Participants: Tom Shepherd & Deyvy Rodriguez
Series Code: PBOTB
Program Code: PBOTB00006B
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00:01 Welcome back.
00:02 Dr. Shepherd, you were saying that 00:04 grace must have a practical implication 00:06 of a saving relationship with Christ. 00:08 Right, in other words, our life, 00:11 a saving relationship with Christ 00:12 must show itself in actions towards other people. 00:16 People who are saved by grace need to be really the-- 00:18 the most loving, kind people in the world. 00:22 It starts really with our families. 00:24 You can think of this, if--if our children see us 00:26 acting one way in church and a different way at home, 00:30 that's not gonna sit well with them. 00:32 They're not gonna understand. 00:33 They're gonna think we're hypocrites. 00:35 And so our experience must show itself, 00:39 our love for Christ must show itself 00:40 and love to other people and kindness towards others. 00:43 And why the focus on good behavior? 00:46 This becomes quite a theme throughout the book. 00:49 He--over and over again he emphasizes this good behavior 00:53 and staying away from bad things, 00:55 doing the right things. 00:56 And there are kind of two prongs to this. 00:59 One prong is that you, 01:03 you know, stay away from the evil 01:05 that the old path has taken you-- 01:08 would take you down, you know. 01:09 You--you stay away from those kind of things. 01:12 The other concept though is actually that 01:14 you attract people to Christian faith 01:16 by living this gracious life in front of them. 01:21 You put them to shame. 01:23 You silence the fools who are trying to make you look bad. 01:26 So this kind of a two pronged approach 01:28 to this good behavior kind of emphasis of the book. 01:33 Well, shall we continue? 01:34 Last time we left up-- we left off on-- 01:36 we finished off verse 25. 01:38 Yeah, we still have to talk some more about verses 22-25 01:42 because this is that second pair of metaphors, okay? 01:45 So the first pair of metaphors was the metaphor of redemption. 01:50 The slave market metaphor combined 01:52 with a sacrificial metaphor, Christ as the Lamb. 01:55 Now in this passage he talks about having-- 01:59 he says in verse 23, 02:01 "Since you have been born again." 02:03 That's the whole thing 02:04 that he's been talking about all along. 02:07 Let me just reemphasize 02:08 that he has been describing who the Christians are. 02:13 He's been taking pains to explain 02:16 what it means to be a Christian. 02:19 Recall that this is because the world 02:21 around them is pushing in on them, 02:23 trying to destroy their faith, 02:25 draw them back into paganism or-- 02:28 and either to entice them into paganism 02:30 or to persecute them back in the paganism. 02:33 So over and over and over he explains 02:37 what it means to be a Christian. 02:38 He unpacks this Christian box. 02:41 And shows you, here's the present of grace 02:43 and here's the present of this, 02:44 you know, he-- he has all these different-- 02:46 I mean, I think in our world today, 02:50 where Christian faith is under so much attack 02:53 that the Book of 1st Peter is an incredible mine of truth 03:00 with various metaphors, various concepts 03:04 that could and should strengthen our churches 03:07 to understand what it means 03:08 to resist the world's drag and pull. 03:12 We don't see open persecutions so much these days. 03:16 But there still is the kind of verbal abuse 03:19 that happens from time to time, 03:21 but there sure is the big pull of the culture, isn't there? 03:24 Trying to drag us away from living a Christian life, 03:27 trying to make it seem as though it's not appropriate. 03:29 So here he puts together again two metaphors. 03:33 And they're found here in verse 23," 03:35 Since you have been born again, 03:37 not of perishable seed but of imperishable, 03:41 through the living and abiding word of God 03:43 for all flesh is like grass, 03:45 and all its glory like the flower of grass. 03:47 The grass withers, and all-- and the flower falls. 03:49 But the word of the Lord remains forever. 03:51 And this is word is the good news that was preached to you." 03:54 Can you identify what the two metaphors are here? 03:58 Well, he's using a seed. Yes. 04:01 Using nature, some seen farming. 04:03 Farming? There's certainly a farming metaphor here. Exactly. 04:07 This idea of the seed. And what is the seed? 04:11 The word of God. 04:12 The seed is the word of God, okay? 04:14 And when you plant seeds, 04:16 you know, the seed is just tiny little, 04:19 you know, if it's an acorn, if it's a piece of weed, 04:22 if it's a piece of corn or something, 04:24 it's a dry, little, withered thing, you know? 04:28 And you're like, what can that be-- 04:30 what can that do? 04:32 But you put it down on the ground, 04:33 need to get warmed up, you know? 04:35 It gets rain, gets some fertilizer or something. 04:38 And lo and behold, this thing sprouts out, 04:40 that just grows right out of it. 04:41 This plant comes up and bears more seed, okay? 04:44 So you have this farming metaphor. 04:46 And the seed is the word of God. 04:47 We think of Jesus' parable. Yeah. 04:50 Of the parable of the sower, sowing the seed. 04:53 And it grows on the good ground 04:54 and it produces 30, 60, 100 fold. 04:57 See now, again another one of those ties 04:59 to the teachings of Jesus, you know. 05:01 Of course, he's quoting from the Old Testament here, 05:03 from-- from Isaiah. 05:05 But there's another metaphor that's kind of hidden here 05:09 and if we read just quickly we might pass over it. 05:13 And that you notice in verse 23. 05:15 The first thing he said was, 05:17 "Since you have been born again, 05:21 not of perishable seed but of imperishable." 05:25 Now when you speak of being born and you speak of seed, 05:32 you think of procreation. 05:34 It's a procreation kind of a metaphor. 05:36 So you're mixing a procreation metaphor 05:41 with a farming metaphor. 05:44 And in fact, the word he uses for seed 05:47 in the Greek is "spora." 05:50 And we get the word spores, you know? 05:52 Spores that go and, you know, 05:53 plant themselves and things like that. 05:56 There's another Greek word that also means seed, "sperma," 05:59 which is in procreation that we have that term, you see. 06:02 So he uses the word "spora," but he speaks of new birth. 06:05 So he's mixing metaphors again, you know. 06:07 So he has this idea of new birth, 06:10 rebirth that he talked about at the beginning of the book. 06:12 So he ties back to that, but now he ties it into farming 06:16 because he wants to quote from Isaiah. 06:19 Isaiah 40:6-8--why don't we go over to Isaiah 40:6-8. 06:24 Isaiah 40:6-8. And why don't you read that for us? 06:30 "The voice said, 'Cry out.' And he said, 'What shall I cry? 06:35 All flesh is grass, 06:37 and all its loveliness is like the flower of the field. 06:40 The grass withers, the flower fades, 06:43 because the breath of the Lord blows upon it. 06:46 Surely the people are grass. 06:48 The grass withers, the flower fades, 06:50 but the word of our God stands forever.'" 06:53 All right, so here we have two things facing us. 06:57 One that he emphasizes over and over and over again 07:00 is this concept of the perishability of all flesh. 07:08 All flesh is as the grass, is like the flower that fade-- 07:11 I mean, the Book of James says 07:13 the same kind of a thing, you know? 07:14 Fall-- flower falls off 07:15 and withers away and that kind of thing. 07:17 But there's something that he refers to that abides forever. 07:20 What's that? The word of the Lord. 07:22 The word of God. The word of God abides forever. 07:27 So the human is perishable, but that which is divine, 07:32 the word of God, goes on for ever, abides for ever. 07:35 It cares for us. It takes care of us. 07:37 It's that which produces new life in the soul. 07:42 And he says, if just in case you weren't clear 07:45 what this word is, he says in verse 25. 07:48 "And this word is the good news that was preached to you." 07:53 Who preached it? 07:54 It was those evangelists back there, 07:56 a little earlier in the chapter, okay? 07:58 So this 1st chapter of the book puts together 08:02 this incredible message of all of these metaphors, 08:06 all of these concepts of this covenant with God, 08:09 its implications, you know, holy life 08:11 and all these reasons why you're supposed to live a holy life. 08:14 I mean, if all we had was 1st Peter 1, 08:18 we would have a treasure, an incredible treasure. 08:21 But we're only in the 1st chapter 08:23 and we have four more to go, you know? 08:26 So now let's read verses-- chapter 2:1-3 08:29 because this is the third pair of metaphors. 08:32 "Therefore, laying aside all malice, 08:34 all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking, 08:39 as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word 08:43 that you may grow thereby. 08:45 If indeed you have-- If indeed you have tasted 08:48 that the Lord is gracious." 08:50 Uh-huh, okay. 08:52 Now what kind of metaphor would you say you have here? 08:57 Babies. Babies. 09:00 So from farming to babies and-- he's very good at the-- 09:03 Yeah, now let's-- let's see the whole chain. 09:05 We started from the slave market. 09:07 We went to the sacrifice, 09:09 the sacrificial animals to a temple service. 09:12 Then we came to a seed which was procreation. 09:20 Then we moved to a farming metaphor. 09:22 And now you're talking about babies. 09:24 But there's one more metaphor before that, before the babies. 09:27 And that's in the very first verse. 09:29 It's a little hard to see if you don't read it in Greek. 09:35 But it's the first--mine says to put away all malice. 09:38 What does your say? 09:39 Laying aside. Laying aside. 09:41 That's a good way to put it. 09:42 So is there another Greek word here? 09:43 Yeah, it's a terminology for taking clothes off. 09:47 Laying aside. You take off the-- 09:49 you take off the garment and you lay it aside. Okay. 09:53 So it's a clothing metaphor. 09:56 You remove this and then he mixes it 09:59 with like new born babies, you know. 10:03 It's interesting how his mind moves 10:05 from idea to ideas, isn't it? 10:07 And he goes-- but he has-- 10:09 it's almost as though he really planned this out 10:11 with three pairs of mixed metaphors that, 10:15 you know, you could-- you could kind of see 10:17 how each of them had their particular idea. 10:20 The last one is very interesting, 10:21 this one about the babies 10:23 because the babies are supposed to long 10:25 for the pure spiritual milk, okay? 10:28 And of course, that--but you can grow up into salvation. 10:32 That's a--that's a metaphor of the word of God again. 10:35 And then he says, 10:37 "If indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good." 10:39 Now he's quoting from Psalm 33 in this case. 10:42 And this metaphor is interesting in the sense 10:46 that he talks about tasting. 10:49 Well, of course that's what a baby is doing 10:51 with the spiritual milk, isn't it? 10:53 He's drinking his mother's milk. 10:55 So this is actually using 10:57 a feminine metaphor to refer to God. 11:00 You've tasted that the Lord is good. 11:03 You are feeding at His breast, so to speak, you know? 11:06 Now God has no gender. 11:07 He's neither male nor female. 11:09 And most of the metaphors in scripture 11:11 that speak of God are male in character. 11:14 But we do have a number that are female 11:16 and this is one of those times where it describes it. 11:18 Now so we can ask the question, well, how does-- 11:22 how does this all fit together, you know? 11:26 Well, we may have to delve into this 11:28 yet a little bit more in our next time 11:30 'cause we're running a little short now. 11:31 But let me just try to put together 11:33 the pairs of this metaphor. 11:35 In the first pair of metaphors, 11:37 the futile way of life handed down by the Father 11:39 stands in contrast with redemption 11:42 through the blood of the Lamb. 11:44 In the second pair, human frailty stands in contrast 11:49 with the eternal word of God. 11:51 In the third pair, vices of the past 11:54 and in contrast 11:56 with the dependable word of the Lord 11:57 that nurtures and grows up 11:59 the Christian into salvation. 12:01 Taking these together along with God's motivations 12:05 and actions we have discussed in previous chapters, 12:08 we can see a progression that moves from the past 12:11 to the future in the following manner. Okay? 12:16 Now we'll look at--I wonder if we can just put up 12:19 the Circle of Salvation graphic. 12:22 Okay, so you see in this circle, 12:23 it starts with the idea of witness. 12:26 Here as a believer that is talking to somebody else 12:30 and they become a believer now 12:32 through the witness of the evangelist who came to them. 12:35 That leads to this holy life. 12:37 The pagan observes that 12:40 and that witness now brings them back 12:43 into this circle so that they also can become believers. 12:47 It's this wonderful concept of sharing 12:50 and the word of God going around in a circle 12:52 continuing to bring people to Christ 12:54 and to grow them as Christians. 12:56 So there really is no end in growing in Christ. 12:59 Yeah. That's an-- 13:00 And sharing with other people, 13:02 you see, so that it continues as a circle. 13:03 All right, well, Dr. Shepherd, I want to thank you again 13:05 for joining us in this study of 1st Peter. 13:08 And we also want to thank our listening audience 13:11 in joining us in "Books of the Book." 13:13 We are studying 1st Peter. We have so much to cover. 13:15 And I hope that you've been blessed just as I have. 13:18 And we'll see you next time. God bless. |
Revised 2014-12-17