2 Peter (Program #4) – The Divine Provision (4)

Most of the time Christians are satisfied if their behavior before the unbelieving world reflects a proper ethical conduct and high moral. In fact if we spend our entire day living in such a way surely at the end of our day we will be peaceful and probably feel quite good about ourselves and our testimony.

But the Bible declares what God is seeking from His people is not mere ethics and morality but a life that expresses Godliness, which means a life that expresses God Himself. This is much different, much higher than mere morality.  Listen again to 2 Peter 1:3 “Seeing that His divine power has granted to us all things which relate to life and godliness, through the full knowledge of Him who has called us by His own glory and virtue.“

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2 Peter (Program #3) – The Divine Provision (3)

In a very real sense the first few verses of second Peter encapsulate much of how God will accomplished His eternal plan or economy. Beginning with the gift of faith, we have God’s righteousness, the righteousness of Christ, grace and peace being multiplied in the full knowledge of God and our Lord Jesus Christ. Then the divine power operating in the believers in conjunction with their co-operation leading to their escape from lust. Then God’s own glory and virtues and our being called through them and to them. Further we have God’s precious and exceedingly great promises, all of which lead us to become partakers of His divine nature resulting ultimately in our transformation in full salvation. What a tremendous beginning to this short but thoroughly crucial portion of the holy word.

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2 Peter (Program #2) – The Divine Provision (2)

Peter begins his second epistle with the matter of faith. In fact he addresses the epistle “to those who have been allotted faith”. Faith is an mysterious thing and often misunderstood by believers and unbelievers alike. Many people may be even most people think that faith is something that we need to some how produce or find in order to believe. But according to Peter, faith is something allotted to us. The apostle Paul made a similar point in Ephesians, “for by grace you have been saved through faith and this not of yourself it is the gift of God.”

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1 & 2 Samuel (Program #29) – The Unique Work of the Processed Triune God

In 2 Samuel, the Lord through the Prophet Nathan prophesied to David the king, “Moreover Jehovah declares to you that Jehovah will make you a house. When your days are fulfilled and you sleep with your fathers, I will raise up your seed after you, which will come forth from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. It is he who will build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.” Properly understood, this passage constitutes one of the greatest prophecies in the entire Old Testament.

In Matthew in the New Testament, chapter 16, the Lord Jesus makes a similar prophecy to His disciples. “I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.” This passage equally constitutes one of the greatest prophecies in the New Testament as well. God’s desire to build a dwelling for Himself and for us, from the beginning of the Bible through to the very end.

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1 Peter (Program #17) -Christian Life and Its Sufferings (4 & 5)

The Bible speaks about marriage and about the marriage life in many places.  It’s common for people to select their own favorite passages on this most personal of subjects.  How often, for example do husbands anxious to establish their authority quote such verses as Ephesians 5 :22 where the apostle Paul says “Wives, be subject to your own husbands as to the Lord;”  While many wives might prefer to remind their spouses of verse 25 in the same chapter; “Husbands, love your wives even as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her.”  But Peter also speaks of marriage and may in fact offer one of the most excellent passages in all of Scripture on the subject.  Speaking to the husband, he says in chapter 3 of his first epistle, “Husbands, in like manner dwell together with them according to knowledge, as with the weaker, female vessel, assigning honor to them as also to fellow heirs of the grace of life, that your prayers may not be hindered.“

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1 Peter (Program #9) -The Full Salvation of the Triune God and Its Issues (7)

In chapter one of his epistle Peter contrasts our former way of living or literally our manner of life which was vain with our present manner of life, we should be holy. Vain of course means empty, without meaning.

Well, all of us must surely confess that our life before we were regenerated were categorized by sin. But Peter points out that even more our life were vain, empty and without purpose. Yet we had been called to a holy manner of life.

14: “..Do not be fashioned,” Peter writes, “according to the former lusts in your ignorance;”

15 “But according to the Holy One who called you, you yourselves also be holy in all your manner of life;”

How can we have such a living, such a manner of life that becomes holy? Peter’s further word in this chapter becomes a very great help to us.

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1 Peter (Program #8) -The Full Salvation of the Triune God and Its Issues (6)

All genuine Christian experience is based on truth. The truth or reality convey in Scripture forms the base or foundation of all our real spiritual experience. Peter’s first epistle in the New Testament very much illustrates this point. The first twelve verses in chapter one lay out some of the great truth of the whole Bible.  Such as our being chosen according to the foreknowledge of God and our being regenerated unto a living hope and unto an incorruptible, undefiled and unfading inheritance, an inheritance that Peter shows us should be our portion, not just in eternity but also today. The in verse thirteen Peter goes on to tell us that based upon all these rich divine truths, we should gird up the loins of our mind and soberly set our hope on the grace that is ours at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

If we take Peter’s way, if we give ourselves to the word in this way, we will find that our own love and experience of the Lord as well as our love for one another will be greatly enriched and strengthened as well.

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1 Peter (Program #2) – The Operation of the Triune God Upon the Elect for Their Participation in His Full Salvation

The story of the Lord’s calling of the apostle Peter as is recorded in the gospel of John includes and intriguing unusual component; he changes his name from Simon to Cephas which literally means a stone. This is John chapter 1: 40-42
1:40 “One of the two who heard this from John and followed Him was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother.”

41 “He first found his own brother Simon and said to him, We have found the Messiah (which translated means Christ).”

42 “He led him to Jesus. Looking at him, Jesus said, You are Simon, the son of John; you shall be called Cephas (which is interpreted, Peter).”

Of course nothing of God’s genuine work is accomplished merely in name only. And so the changing of this poor Galilean fisherman’s name from Simon to something so solid and permanent, as Peter, a stone for God’s building is full of meaning. And it implies that God has much more in mind for Peter than simply saving him from his sins. For both Peter’s transformation and the accomplishment of God’s very eternal purpose is hinted at in this symbolic act.

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1 Peter (Program #1) – An Introductory Word

Of all the disciples called by the Lord Jesus in the gospels, probably the one we can most readily identify with is Peter. Simon Barjona as he was known before the Lord changed his name to Peter. In John chapter 1 was as impetuous as he was fervent and often found himself as the target of the Lord Jesus’ reprove.

Recall for example in Matthew chapter 16, Peter’s sympathetic suggestion to the Lord that He should keep Himself from the suffering of death that He knew awaited Him. “get behind Me, Satan” was the Lord’s reply. “You are a stumbling block to Me, for you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of men.” How could Peter possibly recovered from such a stinging rebuke?

And of course it was also Peter, who denied the Lord three times during the hour of trial preceding the actual crucifixion. Yet only days later it was this same Peter who stood on the day of Pentecost and usher thousands into the kingdom with his powerful and dynamic speaking.

And not only so, in his two epistles, Peter uses language and phrases so rich and full of high and profound meaning that we can’t help but marvel at the power of God’s full salvation. That this unlearned fisherman could write such thing. Listen to his word in 1 Peter,

1:18 “Knowing that it was not with corruptible things, with silver or gold, that you were redeemed from your vain manner of life handed down from your fathers,”

19 “But with precious blood, as of a Lamb without blemish and without spot, the blood of Christ;”

Welcome to our first life-study of the book of 1 Peter.

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James (Program #10) – A Life Not Fully According to and for God’s New Testament Economy (1)

In Acts chapter 2, the apostle Peter spoke boldly to his Jewish kinsman, “be saved from this crooked generation.”   Some time later, the apostle  Paul reminded the Jewish believers that God had rescued them out of the present evil age.  The context of both passages makes it clear that these strong words, “the crooked generation” and “the present evil age” both refer to the religious system that had become modern Judaism at the time when God was ushering the New Testament economy.

Peter and Paul made it very clear God was calling people out of that religious system.  Yet in other New Testament passages, it is equally clear that the apostle  James was not only comfortable receiving the Jews into the fellowship of believers, he was even willing to accommodate the major practices of Judaism into the church.  Well what lessons can we glean from this confused situation today?

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