October 20 – 1 Peter 1:22-2:10
The chapter break and quotes in this passage make it a little challenging to follow Peter’s overall point. For an outline, 1:22-2:1 commands us to love one another because we have been born again through God’s enduring word, while 2:2-10 describe being built up in our faith by God’s word and built upon Christ the cornerstone. Remember, chapter breaks and verse numbers were added after the fact to the Bible, and they function merely as good guesses at breaks between certain thoughts. But in this case you might notice that 2:1 (rid yourself of malice) belongs much more with the previous thought (love one another, 1:22) than the following thought (being built on Christ).
Those two sections, 1:22-2:1 and 2:2-10, are both about the role of God’s word in his people; it is the enduring word of God that produces a born-again people (1:23) and the word of God that followers should yearn for in order to “grow up into [our] salvation” (2:2). That’s not typically how we use the word salvation, but don’t worry, Peter isn’t describing salvation as something you progress towards attaining because, in 1:23, he says followers “have been born again”, past tense. What he’s saying by growing up into salvation is a synonym for what he describes as being built into a spiritual house; this is all verbiage for growing into the realities and ways of living to which we have been saved in Christ. In short, it’s a call to grow in the holiness that can only be ours if we already belong to God.
2:2-10 has a lot to say about buildings and cornerstones, and those ideas will take some attention to unpack, particularly with folks in your group who have less familiarity with the Bible. Peter quotes from Isaiah 28:16, Psalm 118:22, and Isaiah 8:14 to describe Jesus as the rejected stone that has become the cornerstone, the first stone upon which the rest of a building’s foundation rests and is referenced off. This imagery for Jesus, also seen in the Gospels and Acts, captures the way in which Jesus is ignored by or even offensive to some while being a source of life for others.
That imagery also adds to our understanding of what it might mean for us to be “living stones,” as Peter describes us, built upon Jesus the cornerstone. That imagery, as we’ll discuss, helps us envision how our own lives might rest upon and be referenced off Christ.
Discussion questions
– Could someone read 1 Peter 1:22-2:10 for us?
– What stood out to you from the passage?
– What does this say about Jesus being the “cornerstone”?
– Look at verse 5—what do you think it means to be a “spiritual house” built on Jesus the cornerstone?
– How do verses 9-10 describe God’s people?
– What’s most challenging to you about trying to live like that?
– How do you think God’s grace can meet you in that challenge?
Resources
Attendance and Roster in FellowshipOne
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Hard Conversations: Why have them?
Back to all Resources → Over a series of posts we’ll be talking about how to have hard conversations in community group. By this we mean both talking about divisive subjects, or disagreement, and addressing an area of disobedience to Scripture, or correction. Here at...
A Summer Slow Down Reading List
Back to all Resources → Summer is a great time to relax some of your normal rhythms and look for space to rest and recuperate from the rush of spring and fall. In my mind that makes summer a great time to learn more about how to weave rest and restoration practices...