1 Peter 1:13-25 (CSB)
13 Therefore, with your minds ready for action, be sober-minded and set your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 14 As obedient children, do not be conformed to the desires of your former ignorance. 15 But as the one who called you is holy, you also are to be holy in all your conduct; 16 for it is written, Be holy, because I am holy. 17 If you appeal to the Father who judges impartially according to each one’s work, you are to conduct yourselves in reverence during your time living as strangers. 18 For you know that you were redeemed from your empty way of life inherited from your ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of an unblemished and spotless lamb. 20 He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was revealed in these last times for you. 21 Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.
22 Since you have purified yourselves by your obedience to the truth, so that you show sincere brotherly love for each other, from a pure heart love one another constantly, 23 because you have been born again—not of perishable seed but of imperishable—through the living and enduring word of God. 24 For
All flesh is like grass,
and all its glory like a flower of the grass.
The grass withers, and the flower falls,
25 but the word of the Lord endures forever.
And this word is the gospel that was proclaimed to you.”
Today’s passage is the second half of 1 Peter, chapter 1. Last week, we looked at the first 12 verses in which Peter opened with a greeting and a brief statement of praise to God, and then stated his purpose of writing to the believers. In verses 6-8, he said that they rejoice in their trials, for trials prove their faith, and as verse 9 added, because the “outcome of your faith, [is] the salvation of your souls.”
This salvation is so magnificent that Peter then declares in verse 13, “Therefore, with your minds ready for action, be sober-minded and set your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”
In the NASB, it says, “prepare your minds for action,” and in the original Greek, the words are actually different. It says, “Therefore, having girded up the loins of the mind”. That’s probably not a familiar phrase to most of us. In Strong’s Concordance, it says this word is “a metaphor from the girding of the flowing tunic, to prevent its hampering one in active work.”
How do we gird up the loins of our minds? By “girding up” our minds, that would mean that we get rid of anything that would trip us up and impede us from right thinking. Peter says we do this by being sober-minded, setting our hope on the fact that Jesus will one day return. We want to remove the things that would distract us or prevent us from keeping our minds on the prize that is being kept safe for us in heaven.
To accomplish this, we must do as verses 14-16 say: “As obedient children, do not be conformed to the desires of your former ignorance. But as the one who called you is holy, you also are to be holy in all your conduct; for it is written, Be holy, because I am holy.”
Here, the use of the word children does not mean young people, but children of God, which is what all of us believers are in Christ. We are adopted into God’s family when we are born again. I also think Peter is using this term to make a point. That just as children should obey their parents, believers should obey God. We are to be holy in all our behavior, just as God is holy.
In Ellicott’s Commentary, he quotes from a scholar named ‘Leighton’ who says, “He hath severed you from the mass of the profane world, and picked you out to be jewels for Himself; He hath set you apart for this end; that you may be holy to Him, as the Hebrew word that signifies ‘holiness’ imports ‘setting apart,’ or fitting for a peculiar use; be not then untrue to His design. It is sacrilege for you to dispose of yourselves after the impure manner of the world, and to apply yourself to any profane use, whom God hath consecrated to Himself.”
If we have answered God’s call and have become born again, then we must not behave like the rest of the world. God has redeemed us and washed us in Jesus’ blood, cleansing us from sin. Should we then purposely dirty ourselves again? Should we be distracted from the work God has called us to? Or shouldn’t we strive to live holy lives, conscious of the gift of holiness that He has imparted to us? As Leighton wrote, “it is sacrilege” to behave as the impure world behaves. Sacrilege is defined as a violation or misuse of something sacred. It is irreverent, disrespectful, or blasphemous behavior. When Christians behave in unholy manners, we are breaking God’s command to “Be holy,” as He is holy, which is given multiple times in the Book of Leviticus, which is probably what Peter is quoting.
Then Peter goes on to say in verse 17, “If you appeal to the Father who judges impartially according to each one’s work, you are to conduct yourselves in reverence during your time living as strangers.” He is warning them that God is judging them for how they conduct themselves. Remembering that should help us to “gird our minds” so that we are mindful of how we are behaving, shouldn’t it?
In Matthew 16:27, Jesus says, “For the Son of Man is going to come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and will then repay every person according to his deeds.” I think we can look at what Peter is saying in light of those words, but I also think he’s talking about something a little different here. He doesn’t say, ‘when Jesus returns you will be judged,’ but rather, the Father is currently judging how we behave right now. In the Greek it says, “if you call on the Father, the One impartially judging according to work,” it means that He’s judging our actions right now.
With that in mind, there are two words I want to look more closely at in this verse. The first word is translated as reverence here in the CSB, but the NASB translates it more accurately. They say, “conduct yourselves in fear.” I agree with Maclaren’s Expositions, in which he writes, “It is not the reverent awe which often appears in Scripture as ‘the fear of God,’ which is a kind of shorthand expression for all modes of devout sentiment and emotion; but it is a fear, knowing our own weakness and the strong temptations that are round us, of falling into sin. That is the one thing to be afraid of in this world. If a man rightly understood what he is here for, then the only thing that he would be terrified for would be that he should miss the purpose of his being here and lose his hold of God thereby. There is nothing else worth being afraid of, but that is worth being afraid of. It is not slavish dread, nor is it cowardice, but the well-grounded emotion of men that know themselves too well to be confident and know the world too well to be daring and presumptuous.”
Even though God, out of His great mercy, offers us forgiveness when we sin, we should not treat sin lightly. As believers, we should conduct ourselves in fear, not because we are afraid of God, but because we should be afraid of falling into sin. Sin always carries consequences and hurts us and those around us. We need to understand the danger of sin and should fear our potential for sin, so we are on guard and are careful to obey and not get destroyed by sin.
Let’s look at the second word: stranger. Which, according to Strong’s Concordance, is paroikia and it means, “a sojourning, a dwelling in a strange land.” This is echoing the first statement Peter made earlier is this chapter, when he referred to them as exiles.
The NASB’s complete translation of verse 17 is, “If you address as Father the One who impartially judges according to each one’s work, conduct yourselves in fear during the time of your stay on earth.” They are picking up the underlying meaning that Peter is trying to communicate. That we, as chosen or elect believers, we are strangers in a strange land. This is not our permanent home. Our inheritance is being kept for us in heaven, for our time on this earth is temporary. I think if we have that perspective of the temporariness of now, then it is easier to behave with holy conduct.
Why should we conduct ourselves carefully? Not just because the Father is judging us, and Jesus says He will repay us for our deeds, but because of what Jesus has done for us. Jesus went to the cross and died a horrible death in order to forgive us of our sins. Part of girding our minds up is remembering what He went through for us. This is why I love the lyrics to the old hymn, Stricken, Smitten and Afflicted. It says, ”Ye who think of sin but lightly, nor suppose the evil great, here may view its nature rightly, here its guilt may estimate.” That hymn writer was saying, when we consider Jesus’ suffering on the cross, we see just how horrible sin is: Jesus suffered and died because of our sins. So, when we remember what Jesus did on the cross for us, that should cause us to live cautiously.
This is what Peter is saying in the next few verses, 18-21 which say, “For you know that you were redeemed from your empty way of life inherited from your ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of an unblemished and spotless lamb. He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was revealed in these last times for you. Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.”
Jesus, our Savior, has redeemed us with His precious blood. Our response to what Jesus has done for us should be that we live purified lives in obedience to Him, loving one another as Jesus has loved us. When we consider all that He has suffered for us, should we not live for Him? We owe Him our very lives.
Peter continues in verses 22-24, which say, “Since you have purified yourselves by your obedience to the truth, so that you show sincere brotherly love for each other, from a pure heart love one another constantly, because you have been born again—not of perishable seed but of imperishable—through the living and enduring word of God.” And then quoting from Isaiah 40:6-8, he adds in verse 25, “For all flesh is like grass, and all its glory like a flower of the grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord endures forever. And this word is the gospel that was proclaimed to you.”
It is through the living and enduring word of God that we become born again. And this word is the truth, as he said in verse 22. We cannot come to saving faith in Jesus through any means other than the word of God. For just as Peter wrote, it is God’s word which tells us the Gospel message. As Romans 10:17 says, “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.” Also, 1 Corinthians 15:1-2 says, “Now I make known to you, brothers and sisters, the gospel which I preached to you, which you also received, in which you also stand, by which you also are saved, if you hold firmly to the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain.” The Greek word for “word” in that passage is logos, and it is the same word here in 1 Peter 1:23. And if we want to live obediently to the truth, we must know what the Bible says.
But did you know that rather than preaching from the Bible, telling people the logos, there are pastors who are telling Christians that reading, and even believing the Bible is not necessary for salvation? The reasoning behind this idea, these pastors who believe this give, is because they say that for the first 300 hundred years of Christianity, people didn’t have the Bible because the Bible as we know it wasn’t assembled yet. While it is true that the early Christians did not have all the books of the Bible bound together into one book, they certainly had the Old Testament and the collective letters of the Apostles. These pastors also cite that after the cannon was formed into the Bible as we know it, for a thousand years until the Reformation, no one but a select few had access to that Bible. They conclude that, therefore, reading or even believing the Bible is not necessary for salvation.
While I agree a person does not have to read the whole Bible to be born again, if we have access to the Bible, why would we not read it? It is through the Word of God that we know who God is and what He desires. That for a thousand years people had no access to the Bible should not be a prescription for us to follow. Where is the logic in that? People didn’t have the Bible and so we shouldn’t find the Bible necessary? That is not logic, that is folly. All one needs to do is look at the state of humanity during those centuries to see how the lack of access to God’s Word caused untold suffering and human casualties.
Luke 24:44-49 (ESV) records one of the last things Jesus says to His disciples, after He had been resurrected and appeared to them. It says, “Then he said to them, ‘These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.’ Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, ‘Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.’”
That text tells us that Jesus “opened their mind to understand the Scriptures,” because Jesus wanted them to read the Old Testament with new understanding. He was not dismissing or diminishing the importance of the Word. If anything, He elevated its importance by opening their minds to actually understand it now. And as Luke 24:53 says, after Jesus ascended into heaven, they returned to Jerusalem “and were continually in the temple blessing God.” They wanted to hear God’s Word.
We see all throughout the New Testament the writers echoing the idea that we must learn and know God’s Word. Colossians 3:16 says, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.” It is assumed by Paul, who is the author of Colossians, that a believer is going to be reading God’s Word. Families of believers are supposed to be teaching scripture to their children, and those children are to teach God’s word to their children. It is as Deuteronomy 6:4-9 describes, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”
It was understood that the task of teaching God’s Word was the responsibility of the family. We see in Nehemiah how it was the head of the household who met to learn the Word from the priest. They memorized it and were to pass it on. That is why in the New Testament, when Jesus would talk with people, they would say, “doesn’t God’s law say this” or “scripture says” when He would talk with people. Even people who were not of the Jewish faith seemed to know what Scripture said. An example of this is the Canaanite woman who asked Jesus to heal her daughter. She calls out to Jesus, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is severely demon-possessed.” She knew that Jesus was regarded as the prophesied Messiah and His ancestor was king David. This is how prevalent God’s Word was in society.
All throughout the New Testament, the writers reference the Old Testament. According to the website Creation.com, there are over 100 references to the book of Genesis alone. The lack of scholarship behind this false claim about not needing the Bible is astounding to me. While Peter knew Jesus personally, he knew that Jesus was the Son of God because everything that Jesus did and said lined up with Scripture, and Peter knew what Scripture said. In Acts 2, after the Holy Spirit falls on the believers and they speak in tongues, Peter recites the Old Testament prophecy of Joel. He only knew what was happening because he knew the writings of the prophets. He knew what they were witnessing was a fulfillment of Scripture, the same way he knew Jesus was who He said He was, because Jesus was the fulfillment of Scripture.
In the classic book, The Canon of the Bible, by Samuel Davidson, he says this, “The first Christians relied on the Old Testament as their chief religious book. To them it was of divine origin and authority. The New Testament writings came into gradual use, by the side of the older Jewish documents, according to the times in which they appeared and the names of their reputed authors.” The early Christians passed those early letters around. They recopied them, memorized them. The early Christians were not flying blind. They knew God’s Word and studied it. They treasured it and they certainly did not take it for granted, the way that so many people do today. Peter knew Jesus. He was one of His original disciples. Yet, he did not stop reading God’s Word even though he heard Jesus speak firsthand. Instead, by the power of the Holy Spirit, he wrote down what Jesus said and added it to the growing Word of God, now having understood how Jesus was the fulfillment of all that the Old Testament had prophesied.
If we don’t know what God’s Word says, then we can be duped by false teachings. Whereas, if we know God’s Word, and we have the Holy Spirit inside of us, who helps open our minds to understand it, then when we hear false teachings we can reject them.
Not only do we need to know Scripture to know truth, but we must know Scripture in order to know God’s standard of how we are to be holy. Back to what Peter says in verse 15, we are not to be like the world, “But as the one who called you is holy, you also are to be holy in all your conduct;.” The only way we can know what that looks like in practice is if we know how the Holy One acted. The only way we can know that is by reading Jesus’ words and studying His behavior. The Bible spells it out very clearly what a Christian’s actions should be like.
The behaviors and standard that the Bible gives us for how we are to live has not changed. As Peter wrote in verse 25, “but the word of the Lord endures forever. And this word is the gospel that was proclaimed to you.” God’s Word will not change or fade away.
So, let us do as Peter instructs these early believers to do: let us prepare our minds for action, keep sober in spirit, and set our hope completely on the grace to be brought to us at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Let us read the Word of God so we are not led astray. For His Word is unchanging, and we must know it in order to know God and obey Him. Next week, in chapter 2, we will see what this looks like in practice.
Pray: Heavenly Father, when we consider what Jesus endured on the cross for us, we are overwhelmed with thanksgiving and praise. Help us always remember the suffering He endured so that we do not take sin lightly. Thank You for forgiving us when we fail to obey Your word. Please help us by Your Holy Spirit to live with our minds girded up, ready for action. In Jesus name we pray, amen.
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