I missed yesterday because our flight was delayed, but I want to resume where we left off last Friday, and stick to 1 Peter 2:11-12, which is the heart of Peter\u2019s letter. The readers to whom he gives this address are powerless<\/em>: Rome\u2019s might is unstoppable, and the little clutch of Christians in Asia Minor is not potent enough to do anything but act in such a way that its future can be preserved. I missed yesterday because our flight was delayed, but I want to resume where we left off last Friday, and stick to 1 Peter 2:11-12, which is the heart of Peter\u2019s letter. The readers to whom he gives this address are powerless: Rome\u2019s might is unstoppable, and the little clutch of Christians in Asia Minor […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":197,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1736],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-emerging-movement"],"yoast_head":"\n
\nPeter\u2019s first piece of advice is this: \u201cI urge you [resident aliens and temporary residents, like Abraham and Sarah \u2014 Gen 23:4] to abstain from the fleshy lusts that war against the soul.\u201d
\nThe powerless are urged here to avoid fleshy lusts. Notice the words: \u201clusts\u201d translates epithumia<\/em> and that word is found also at 1:14 (\u201cdo not be shaped back again into your former, ignorant lusts\u201d) and at 4:2 (\u201cso that you no longer live according to human lusts\u201d). And \u201cfleshy\u201d translates sarkikos<\/em> and that word, and its cognate sarx<\/em>, is found here and at 1:24 (\u201call humans\u201d), 3:18 (Christ was \u201cput to death in the flesh\u201d), 3:21 (human skin), 4:1 (\u201cChrist\/humans suffering in the flesh\u201d and \u201clife on earth\u201d), 4:5 (contrast with being made alive by the Spirit). Conclusion<\/strong>: \u201cto avoid fleshy lusts\u201d means to avoid living out God\u2019s redemptive work in a human-sort of way<\/em>.
\nNow if we add to this human vs. divine approach what Peter suggests in 2:13\u20133:12 we will come to a more accurate meaning of what \u201cfleshy lusts\u201d means. The first thing I would add is that is too simplistic and too easy of a view to move to sexual sins or to basal lustings of the flesh. Peter\u2019s mind is on something else, though he would clearly include such basal lustings. Peter is concerned with how to bring God\u2019s redemptive work to Asia Minor<\/em> and what will be the worst thing his readers could do. That is: to act in violence or rebellion against the rulers (2:13-17), to rebel against owners (2:18-25), to have women struggle with their husbands (3:1-6), to have men overpower their wives (3:7), and to have a church group that is divided (3:8-12).
\nIn other words, if we look at how Peter mixes (to use Steve Taylor\u2019s clever image) his theological tradition with the setting of the Asia Minor believers in Jesus, Peter\u2019s strategy is for the Christians to do God\u2019s work in God\u2019s way<\/em> and not in Rome\u2019s way: which is power and might.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"