Thursday, June 5, 2008

Yikes...

So as I am trying to get into the habit of blogging more often (those of you that do know it can be a hard habit to get into), I am going to post something though I’m not sure about what. It seems the two extremes are I have too much on my mind to try to write anything or I have nothing on my mind. Right now I am in the midst of the book “Young, Restless, Reformed” which is forcing me towards the former at the moment. However, my mind has been more occupied today with 1 Peter 2:18-21.

I decided to read this today in continuing my personal study of 1 Peter. God has already blown me away with this letter and today was no different. I read it and tried to exposit it myself before looking at the notes in my study Bible followed by reading a message that pastor John Piper gave. The focus of the passage is Peter telling servants that, being “mindful of God,” they ought to endure suffering at the hands of unjust masters. I was a little baffled at first why Peter would issue such a command. Peter goes on to say that Christ suffered for us, “leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps.” But my life is so different from Christ’s. Christ’s suffering had the purpose of absorbing the wrath of God. What purpose could Peter (and God) have in mind when he tells servants to be subject to, and endure suffering from, an unjust master?

I’m taking a step back now and I’m realizing the scope of what I am saying. To be sure, I think it would be important to go through the verses and essentially exposit them as I did in my quiet time which might make for a little bit more of a blog than I intended. Actually, as I now think about it, I am frustrated that for me to get to the point(s), it will take several pages of background… a rookie mistake. As much as 1 Peter has been an incredible source of encouragement and blessing for me, I didn’t realize how difficult it might be to summarize my thoughts as they stem from several sources. But since I'm still more concerned with writing something, I'll still put this one out there. I’m not sure how to end this blog, so here’s a summarizing quote from John Piper:

“God often wills that we suffer unjustly and that we bear it by his grace and for his glory.” Amen.

1 comment:

Albinho said...

Amen. You should post more often. I'd love to hear how med school is going.