1
Peter 2: 8b
They stumble because
they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.
“They” are the unbelievers. They were destined to stumble for their
disobedience to God’s work by the passages that Peter has related from the Old
Testament. This sentence is of a single
piece, to be dealt with as a whole, as far as I am concerned.
They disobey the word, because they are
unbelievers. Perhaps they have heard the
word as shared about Jesus, but they have not fallen under its power, or
perhaps they have not yet heard the word as Peter has shared it to those to
whom he is writing the letter. The
result is the same. Unbelievers stumble
because of it.
What did he say before? That Jesus is the stone they rejected, the
stone that they have stumbled over. Such
is their destiny. But destiny is a funny
word that we have to take with a grain of salt in this context. Destiny is a word that, in the modern
culture, can easily be fixated upon with almost magical powers. Somebody ends up badly, they did something
bad, it caught up with them. It was
their destiny. Some say it was karma
coming around to get them.
But we know better. Destiny is not some kind of Godly power that
creeps up on people and drags them off to heaven or hell because of some fore
ordained series of unfortunate events.
There are far too many bad people who get off well in life and too many
good people who burn out in poverty or brokenness or whatever to play with some
kind of ‘destiny’ based on our lives spent.
We have another word for that in the
Christian faith. We call it idolatry,
worshiping another god before God, calling that god ‘destiny’. It’s in the top ten laws, see Exodus 20 for
more details.
Besides which, Peter writes for a
greater reason. They were destined, the
unbelievers, to stumble because they disobey the word, not for punishment, but
for possibility.
They stumble over the words because they
have not yet found the one who will guide them safely through the words, and in
the words, someone who will show them the way, the truth, and the life. (Hint hint…Jesus). That is what Peter is taking us through in
his argument, step by step, that which is precious to God, precious to the
believer, a stumbling block to the unbeliever, is ultimately the cornerstone on
which their faith shall be built.
So is the hope for all who do not
believe…yet.
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