We Are Going To Be Holy, Because Jesus Is Already

Instead, as he who called you is holy, be holy yourselves in all your conduct; for it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”



This appears to be a wisdom saying drawn from the Old Testament.  It occurs four times in the book of Leviticus (11:44, 11:45, 19:2, 20:7).  Each time, it is in the context of specific behavior, being holy according to the dietary rules (ch. 11), being holy according to reverence paid to parents (ch. 19), and being holy in the context of not going to strange religious practices (ch 20).  I must be from a dark side parental mindset when I read these passages.  Moses has to reinforce these rules with calls to be holy because these were precisely the behaviors that the people were most disobedient about.



And God chose not to destroy them.



That may be the most miraculous part of the Mosaic law, the fact that God did not destroy those people.  They gave Him a run for His money at every turn.  He got so angry that he threatened to destroy them once and start again with the family of Moses.  No lie.



“You shall be holy, for I am holy.”  It is not a statement of requirement.  It is a statement of promise.  Even those stiff necked people were going to be holy , because God is Holy.  It is the promise that Peter is drawing upon when he said “For it is written…”  In other words, this is particularly important for the readers to track in on.



Holiness is a virtue that comes from God, from obedience to God, from seeking to do God’s will, from doing as Jesus did.  It is the setup Peter begins his letter with.  It is the call he issues to his readers now.  It comes from the transformation of the worst behaviors to those acceptable, even approved of, even adored by our God in heaven.  Such is the practice of faith.



I have yet to meet someone who truly feels himself or herself truly worthy of God, they would not consider themselves holy by any stretch of the imagination.  But the promise Jesus gives to us through Peter’s words are that we can be holy, and we shall be holy, because God already is.

Did Peter Know He Was Writing "The Bible"?

Instead, as he who called you is holy, be holy yourselves in all your conduct; for it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”

In this phrase where Peter is citing “The Bible”, I do not believe he knew or even suspected that he was writing “The Bible”.  “…as it is written…” is citing at least four places in the book of Leviticus, where this ‘holy’ thing is referenced. (11:44, 11:45, 19:2, 20:7).  The Bible, as he was referring to it, was drawn from the Law of Moses.  But, as a citation, it gives special authority to the reference.  We do exactly the same thing when we reference Bible verses today, singling out special authority to make our case. 

Is it significant that Peter did not suspect he was adding to “the Bible” when he wrote these letters?  I think it is.  I believe that it kept him honest to his task, which was not writing an enduring religious tract for the renewed faith established by Jesus, but was an eyewitness testimony of Jesus Christ to a specific bunch of guys that Peter apparently had some connection to as a missionary.

How might it have changed what Peter wrote if he realized that the citations he was making from the Law of Moses would, in turn, be treated just as holy and important as those citations from the Law of Moses?  I think he would have written to a different standard.  I think he would have felt the burden of what was expected of The Bible and we would have lost so much of what makes Peter's letters so valuable to us. 

I believe the value of The Bible is how it expresses the honest truths of its writers, drawing from their times and places to relate to us their experiences of God.  How they understood God and God's mission on the earth has given us our faith today.  They were writing for us, about God.  If they'd known what they were writing would become The Bible, I think they would have spent more time writing for God, maybe about us.

The biblical authors were just like us, people struggling to take their faith in God and the lives they lived and put them together for the betterment of their audiences.  I believe that is how God inspired them to write what they wrote. 

God said, "You shall be holy, because I am holy."  God sanctified their experiences, blessed their writings, and has given to us a guide on how we, in turn, live in the faith we have been given in Jesus Christ.

Holiness Does Not Mean Perfection, Or We Are Doomed To Failure

Instead, as he who called you is holy, be holy yourselves in all your conduct; for it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”



“Be holy”, is this the impossible command?  It appears to be a call to perfection in everything that we do.  And that simply is not going to happen, not in this lifetime.  In the first twelve verses, where Peter lays the plan, power, and presence of Jesus (yes, deliberate alliteration), there is a lot of mention of heaven and the life to come.  That is when perfection will be achieved, not here.  



I would suggest that holiness is something other than perfection.  Otherwise, I would like to think that Peter would give us a more honest approach.  “Try to be holy”, “strive after holiness”, “quest for the holy ways of the Father”, something along those lines would be more honest.  It speaks of a beginning and a growing edge to the achievement of the goal of being holy in all our conduct, while still recognizing that sin is dominant in the world.



In Jesus, both being holy and being perfect live together in harmony.  But in us, it would appear that we can be holy without being perfect.  Which leads us to the ten million dollar question, what is it to be holy?



God decides what is holy, not us.  God sanctifies things, like the tabernacle and the temple in Jerusalem.  He sanctifies individuals, like the high priest, like the kings and prophets whom he anointed to their roles (“to sanctify”=to make holy).  The very call that we spoke of last is the imparting of God’s holiness to us who are called.



That does not mean there is not a proper response to being made holy.  It does not mean that we should not strive after the things of God.  But it does mean that failure is not a consideration.  By Jesus’ death and resurrection, the judgment due to us was taken upon Him.  Mercy is what remained.  In all our conduct, we are called to be holy, and the pressure of failure is removed.  That is a total life commitment to the God who has chosen us.  Are you willing?

Called By The Holy One

Instead, as he who called you is holy, be holy yourselves in all your conduct; for it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”

Being “called”, called by Jesus, what an incredible and terrible privilege that Peter is laying upon his readers and upon us.  We are being called by one who is ‘holy’.  How much more is added to the burden upon us by being called by someone who is ‘holy’?   It might be nice if it were just a phone call.  That would come to an end and we could…move on?  Or return to what we were?

It is a simple word, ‘called’, but it is uniquely powerful.  We carry on a legacy of those called by God, Abraham, Sarah, Moses, Joshua, Deborah, David, Isaiah, Esther…  A legacy of Peter, Mary the mother of Jesus, James, Mary Magdalene, all called to serve.

The individuals that God has called, the individuals that Jesus, also God, has called, when they are names in the Bible, how do we even think we can measure up?  Until we realize that those whom God has called are no different from us, fallible, broken human beings, just like us.

The key is that the one who is calling us is holy.  That does not mean we have an impossible standard to try and meet.  Because we won’t.  Simple as that.  The one who is calling us is holy, and by His Spirit, he will surround us with his Holiness.

That doesn’t make us super beings.  It doesn’t make us perfect.  But it does make us something more wonderful.  It makes us forgiven.   

Holy, Being Holy Like Jesus...No Pressure...

¹⁵Instead, as he who called you is holy, be holy yourselves in all your conduct; ¹⁶for it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”

Peter looks now to how we should behave.  The benchmark for proper behavior is ‘holiness’, being holy as Jesus himself is Holy

¹⁵Instead, as he who called you is holy, It is a simple declaration.  The question is, what is it to be holy?

be holy yourselves in all your conduct; To be holy is to undertake an activity, an activity that is all-consuming as to who we are.

¹⁶for it is written,  There is to follow a quote from the Old Testament.  The words and the context to be looked at and considered.

 “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”  Is this a promise or is this a demand?  What is Peter drawing from in the Old Testament, the bible of his readers, to make his point in this situation?

The only time the word ‘holy’ is used up to this point is in the title of the “Holy Spirit”, and that is an English translation of a single Greek term.  Holy has a particular usage that we shall consider in more detail in this sentence.

A Christmas Devotional

Tis the night before Christmas and I’ll soon be asleep, but there are things to put down before I ask the Lord to keep.  Just some random thoughts to share.

The Creator of the Universe, all-knowing and all-powerful, chose to come down as a homeless, vulnerable baby, as far from the all-power as one might imagine.

To demonstrate His great power, God used Caesar Augustus to move the whole empire so that Mary and Joseph might travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem, where the prophets foretold.

When the Wise Men saw Jesus’ Star rise in the East, was it the choir of angels ascending on high from their appearance to the shepherds?

Mary, the Mother of Jesus, was the only person to be there at his birth, his death, and his rebirth.

All the hype that has built up in the world of ‘secular’ Christmas cannot touch the appearance of that choir of angels.

The ‘pagan’ influences that have entered Christmas, i.e. the tree, the mistletoe, the holly, whatever else,  they are simply tribute to the greatest gift we have ever received.

If you read Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol”, the author rejoices in the birth story of Jesus as the backdrop for the redemption that comes upon Scrooge-something that rarely translates into the screen adaptations.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Putting The Sentence All Together...

Like obedient children, do not be conformed to the desires that you formerly had in ignorance

We are called upon to be like responsible children, those who can take on the things that the Lord has for us.  There is tremendous peer pressure that will be brought to bear upon us not to act in this manner.  Rather, the way things were, the ways ‘we’ve always done things’, tradition, this is what we can expect to return to.  Peer pressure will press us to return to these ways.  But these ways are from the time when we were ignorant, when we did not know that the Lord God had in store for us. 

Peter has gone from ‘recapping’ the faith message he brought in person to his readers to laying out for them what is expected in response.  BC-Before Christ-they lived lives of ignorance.  AC-After Christ (more consistent than AD, Anno Domino, “Year of Our Lord”)-everything has changed.  And they are expected, we are expected, to respond in the proper way to this change of everything.

“In Ignorance”: That Is A Place I Do Not Want To Live

Like obedient children, do not be conformed to the desires that you formerly had in ignorance.

So we were conformed to our desires, which were lived in ignorance before the coming of the Lord Jesus.  Ignorance is a very interesting idea in the Christian faith.  What are we guilty of before our Father in heaven if we are living in ignorance?  How do the consequences of judgment press upon us when our ignorance has been enlightened by the light of our Lord Jesus Christ? 

“Ignorance” is like another country where we lived before we, the readers, came into the Kingdom of God.  I like how Peter has not automatically judged the ignorant, unlike many in the church today.  The ignorant are as hell-sent as the worst criminal.  Yes, well, that is one of those points of the faith that troubles me the most.

Ignorance, living there is living in a realm where we did not know any better.  The desires we had before, maybe in the light of Christ, they continue to exist as possible ways of living, but something fundamental has changed.  Living in Christ, living for Christ, that changes the ends and the means of our lives.  Because now we know better. 

And there is no going back.

What Does It Mean “To The Desires That You Formerly Had”?

Like obedient children, do not be conformed to the desires that you formerly had in ignorance

There is an “old life-new life” dualism that exists in Biblical thinking.  This is the “old life” that Peter does not want his readers to return to.  It is full of desires.  Now, 21^st century American usage of the word “desires” usually presumes a sexual connotation to the word.  It lends the word a heavier aura than what it I think Peter intends.

I see a competing dualism in American Christianity.  On the one hand, there is a virulent stream of evangelistic thought that is motivated by a sincere theological belief that hell is for everybody but the chosen few.  On the other hand, there is a reaction to that kind of thinking, one that considers hell to be for evil people, of which the vast majority of us are not.  It translates into something that I have heard stated “well, I am basically a good person”.

“Conforming to the desires that you formerly had” is talking about something that is qualitatively different, to my way of thinking.  The most basic expression of believing in Jesus is found in Jesus’ command to love God and love Neighbor.  This leads to a whole new way of doing things, focused out from ourselves, focused for the common and the greater good, a renewal of all creation worked out even in ourselves.

The Desires That We Formerly Had are not simply the collection of sinful behaviors for which we might be condemned.  Rather, it is an entire lifestyle that is based around the self and our own personal fulfillment.  It is quite possible that the desires we formerly had are completely in line with the bible, the 10 Commandments and so on.  But life in Christ opens up something completely new.  Once we have experienced it, Peter warns against going back. 

Do Not Be Conformed

Like obedient children, do not be conformed to the desires that you formerly had in ignorance

Remember high school.  Remember peer pressure?  You were supposed to conform to what the rest of the kids were doing.  Dress like them, act like them, do what is acceptable to them.  Exploring the nuances of peer pressure, of conformity, is at the heart of one of my favorite movies from my time in high school and today.  It is John Hughes at his best, “The Breakfast Club”.

Conformity is certainly not limited to high school.  Churches suffer from it too.  “Proper” worship requiring the ‘right’ kind of dress, the ‘proper’ music, the ‘correct’ instruments, the ‘approved’ point of view; that all reflects an ecclesial (that is a latin-borrowed technical term for “churchly”) peer pressure. 

This is not to say that peer pressure is always a bad thing.  When a drill sergeant is trying to build unit cohesion in boot camps, peer pressure is a force to bring civilians into line with the new skill set of being soldiers and sailors.  Even in high school, if your child falls in with the right group of friends, it can be a life-changer.   It could be the loner who discovers the theater kids or the nerd who joins the marching band, it can change their life.

All of this presumes something.  Conformity depends on something to be conformed to.  There needs be a model, a set of assumptions, rules to define what is right or wrong; something against which conformity is measured.  It can be good or bad.  Peter is telling his readers not to be conformed, foreshadowing that something negative is under way.

Like obedient children,

Like obedient children, do not be conformed to the desires that you formerly had in ignorance

When I was taking a summer lab course during college, one of the supervisors made a comment that has stuck with me all my life. “I would rather be a responsible child than an irresponsible adult.”  When I shared that with my mom, she was not at all pleased with the idea.  Given the context, her son in college, apparently preparing for adulthood, spouting some nonsense about staying a child...

 I would like to think of an obedient child as a responsible child.  Such is our relationship to our God.  As Jesus teaches us to open the Lord’s Prayer, “Our Father, who art in heaven…”  The obedient child gives us two things to think about.  There is the child.  Jesus is God’s Son, the firstborn of us all as we are made children, no longer servants, of the Living God.

Then there is the word ‘obey’.  We, freedom loving Americans, don’t take kindly to that word.  It was not welcome in my wedding vows.  But this is far different.  We are not battling the sin of hierarchy.  We are taking our relationship to God seriously.  To truly do the work of Jesus, we must be as Jesus was, obedient to our Father in heaven.

Peter Speaks Against The Way Things Were

¹⁴Like obedient children, do not be conformed to the desires that you formerly had in ignorance.

            Peter issued his challenge, to carry forward with the work that is inspired by what God has done for us in Jesus.  But this is a group that must be changed.  There was a way of doing things that still holds on to them.  It is this means of being that Peter addresses:

Like obedient children, it may not sound immediately flattering to us, but herein is the basic relationship we have to our God.

 do not be conformed-this is the metaphor by which Peter, and the New Testament, speaks when we are picking lives for or against our Lord Jesus.

 to the desires that you formerly had-what does the old life look like in comparison to the new?

 in ignorance. Hmmm, not a bad life chosen intentionally, but…

When He Is Revealed.

It has been a couple thousand years.  Peter thought it might be weeks, or months, maybe a couple of years. There is the pressure of immediacy in Peter's words because he expected a relatively immediate return of Jesus.  

Preparing their minds for action, disciplining themselves, setting their hope on the grace revealed in Jesus, these were not activities that the apostles assumed would have to be continued on through fifty generations or more.  The assumption was that all would be made complete when He is revealed.

How do we account for the immediate action demanded by Peter and the delayed action we are living to see in this generation?  How does this passage speak to us across that gap?  This faith has gone from a fad to a lifestyle. 

Our hope has not changed.  It is still dependent on the grace given to us in Jesus.  While He is not revealed to us in person, He is revealed to us in the New Testament.  Each generation has the benefit of Peter’s words to introduce us to the Christ, and the promise that surrounds Him.  Each generation can live the life that Jesus lived, sharing the grace and the love that He did with the world in need.  To each generation, he is revealed afresh.

Set all your hope on the Grace that Jesus Christ will bring you

It all hinges on one word, ‘grace’.  Our hope hinges on that word, that which the Lord Jesus Christ brings hinges on that word.  When we are talking ‘grace’ in this context, we are not talking about the prayer offered before a meal.  We are not talking about the lady who tied years ago that sweet Aunt Bethany was thinking of in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. 

We are talking about something on which we are to place all our hope.  So, no pressure. 

What is the grace?  It is the salvation that is to be given to the readers, as prophesied by the prophets (vs. 10).  And what is salvation?  It is the outcome of their faith (vs. 9).  The result of faith is praise and glory and honor (vs. 7), when its genuineness is revealed through various trials (vs. 6).  And our faith is in a living hope, given to us as a new birth, through the resurrection of our Lord Jesus from the dead (vs. 3).

And while this is the promise of the afterlife, something great and powerful to look forward to, never get caught in the trap of thinking this is all we have for this life.  God poured His grace into this world through Jesus.  It is our calling to continue to establish that grace in this world.  From that work shall we receive our eternal reward.

discipline yourselves;

That could be a tough sell.  “Discipline”, all too often associated with punishment.  Get ‘disciplined’ in school, the drill sergeant handing out discipline to his recruits-too often this is the meaning that people take away from the word.  And even when they know its other definitions, there is a negative connotation to the term.

Self-discipline, this is what Peter is aiming at.  Hard to achieve in a ‘feel good’ world.  It is very, very easy simply to skate through life, never have to achieve self-discipline for anything.  Until you really want it.

Athletes have discipline, to train, to prepare, to do what it takes to be ‘the best they can be’.  That phrase is borrowed from military advertising.  Elite and special forces in the military, there is another place where discipline is at the forefront.  Without discipline, people could be killed.  In whatever field that someone might be working in, discipline can take them farther than brighter, more educated people who just do not have the work ethic.

Peter first called for the readers of his letter to prepare their minds for action, now he is calling for them to discipline themselves.  The difference is preparing to do something, and now, actually doing it.  The Christian faith calls for discipline as surely as any other field in which we want to excel. 

Again, Peter laid out what the Lord’s plan of salvation in the first dozen verses.  They are inspiration to action.  And it requires commitment, it requires focus, it requires tenacity, it requires hard work to do the things of the Lord.  It requires discipline.  Are you willing?

"Therefore, prepare your minds for action…" 1 Peter 1:13

Peter begins his letter with a capsule summary of the work and significance of Jesus Christ (vss. 1-12).  It follows up in writing what he has taught as he has traveled among them.  But it was not intended to be a reminder of the right doctrine about Jesus.  It is a call to action. 

“Therefore”, the word of transition, what came before is to motivate what is to come.  Our faith is not stagnant, it is not something that stands still, it is not simply something we learn so that we can answer the ‘test of life’ to see if we know what we need to know.

“…prepare your minds…” There is a shift in the subject of Peter’s writing.  Before, it was about Jesus, now it turns to those who have received the letter.  Here is Jesus, here is what you need to do with it.  It is an education, it is preparation, you have the information, prepare your minds to move on it.

Jesus’ life and ministry were all about action, teaching when there needed to be teaching, but doing to accomplish the work of His Father in Heaven.  It is the same call to the people to whom Peter writes, and the same call to each of us.

Having Heard About Jesus, How Shall We Respond?

1 Peter 1:13 Therefore prepare your minds for action;^* discipline yourselves; set all your hope on the grace that Jesus Christ will bring you when he is revealed.

What ended back in May was a tight reading and interpretation of the first twelve verses of 1 Peter 1.  Sentence by sentence, phrase by phrase, what does Peter mean in his writing?  It was a personal discipline, and devotional, looking to Scripture for its deeper and more wonderful truths.  It was meant to be devotional, educational, a form of Bible study for myself and those who might read along.

It continues now, distributed more widely, to the Session and certain members of the church.  The previous entries on the blog lay out what was said in the first twelve verses.  This is a gift for you to follow along in a close reading. 

I believe God has a call for us and to know Him better, we must look to the Word that has been given to us.

This first post in the series considers the verse, broken down into phrases.  The next set of posts will take each of the phrases in turn.  It will end with a treatment of the entire verse, seeking to draw threads together. 

13 Therefore prepare your minds for action;^*  In the first 12 verses, Peter has been talking about the power and mission of Jesus, something that will demand a reaction from the readers. 

discipline yourselves; This is the language of how we come to Jesus, and how Jesus comes through us.  The Christian life demands disciplines of faith and obedience that we do not wander astray.  It is not ‘automatic’.

set all your hope on the grace that Jesus Christ will bring you  Peter looks back to the first 12 verses, where he outlines what this grace is, how it is the anchor of faith in Jesus.   

when he is revealed.  This may be a trickier bit.  Jesus was revealed, but has since ascended into heaven.  He will be revealed again, at the end of time.  Will he somehow be revealed in this ‘middle time’ as well? 

If this becomes overly complex, please tell me.  If I am incomprehensible, please let me know.  The aim is to use the study of Scripture as a unifying movement in our Lord Jesus as we seek to live out our mission of peace.