DO IT THIS WAY
1 Peter 3:8ff

You've been in a discussion when someone makes a general statement like “Let's all try to live a more Christian life.” Another may chime in “Just what did you have in mind? Can you give us an example?” Today's lesson focuses on just those kind of specifics. For example, let's outline its main points as if they were separate proverbs, then comment on each. (Since I focused on the household code last week, I'm picking up from the end of last week's lesson, v 8, rather than v 13)

1 – Be unified -

2 – Love and share life with each other.

3 – Retaliate with blessing!

4 – Watch your tongue.

5 – Turn from wrong and do good.

6 – Seek peace and pursue it.

7 – Rejoice in persecution! ? (Begin this week's lesson)
    Jews and Christians were scapegoats for Nero and heavily persecuted around this time. However, Peter is likely speaking here of daily trials such as we possess today. Don't let the trial intimidate you. God's blessing includes a peace withing.

8 – Fear not your opponents.
   

9 – Reverence Christ.
     Worship and adore Him. Rely on His power. Trust His faithfulness. Submit to His wisdom. Imitate His holiness. There is a song called “Trust His Heart:”
    God is too wise to be mistaken,
    Too good to be unkind.
    If you don't understand,
    Can't see His plan,
    Can't trace His hand,
    Trust His heart.


10 – Keep your conscience clear. Pure and incorrupt, free of guilt. Remember we have to adjust our consciences like a thermostat. How strongly is it set?

11 – Be prepared. Peter's own experience showed that occasions to witness pop up without warning. He preached at Pentecost shortly after Jesus ascended to heaven. In Acts, 2,3,4,5 he confronted opposition and stood his ground. Being ready means not only being prepared with scripture to quote, but with our own testimony.
 
 >Exercise – Can you give your testimony in 2-3 minutes? Practice including your life before you met Christ, how you met Him, and your life since your conversion. Can you give an “interim report” of how He has blessed you recently?

12 – Keep your conscience clear. A lot of people today refuse to go into politics because they don't want to go through the mudslinging that characterizes so much of campaigning. If your opponent cannot find evidence of your guilt, that's no problem, he'll make it up! Even the early church was accused of cannibalism! Because in the Lord's Supper we quote Jesus as saying “this is my body,” their antagonists took it literally and accused them. Yet Peter says to be more concerned with your actual innocence than what someone says about you. If God allows you to suffer, at least suffer falsely – as Jesus did – rather than from an actual sin.

After this catalog of practical Christian advice, Peter delves into theology – and he comes across to modern ears as a little weird. First he acknowledges basic theology: Christ was actually killed in the crucifixion, his body died. Then He was raised in the spirit. And in that Spirit he went and “preached to those in prison from the days of Noah!” The Apostle's Creed (dated variously as far back as 180, 390, or 710 AD) includes “he descended in to hell,” thus interpreting “in prison” as being located in hell or Hades, the realm of the dead. (Some versions of that creed substitute “dead” for hell. This as also been called “the harrowing of hell,” likely meaning He disturbed hell by his preaching.

The traditional interpretation is that between the cross and resurrection, Jesus went in spirit to some part of hell, hades, or the realm of the dead and proclaimed His crucifixion and coming resurrection to those in a sort of holding area before being pitched to eternal destruction. These were those who did not listen to Noah before the flood when he warned them of judgment to come. I have speculated that this was Peter and the early church's answer to the question we still ask today about what happens to those who never heard the story of Jesus. Generalized, the answer would be that the living Christ appears in some form to all in order to give them a chance to find salvation. But how does this square with “No one comes to the Father but by me?”

He then compared the flood to the waters of baptism. This is a Jewish type of interpretation, close to something called “typology.” To say that the flood is a type of baptism or that Isaac's sacrifice was a type of crucifixion are examples. Frankly, I find this a stretch. But the next points on baptism are vital and easy to grasp! As I have heard that an unbeliever goes into baptism dry and comes up wet, but untransformed, so Peter says baptism does not wash away bodily dirt. Rather it portrays the answer of a good conscience, appealing to God for salvation.  He continues to link baptism again to the saving act of Christ in the cross and resurrection. He concludes this section by praising the living Christ who has ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God!
DO IT THIS WAY
1 Peter 3:8ff

You've been in a discussion when someone makes a general statement like “Let's all try to live a more Christian life.” Another may chime in “Just what did you have in mind? Can you give us an example?” Today's lesson focuses on just those kind of specifics. For example, let's outline its main points as if they were separate proverbs, then comment on each. (Since I focused on the household code last week, I'm picking up from the end of last week's lesson, v 8, rather than v 13)

1 – Be unified -

2 – Love and share life with each other.

3 – Retaliate with blessing!

4 – Watch your tongue.

5 – Turn from wrong and do good.

6 – Seek peace and pursue it.

7 – Rejoice in persecution! ? (Begin this week's lesson)
    Jews and Christians were scapegoats for Nero and heavily persecuted around this time. However, Peter is likely speaking here of daily trials such as we possess today. Don't let the trial intimidate you. God's blessing includes a peace withing.

8 – Fear not your opponents.
   

9 – Reverence Christ.
     Worship and adore Him. Rely on His power. Trust His faithfulness. Submit to His wisdom. Imitate His holiness. There is a song called “Trust His Heart:”
    God is too wise to be mistaken,
    Too good to be unkind.
    If you don't understand,
    Can't see His plan,
    Can't trace His hand,
    Trust His heart.


10 – Keep your conscience clear. Pure and incorrupt, free of guilt. Remember we have to adjust our consciences like a thermostat. How strongly is it set?

11 – Be prepared. Peter's own experience showed that occasions to witness pop up without warning. He preached at Pentecost shortly after Jesus ascended to heaven. In Acts, 2,3,4,5 he confronted opposition and stood his ground. Being ready means not only being prepared with scripture to quote, but with our own testimony.
 
 >Exercise – Can you give your testimony in 2-3 minutes? Practice including your life before you met Christ, how you met Him, and your life since your conversion. Can you give an “interim report” of how He has blessed you recently?

12 – Keep your conscience clear. A lot of people today refuse to go into politics because they don't want to go through the mudslinging that characterizes so much of campaigning. If your opponent cannot find evidence of your guilt, that's no problem, he'll make it up! Even the early church was accused of cannibalism! Because in the Lord's Supper we quote Jesus as saying “this is my body,” their antagonists took it literally and accused them. Yet Peter says to be more concerned with your actual innocence than what someone says about you. If God allows you to suffer, at least suffer falsely – as Jesus did – rather than from an actual sin.

After this catalog of practical Christian advice, Peter delves into theology – and he comes across to modern ears as a little weird. First he acknowledges basic theology: Christ was actually killed in the crucifixion, his body died. Then He was raised in the spirit. And in that Spirit he went and “preached to those in prison from the days of Noah!” The Apostle's Creed (dated variously as far back as 180, 390, or 710 AD) includes “he descended in to hell,” thus interpreting “in prison” as being located in hell or Hades, the realm of the dead. (Some versions of that creed substitute “dead” for hell. This as also been called “the harrowing of hell,” likely meaning He disturbed hell by his preaching.

The traditional interpretation is that between the cross and resurrection, Jesus went in spirit to some part of hell, hades, or the realm of the dead and proclaimed His crucifixion and coming resurrection to those in a sort of holding area before being pitched to eternal destruction. These were those who did not listen to Noah before the flood when he warned them of judgment to come. I have speculated that this was Peter and the early church's answer to the question we still ask today about what happens to those who never heard the story of Jesus. Generalized, the answer would be that the living Christ appears in some form to all in order to give them a chance to find salvation. But how does this square with “No one comes to the Father but by me?”

He then compared the flood to the waters of baptism. This is a Jewish type of interpretation, close to something called “typology.” To say that the flood is a type of baptism or that Isaac's sacrifice was a type of crucifixion are examples. Frankly, I find this a stretch. But the next points on baptism are vital and easy to grasp! As I have heard that an unbeliever goes into baptism dry and comes up wet, but untransformed, so Peter says baptism does not wash away bodily dirt. Rather it portrays the answer of a good conscience, appealing to God for salvation.  He continues to link baptism again to the saving act of Christ in the cross and resurrection. He concludes this section by praising the living Christ who has ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God!