1 Peter 4:7-11 The Lord’s Prayer is a microcosm of our spiritual lives. It’s easy for it to become boring, repetitive, and stale, but for those who are laboring to see and serve the Lord, it’s always new. There is always some new way of looking at it that gives new meaning in my life. As with the spiritual life, you must first pay attention. Second, sometimes it’s wise to focus on one small part exclusively and milk it for... Read more
1 Peter 4:1-6 THWACK! ! ! Do you know what that sound is? It’s the sound of one of God’s cosmic “spankings.” Though our first instinct is naturally to cry, it’s a cosmic mistake to misinterpret one of God’s spankings. So let’s get rid of a few misconceptions about God’s spankings right here and now. As parents who discipline their children, you’ll immediately recognize that this is the way things work in your family, or at least the way you... Read more
1 Peter 3:13-22 What’s the answer to the problem of suffering? Sanctify the Lord in your heart. Like St. James and St. Paul and Jesus Himself – pretty much the whole New Testament – St. Peter assumes that there will be suffering in this world for the Christian. Theologically, there is the so-called problem of suffering, as in “How can there be suffering in this world if there is a good and loving Almighty God?” I’m interested in the problem... Read more
1 Peter 3:1-12 In a world that has more people in it than ever before, there is also more loneliness in the world than ever before. We often live away from our families – either geographically or in degrees of harmony. We don’t know our neighbors. People are looking for a genuinely loving community to belong to. Some look in clubs and some talk to counselors. Some choose to spend more time at work, and some join gangs. But what... Read more
1 Peter 2:18-25 One year when I was teaching freshman English at All Saints Episcopal school in Tyler, Texas, and we began the year by coordinating some of the literature with ancient history, I taught my students about Greek philosophy and religion so that they might understand Greek literature. I had them compare and contrast Christianity and the Greek religion, and in my meditation on this comparison, a humorous idea took hold of me (many do, when I’m teaching and... Read more
1 Peter 2:11-17 The writer Gertrude Stein coined the term “The Lost Generation” for the generation of Ernest Hemingway in the 1920s. But perhaps every generation is a lost generation. Many people today – even those who call themselves Christians – have no sense or real purpose or meaning. 20th century philosophers and thinkers have convinced us that there is no meaning to life and that everything comes from chance. And so the blind are leading the blind. A few... Read more
1 Peter 2:1-10 “You also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” I had a dream once in which I was in a great outdoor library located next door to a Putt Putt golf course. Some of the books in this library were very thick, a foot wide and hollow inside, containing a variety of foods like macaroni and cheese and baked beans. ... Read more
1 Peter 1:13-25 Yesterday, I lamented the temporal condition in which I find myself: that the fullness of life and glory and joy lie in the future, while I lie here in the burdened present. But I’m O.K. I made my peace with it. By faith, I understand what glory God has in store for us and how that can be united with our suffering below. By faith, I see the God I cannot see, even now. But today is... Read more
1 Peter 1:1-12 “Blessed are those that have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20:29). What? What’s John 20 doing here in a meditation on 1 Peter 1? Is it so surprising that John and Peter (2 of the inner group of 3 disciples) should converse with each other? “Blessed are those that have not seen and yet have believed.” 1 Peter 1 is filled with delicious (because the Bread of Life is sandwiched in these verses) tensions and... Read more
John 21:1-14 “Come and eat breakfast,” Jesus said to His disciples. And this is His word to you today as well. “Come and break your fast from my presence and come back to me so that you might be fed and have life again.” But of course Jesus didn’t come right out and say this, not at the beginning of His encounter with the disciples. Before Jesus came to His disciples and fed them, the disciples went out to go... Read more
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