there’s a planet somewhere where nobody has any eyes.”
“Well, if nobody had any eyes, they’d all get along all right without them, wouldn’t they?”
“They’d get along with hearing, and smell, and touch, but they wouldn’t have any idea what anything looked like.”
“And if someone from our planet went to the planet where no one had eyes, and tried to describe something to them-the way the rain looks falling on the ocean, or the lighthouse beam at night, or the sunrise-it couldn’t be done, could it?”
“If you didn’t have eyes, if you lived in a world of touch and sound, then nobody could tell you what anything looks like.”
“Well, maybe when the people on the planet with no eyes die, then maybe they get sent to planets where there are eyes. But you couldn’t tell them about it ahead of time.”
“So, maybe when we die, we’ll get something as important as sight, but because we don’t know what it is, nobody could tell us about it now, any more than we could explain sight to the people on a planet with no eyes.”
May we stimulate each other’s anticipation of what we cannot imagine.
[1] John Piper, God’s Passion for His Glory; Living the Vision of Jonathan Edwards (Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway Books, 1998), 29.
[2] C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis Signature Classics (New York: HarperCollins Publishers Inc., 2021) Kindle Edition, 140.
[3] Note that in the Lexham English Bible words added for clarity, paraphrases, etc., are italicized and explained in footnotes. For example, “when having prepared…” is the translators’ rendering of the literal idiom “having girded up the loins of your mind.”
[4] https://www.goodnotsafe.com/preparation-self-control-hope#:~:text=The%20grammar%20of%20the%20passage
[5] Larry Crabb, Soul Talk (Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson, 2003), 164; Kindle edition location 2015; emphasis added.
[6] Augustine, The Confessions of Saint Augustine (New Kensington, Pennsylvania: Whitaker House, 1996), Book 10, p. 278.
[7] Edmund Clowney, The Message of 1 Peter, The Bible Speaks Today (Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 1988), 52.
[8] C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain (HarperCollins e-books, 2009), 59, Kindle location 1037.
[9] Excerpts from Madeleine L’Engle, A Ring of Endless Light, (New York: Laurel-Leaf Books, 1982), 227-228.