So, last time I left you hanging with prophets and angels trying to figure out what the gospel was all about. That’s kind of an interesting picture to me visualizing prophets trying to figure out what they are writing about. But let’s see if there are a couple of things that can encourage us personally today. I’d be interested to hear if you thought of anything.

The first thing for me is that the prophets were writing about our salvation. The text says they realized that it was not for them, but for us. Verse10 mentions prophesies about the grace we would receive. When one reads the Old Testament, the sense is that there is a lot of law there and not too much grace. After Saul was converted and became Paul, he wrote abundantly about grace, and we sometimes wonder if that was something new that he just made up. His background was in the Old Testament law, and so when he was converted, he had new eyes to see the manifold grace of God revealed in the Old Testament by the prophets.

In verse 11 the Bible calls the Holy Spirit the Spirit of Christ. It’s interesting to visualize Jesus’ spirit inside of prophets like Isaiah and Jeremiah pointing out and predicting the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow from that. The whole of the Bible is a unified narrative of God at work to accomplish His purposes.

And finally, in verse 12, we find that the gospel that has been proclaimed to us by a pastor, or parent, or someone else, are the very things that the prophets were writing about so long ago. And that gospel that we hear that draws us to Christ was proclaimed by the Holy Spirit. When the gospel is preached, it’s not just another kind of lesson like you might hear a lecture on World War I or how to solve algebra problems. When the Word of God is preached, the Holy Spirit is at work along with the Word He inspired to bring salvation to people. It is a powerful thing that Peter is describing here – something that spans the centuries and millennia of time just to reach you.

Last time we looked at 1 Peter 1:9 where we discovered that as we love and rejoice in a Savior we have never seen, we are receiving the purpose and goal of faith, the salvation of our souls. Today we are going to begin thinking about verses 10-12. Here is verse 10 of that section:

“Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully…”

In order to really grasp what Peter is saying here, you should read verses 10-12 several times. I don’t want to go too deeply into this, but I do want to draw several important truths from it. Since I don’t want to make this too long, I’ll give you the gist this week and draw the lessons from it next time.

What Peter is saying here is that the prophets of the Old Testament – people like Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea, etc. – these prophets tried really hard to figure out what kind of salvation they were prophesying about. The Spirit of Christ was inspiring them to write, but they didn’t understand what they were writing about, and so they took out their imaginary magnifying glass and tried to dig deep to understand.

What God revealed to them was that they were not writing about something related to them, but they were writing about the things you and I would be taught centuries later. And at the end of verse 12 we find out that even the angels really wanted to look into this as well to figure out what this teaching about the suffering of Christ was all about.

Lord willing, next week I’ll share a few things that I took away from thinking about this. In the meantime, you read this section many times over the next week and see what thoughts you come up with.

Loving Someone We’ve Never Seen

Good Morning! It’s that time again when we take the opportunity to take a few minutes to meditate on God’s Word. We’re thinking through Peter’s encouraging message to those who are scattered throughout their known world. Today I want us to think about the first part of 1 Peter 1:8.

“And though you have not seen Him, you love Him.” That’s true of us too, isn’t it? We haven’t seen Him. Why would we love someone we have never seen?

Peter, of course, saw Jesus and spent three years with Him. He knew Him well. Probably Peter could say what John said, “What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we beheld and touched with our hands, concerning the Word of Life” (1 John 1:1). The things Peter could share with the people he ministered to are many, and because we have the entire New Testament, we know some of these same things even though we have never seen Christ or met Peter:

• Jesus loved Peter even though he had betrayed Him, and He made sure Peter knew it. Remember, “Simon … do you love Me?” (John 21:15-21).
• Peter saw that Jesus “went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed,” and he testified to that in his preaching (Acts 10:38).
• He knew personally that Jesus was “meek and lowly” and offered rest (Matt. 11:29).
• He could testify about Jesus’ death and resurrection (John 20:4).
• He could tell people firsthand about the transfiguration (2 Peter 2:16-18).
• He could share about the miraculous catch of fish (Luke 5)
• Out of love and compassion, Jesus healed Peter’s own mother-in-law (Mark 1:29-31).
• He saw Jesus’ ascension and heard the promise of His return (Acts 1:11).
• … and so much more.

Can you imagine what it would have been like to hear Peter share these personal experiences? What excitement and certainty we would have heard in his voice! Peter was able to tell people that even though they had not seen what he saw, he could assure them that they could experience this same Christ by faith. We hear this excitement in the letter he has written, and through the generations this same message has come down to us. As a result, we can love the same Lord Peter loved even though we have not seen Him in person.

There’s a lot to think about here!

A Faith More Valuable than Gold

Last time we thought about 1 Peter 1:6. My intention had been to put verse 7 with it, but that made it a longer read than I really wanted. It’s like eating. Sometimes we need to take smaller bites and chew them longer.

Peter reminded us to rejoice because of the tremendous promises of God even when we are faced with difficult trials. Those trials are often necessary because God uses them to trim and prune us into greater godliness.

Verse 7 says, “so that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”

The “so that” at the beginning of verse 7 tells us there is a reason for the trials. The trials and testing we go through are the proof, the genuineness, the trial of our faith. Those three words are from three different translations. The Greek word behind them is similar to our word documentation. The trials and difficulties document the genuiness and reality of our faith. Just like a metal is tested by fire to make sure it is actually gold and not some counterfeit material, our faith is tested by trials. And the metal, even though it might be genuine gold is still perishable, whereas true faith is not.

As our faith gets tested, we ourselves have some clue as to how we are doing. If we don’t do well on one of life’s tests, we know where we need God’s work in our lives to make our faith stronger. After Jesus gave the disciples some instruction in Luke 17, the disciples replied, “Increase our faith!” That’s the request we need to make often in life.

The end of 1 Peter 1:7 tells us that this documentation of our faith will result in praise and glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. The kind of documented transformation of a man or woman that remakes us and renews us into Christ’s image is only something that Jesus Christ Himself can accomplish as He works through us. The praise, honor, and glory goes to Him on that day!