Being Obedient…Being Holy: I Peter 1:13-25

Therefore, gird up the loins of your mind, live soberly, and set your hopes completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Like obedient children, do not act in compliance with the desires of your former ignorance but, as he who called you is holy, be holy yourselves in every aspect of your conduct, for it is written, “Be holy because I (am) holy.” Now if you invoke as Father him who judges impartially according to each ones works, conduct yourselves with reverence during the time of your sojourning, realizing that you were ransomed from your futile conduct, handed on by your ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold but with the precious blood of Christ as of a spotless unblemished lamb. He was known before the foundation of the world but revealed in the final time for you, who through him believe in God who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God. Since you have purified yourselves by obedience to the truth for sincere mutual love, love one another intensely from a (pure) heart. You have been born anew, not from perishable but from imperishable seed, through the living and abiding word of God, for: “All flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flower of the field; the grass withers, and the flower wilts; but the word of the Lord remains forever.” This is the word that has been proclaimed to you.  

Whenever a sentence in sacred scripture begins with the word, “Therefore” you need to remember to go back and recall what it’s “there for.”

By virtue of our baptism,(v.2 last week) we have received the call of God. Therefore we are instructed to gird up the loins of your mind, live soberly, and set your hopes completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. To gird up the loins of your mind should bring to mind the image of the first Passover, when the Israelites took flight from the Egyptians (Ex.12:11) and in the context of living soberly and setting our hopes completely on Christ, suggests vigilance and perseverance on the part of His people.

This is why obedience is a big issue in Peter’s letter. We must be like obedient children in order to Be holy for I am holy. In our former life, we were ignorant for we had no knowledge of God and that led us to godless conduct. We are called to be holy if we’ve received the the knowledge and love of God through Christ Jesus our Lord. Peter makes it clear that obedience and conduct reveal whose we are. For God judges us according to our works.

Peter then goes on to  teach us that this unknown God is made known by the revelation of Jesus Christ; He [Jesus] was known before the foundation of the world but revealed in the final time for you, who through him believe in God who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God. For us to believe in the invisible God, He was revealed visible. For us to have life, we were shown the resurrection from the dead! Knowing that what God the Father did for His Son Jesus Christ, He will do for those who are truly His.

Since you have purified yourselves by obedience to the truth, Peter continues, we have been born anew, not from perishable but from imperishable seed, through the living and abiding word of God. This word, word is the Greek word logos. Logos is “something said, thought or reasoned” in it’s definition (as in John 1). Jesus is the Logos of the Father Himself (Col.1:15). Contrary to what you may have been taught in the past, this passage of Scripture has nothing to do with the written word, that would be the word graphe. When Peter quotes this passage from Isaiah 40:7-8, out of the Old Testament Septuagint, “All flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flower of the field; the grass withers, and the flower wilts; but the word of the Lord remains forever”, the Greek word rhema is used. Rhema is similar in meaning, yet without the philosophical characteristic of Logos.

This is the word that has been proclaimed to you. This is the Word (Logos) Jesus Christ: conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary, suffered, died and was buried, and on the third day He rose again.

So this week, let us seek the Logos in the graphe. How can we do this? We seek Jesus through the words He spoke (in the bible) and through His ordained Ministers in His Church (rhema). The Holy Spirit who guides them, guides us all “to all truth” (John 16:13). And this will lead us to be obedient, and therefore holy.

Amen.