november 14, 2022

Peachtree Church is reading through the Bible together in 2022 with Quest: Exploring God’s Story Together. Devotionals are sent by email three days each week. Monday’s email includes additional background, history, and cultural information to help us better understand the texts. On Tuesday and Thursday you will receive a devotional based on one portion of the texts for this week.

Texts for this week

1 Peter 1, 4-5

1 John 1-5

Psalm 147

Introduction to the Texts

This week’s readings begin with Peter describing the need for his audience to follow the example of Christ to be willing to suffer for the gospel. Those hearing his words were mostly pagan converts to Christianity, as he indicates when he says “you have spent enough time in the past doing what pagans choose to do….” (1 Peter 4:3). Peter encourages his audience to be faithful stewards of God’s grace and alludes to the expectation that the “end of all things is near.” This expectation that they were living in the last days before the return of Christ was an expectation common within the early church.

In the Chapter 5 Peter specifically addresses how the elders of the church should carry out their duty to shepherd the flock. It’s interesting to note that he told them to not lord it over those that they served. This reminds us of the admonition of James and John by Jesus in Mark 10:42 to not be like the Gentiles and “lord it over” others. Many scholars believe that Peter was the source for the narratives in the gospel of Mark, so this connection would make sense. The early Christians were living in a world that was hostile toward their lifestyle, and Peter instructed them in how to live in that type of environment and to live a lifestyle that reflected the example of Jesus.

We see a similar context and theme in 1 John. In 1 John 3:13, John clearly states that the early Christians should not be surprised “if the world hates you.” He implored his community to stay united in Christ and resist the world. He was also concerned about false teachers who were leading people astray. Like Peter, he warned that they were in the last hours and must stand firm. John believed that they should stand firm in the truth that God “lavished” his love on them and that when Christ appeared “we shall be like him.” Peter and John called their communities to a life of transformation, a life where those who are called children of God could become like him.

Devotional

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

1 John 4:7-12

The words of John remind us of the power of love, the sacrificial love that comes from God. Love is not in its essence a human emotion, but it is derived from the love of the Father for us and the fact that we are created in his image. Left to our own devices, we are incapable of this kind of self-giving love. Instead we gravitate to the love of self. John reminds us that God first loved us and sent his son to demonstrate that love. Like the world in which John lived, our culture isn’t oriented toward love and sacrifice for others but toward hatred and selfishness. John’s words speak to us today, reminding us that our calling as followers of Christ is to experience his love and reflect that love into a world of evil and spiritual confusion.

For Reflection

Do you really believe that God loves you?

In what way might you reflect that love to someone else on this day?

Prayer

Lord, on this day we thank you for your extravagant love for us. We thank you for the fact that because of that love you came for us and brought us hope in this life and the life to come. So on this day we ask you to give us grace to accept the truth that we are indeed your beloved children and to reach out and demonstrate that love others. Amen.