Tuesday, July 12, 2016

Unbelievers, Tripping Over the Jesus-Stone...


1 Peter 2: 7-8a

7To you then who believe, he is precious; but for those who do not believe, ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the very head of the corner’, and ‘A stone that makes them stumble, and a rock that makes them fall.’

Again, this is for the unbeliever, Jesus, the stone, makes them stumble and is a rock that makes them fall.  This piece is quoted from the prophet Isaiah, 8:14.  The context is that Israel and Judah are both about to assaulted and overrun by Assyria.  The result is the loss of Israel, the Northern Kingdom, to history, and the near conquest of Judah, the Southern Kingdom.  In this passage in Isaiah, the idea that God is actually behind the invasion and conquest, that is the stone that makes the Jews stumble and the rock that makes them fall.  How are they to understand the presence of God in their conquest?

Does this tie directly into the lives of the unbelievers?  That they will stumble and fall because of Jesus, that is pretty clear.  Jesus has a pretty amazing way of invading life and turning it on its ear. 

I think Peter chose this passage because it would have been known to his readers.  God’s claiming to use the Assyrians as His instrument in the conquest of Israel and Judah?  Imagine if there was a writing in the Christian faith that claimed God used the Nazis to conquer Europe as part of His greater plan?  It would be one of those passages that stuck in our heads, as I believe this one was.

That may help us in our understanding.  Understand what Peter's audience was going through.  Their land was overrun, not by the Assyrians, but by the Romans.  Peter is telling them that the presence of Jesus is as radical in the lives of unbelievers as the presence of Roman soldiers is in the lives of the people living in Judea.

It is NOT what one might call politically correct by any stretch of the imagination.  But it is radical...
The design is intentional, Jesus causes radical things to change in the lives of people, for believers, as we have already read, Jesus becomes precious in their sight, as Jesus is precious in the sight of God.

For unbelievers, Jesus can take everything they think they know and flip it on its head.




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