Translation & Sermon By Nate Wilson for Christ The Redeemer Church Manhattan, KS 21 June 2015
2:1 Therefore after you have displaced
all wickedness and deceptiveness and hypocrisies and rivalries and all trash-talks,
2:2 Like newborn babies ya’ll must start cultivating desire for the non-deceptive milk of the word,
in order that y’all might be caused to grow in salvation by means of it,
2:3 since y’all have tasted that the Lord is beneficial.
2:4 While y’all are drawing near to Him
– the living Stone
who has been despised by men
but who is select [and] precious according to God –
2:5 you yourselves also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual household,
into a holy priesthood
in order to offer up acceptable spiritual sacrifices to God through Jesus Christ.
2:6 In proof of which it is contained in Scripture,
“Look, I am laying a stone in Zion – a precious, select cornerstone,
and the one who trusts in Him shall never be put to shame.”
· All these things are “displaced” by “loving one another with a pure heart.”
· This language of putting off certain things is found in other places in the scriptures, such as Colossians 3:8 “But now you yourselves are to put off all these: anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth.” (NKJV)
· The Greek word for “malice/wickedness” is the LXX translation of the Hebrew word רע
o and describes evils from Abimelek’s murder of his 70 relatives
o to Israel’s desiring a king like the other nations.
· The next word “guile/deceit”
o is used in the Septuagint to translate the Hebrew מרמה
o which describes Jacob tricking his father into giving him the blessing of the firstborn (Gen 27:35), and Simeon and Levi tricking the men of Shechem to perform surgery on themselves that would make them lose in battle (Gen 34:13).
o Deceptiveness is prohibited by the 9th commandment, and Jesus affirmed that it comes out of the heart and defiles us (Mark 7:22).
o Psalm 24:4 told us that the only ones who can ascend God’s holy hill and stand in his holy place is “He that is innocent in his hands and pure in his heart; who has not lifted up his soul to vanity, nor sworn deceitfully to his neighbour.” It is important to put away deceptiveness if you want to be a Christian.
o We’ll see later on in 1 Peter 2:22, that the person with “no guile/deceit in his mouth” is named Jesus Christ!
o In v.2 we see the alpha-privitave of the same word, which unfortunately most English translations render “pure” instead of “un-deceitful” as it literally is, showing that the Bible is the opposite of the world’s fables and deceptiveness.
o As usual, sinful humans tend to accuse other people of the very thing they themselves are guilty of. The intellectuals who accuse Christians of perpetuating harmful myths as Bible truth are, in actuality, the ones who are perpetuating the harmful myths, and the myths are their stories that God is dead and that matter and energy is all there is.
o These lies must be displaced by cultivating a craving for the non-deceptive truth of God’s word in order to grow as a Chrsitian. The two sets of information compete with each other to fill our mind, and we can only truly fill our mind with one or the other. One is the truth, the other is propaganda.
· The next thing on the list of things to lay aside is hypocrisies.
o I am given to understand that this Greek word was originally the term for an actor in a Greek play. Whereas dolon is seeking to deceive with words, hypocrisies attempts to deceive with actions, saying that you are one thing – that you believe one thing, and acting like you believe the opposite and are the opposite.
o It is plural in the Greek because we do this in multiple ways.
§ There are sins that we secretly indulge in but when people talk about someone falling into that sin, we shake our heads and act like we are above it.
§ Or we may have little or no real relationship with God, but dress up and carry a big Bible and talk about religious things and pray long prayers to appear super-spiritual.
· The next thing to put away is “rivalry/envy.”
o In humans, this is a “work of the flesh” (Gal 5:21), such as when the Pharisees handed Jesus over to Pilate out of envy (Matt. 27:18), or when the Apostle Paul’s rivals preached the gospel out of attitude of rivalry in Philippians 1.
o Paul warned Timothy, “If anyone... does not consent to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which accords with godliness, he is proud, knowing nothing, but is obsessed with disputes and arguments over words, from which come envy, strife, reviling, evil suspicions, useless wranglings of men of corrupt minds and destitute of the truth, who suppose that godliness is a means of gain. From such withdraw yourself.” (1 Timothy 6:2-5, NKJV)
o Love does not envy. (1 Cor 13) Love instead seeks what is best for the other person instead of getting the best for yourself. Love displaces rivalries.
· “Evil speaking/slander” is the final word on the list.
o The wisdom books of the Bible teach the foolishness of talking down or uttering a word against good people, for instance, Proverbs 20:13, “Love not to speak ill, lest thou be cut off” (Brendon)
o cf. James 4:11, “Do not speak evil of one another, brethren.”
o Later on in 1 Peter 2:12 and in 3:16, Peter says that you can expect non-Christians to speak against you, but this should never happen among Christians.
o Love does not indulge in trash talk, instead it encourages and builds up with words.
· Is that a tall order to get rid of – not just some but – all wickedness, untruth, hypocrisy, rivalry, and talking down about other people? How can I possibly love that purely? God gives us a strategy!
· “Start cultivating a desire.” What is it that we are to be longing after? Most versions translate the Greek word logikon as “of the word” although the NASB renders it “spiritual.”
· The only other occurrence of this word logikon is Rom. 12:1 “offer your bodies a living sacrifice, which is your reasonable/spiritual act of worship.” “Reasonable” and “spiritual” are pretty different meanings in post-modern parlance, but what is in common is that “reason,” “word,” and “spirit” stand in contrast to what is physical and fleshly. In other words, this is not the kind of milk that can fill physical volume in your mouth (Isa. 28:9), but rather milk which is spiritual, word-based, and nourishing to your thinking.
· NET Bible: “The word for spiritual in Greek is λογικός (logikos), which is a play on words with the reference in 1Pet. 1:23-25 to ‘the living and enduring word (λόγος, logos) of God,’ through which they were born anew. This is a subtle indication that the nourishment for their growth must be the word of God.”
· This is something to “crave/long for/cultivate a desire for.” This Greek verb epipothesate is in the imperative mood, so it is not describing the appetite of an infant, it is a command to you to cultivate an appetite for God’s true righteousness to displace the deceptive wickedness which will otherwise take over your life.
· The Greek translation of Psalm 42:1 uses this word in a similar way: “As the deer earnestly desires the fountains of water, so my soul earnestly longs for You, O God.” (cf. Psalm 62:10 “Trust not in unrighteousness, and lust not after robberies: if wealth should flow in, set not your heart upon it.” Psalm 84:2 “My soul longs, and faints for the courts of the Lord: my heart and my flesh have exulted in the living god.” Psalm 119:131 “I opened my mouth, and drew breath: for I earnestly longed after thy commandments.” (Brenton)
· This last prepositional phrase “into salvation” is not found in the Byzantine majority of manuscripts, thus is not in the KJV, but is found in all of the oldest-known Greek manuscripts, thus is included in the ESV, NASB, and NIV.
· The word “grow” is spelled in the passive voice. This would indicate that our spiritual growth is not something we create ourselves but which God creates within us.
· Nevertheless it is in the context of our action to desire/long for/crave God’s word and approach Jesus. Compare with the active form of the verb in 2 Peter 3:18 “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ...” and Colossians 2:19 “...all the body, nourished and knit together by joints and ligaments, grows with the increase that is from God.”
· The phrase “grow in salvation” does not show up anywhere else in the Bible, but passages like Ephesians 4:14-15 give us a context for what is meant. “...we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ” (NKJV)
· This phrase is a quote from Psalm 34:8: “O taste and see that the LORD is good; How blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him!” (NASB)
· The Greek word translated “good/beneficial” is chreston; it does not mean “good” in the sense of “morally good” or “following the rules,” it is more the kind of “good” when you say something “tastes good,” it is good because it suits you well, meets your needs, and is beneficial to you.
o Matt. 11:30 “For my yoke is easy and my burden is lightweight,”
o Luke 6:35 “But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and y’all shall be the children of the Most High, for He is kind unto the ungrateful and to the evil,”
o Romans 2:4 “... the goodness of God leads you to repentance”
· It is in this way that we “draw near” to God in worship and fellowship through His word and find salvation and healing from our brokenness.
· This Greek word proserchomai is used throughout the Bible to describe the respectful approach of someone to worship God and to ask for His favor.
o Hebrews 10:1 “For the law... can never with these same sacrifices, which they offer continually year by year, make those who approach perfect,” [They “approached” God’s holy place to offer sacrifices in Lev. 9:5-8, 21:21-23] but, v.21, “having a High Priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.”
o Hebrews 7:25 “He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him...”
o Hebrews 4:16 “Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” (NKJV).
· Peter now leaves the metaphor of nourishment as a part of growing up and jumps to a metaphor of house-building to continue his theme of growing up.
· He makes the segueway by picturing Jesus as the controversial cornerstone from Psalm 118:22, (and he will more fully quote that Psalm later in verse 7, so I will wait until next week to dive into that).
· For now, I see this as a transition to the principle of v.5 of being built up into a kind of house in the process of our Christian maturity.
· By this change in metaphor, we see that spiritual growth is not just about you, it is about something bigger than you. If Peter had stayed with the milk metaphor, it would be tempting to think that your growth as a Chrsitian was all about you growing wiser and stronger, but it’s not all about you. There is a larger picture. Not only does the Lord care for your personal growth, He also cares for your inter-personal growth. Love, remember is the crowing purpose of the Christian life. To grow, you must submit yourself to serving the larger body of Christ, this spiritual house.
· I like what the NIV and ESV did in interpreting the present tense of the participle “approaching” at the beginning of v. 4 in a temporal sense. The participle “y’all coming” in v. 4 is telling us what is happening at the same time that the main action in v. 5 is happening – it’s all part of one sentence in Greek. As you come you are being built into a house.
· Those who cultivate no desire for the word of God and do not draw near to God do not become functional members of the house God is building. You see how it all flows together? There is a logical progression to Christian maturity: Desire, Come, Be built up.
· The word translated “spiritual” here in v.5 is the Greek word for “that which is related to the spirit.” It refers to the fulfillment of OT typology in New Testament spiritual realities (Rev. 11:8, 1 Cor. 10:3-4), and it is used a number of times in the New Testament as a contrast word opposite that which is material, physical, fleshly (Rom. 7:14; 15:27; 1 Cor. 2:13-14, 3:1; 9:11, 15:44-46, Eph. 6:12). In other words, the house God is building is not your Dad’s house, and this is not your pastor’s church building, this is the spiritual reality typified in all the Old Testament tabernacles and revealed as the body of Christ, the Church made of people who will live forever in community with God Himself.
· The word “priesthood” is an allusion to Exodus 19:5-6 “And now if ye will indeed hear my voice, and keep my covenant, ye shall be to me a peculiar people above all nations; for the whole earth is mine. And ye shall be to me a royal priesthood and a holy nation...” (Brenton) Peter will bring this up again later in v.9.
o Christian maturity means being not only a household member but also a member of the priestly order whose job it is to offer sacrifices to God and to be an agent through which God and man meet together.
o Christian maturity involves active worship, not just passive church attendance. This doesn’t mean you have to be the leader in front of the church to be mature, although it does mean you will be leading somebody through the process of their discipleship – maybe your wife or children in your own home, or your roommate or classmate or your little brother or sister, your inferiors at work – we are all called to make disciples in some way or another – but notice this promise was given to all the people of Israel, not just to the Levites.
o The spiritual sacrifices God wants us to offer are the spiritual counterpart to the physical sheep and goats and bulls that were sacrificed by Old Testament believers. The Old and New Testament tell us what the spiritual counterpart is:
§ Psalm 51 tells us that “the sacrifices of God are... a broken and contrite heart,”
§ and the prophet Hosea (14:2) tells us what Hebrews also says, that “the sacrifices of praise” are “the fruit of lips that give thanks to God.”
§ These are the kind of sacrifices we offer as priests. To be part of the priesthood means you sing when the church sings, you pray when the church prays, you confess sin when the church confesses sin, and you look for opportunities to speak bits and pieces of His word in order to draw other people throughout the week closer to God, that is a mark of maturity and a way of being part of God’s spiritual house-building project.
· I suspect that this is a New Testament turn to the Hebrew phrase “sweet aroma” often descriptive of sacrifices. God assures us even before we offer our sacrifices that He will enjoy them!
· Peter quotes Isaiah 28:16 to prove that Jesus the Lord is good/gracious/beneficial and that He is the one that we should come to in worship.
· Isaiah 28, in turn, quotes from Psalm 25:2-3, “O my God, I have trusted in thee: let me not be confounded, neither let mine enemies laugh me to scorn. For none of them that wait on thee shall in any wise be ashamed: let them be ashamed that transgress without cause. (Brenton).
· What does Peter mean by “shame?”
o The prophet Jeremiah talked about shame more than any other Bible author except David. Here is his description of “shame/being confounded/disappointed:” “They were ashamed because they failed... and in the time of visitation shall they perish, said the Lord” (Jeremiah 6:15, Brenton).
o I see two components of shame, which are consistent with the use of the word throughout scripture.
§ First there is shame in the eyes of other people when you came up with a plan to help yourself and it didn’t work.
· Maybe it was a business venture that went flat and left you broke, and people laughed about how stupid your business idea was.
· Maybe it was a social or political idea that you thought would work to erase poverty and unemployment... and you learned from heartrending experience that people will chose self-destructive things, and no amount of government power or private charity can stop some sins.
· The egg is on your face. You boasted that you were the smartest or fastest or strongest, and then somebody beat you in the race, beat you in the wrestling match, or scored higher than you and now everybody is laughing at you because you trusted in yourself and you weren’t good enough to win.
· In spiritual terms, the world says that your reliance on a pie-in-the-sky being that can’t be seen or touched is utterly ridiculous, and if you claim the name of Christ and then fall to sexual temptation, they will laugh and say, “His religion didn’t do him any good! So much for Christianity!”
· God reassures us in the face of that kind of pressure that Biblical trust in Jesus will not fail you; you will not be disappointed with the results. When the final tally comes, nobody is going to make fun of you for trusting Jesus. When He saves you from falling, when He provides for your needs, and when He finally says, ‘Enter into the joy of my Father.’” Other people are going to say, “Wow, that’s legit!”
· That is one side of not being ashamed.
§ The other side of being ashamed is law-breaking in the face of accountability.
· If you ran the stop sign thinking nobody would see you, and a minute later those blue flashing lights pull you over, you have been shamed because the officer has caught you breaking a law. You may even imagine all those cars driving by seeing you pulled over by the police and saying, “Tsk, tsk. She should have stopped at the stop sign!”
· That problem will be raised to the nth degree when Jesus returns for judgment day. The amount of shame that will be heaped on every man, woman, and child will be unbearable because Jesus will go into meticulous detail to expose every single stinking one of your transgressions – including all the secret thoughts you desperately don’t want anybody else to find out about you. They will all be exposed and everybody will see what a filthy, rotten sinner you really are, and shame will be appropriate because you will be standing before the God who made you and who made the rules of morality which you have broken.
· Here too, Jesus comes to the rescue. Not only can He save us from the shame of depending on failing human beings and a worldview that doesn’t work practically, He can also save you from the shame of being exposed for breaking His standards of morality on Judgment Day.
· Those who trust in Jesus to deliver them from this shame will find Jesus step in to intervene in the process so that no offenses are listed next to your name. Jesus transferred all your offenses to His name and paid in full for them by His death on the cross. When your name is called on Judgement Day, instead of burning shame in front of God’s accountability, you will hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant!”
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Modified Patriarchal Text |
NAW |
KJV |
NKJV |
ESV |
NASB |
NIV |
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1 ᾿ΑποθέμενοιAMP-NPM οὖν πᾶσαν κακίανASF καὶ πάντα δόλονASM καὶ ὑποκρίσειςAPF καὶ φθόνους APM καὶ πάσαςAPF καταλαλιάςAPF, |
1. Therefore after you have displaced all wickedness[1] and deceptiveness[2] and hypocrisies[3] and rivalries[4] and all trash-talks[5], |
1 Wherefore laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings, |
1 Therefore, laying aside all malice, all deceit, X hypocrisy*, X envy*, and all evil speaking*, |
1 So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy* and envy* and all slander*. |
1 Therefore, putting aside all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy* and envy* and all slander*, |
1 Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, X hypocrisy*, X envy*, and slander*[6] of every kind. |
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2 ὡς ἀρτιγέννηταNPN[7] βρέφηNPN τὸ ASN λογικὸνASN ἄδολονASN γάλαASN ἐπιποθήσατεAAM, ἵνα ἐν αὐτῳ αὐξηθῆτε APS εἰς σωτηρίαν, |
2. Like newborn babies ya’ll must start cultivating desire for the non-deceptive milk of the word[8], in order that y’all might be caused to grow in salvation[9] by means of it, |
2 As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby X X: |
2 as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby X X, |
2 Like newborn infants[10], long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow [up] into salvation-- |
2 like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation, |
2 Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow [up] in [your] salvation, |
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3 εἴ[περ[11]] ἐγεύσασθεADI ὅτι χρηστὸς ὁ Κύριος. |
3. since y’all have tasted that the Lord is beneficial[12] |
3 If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious. |
3 if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious. |
3 if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. |
3 if you have tasted |
3 now that you have tasted that the Lord is good. |
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4 πρὸς ὃνASM προσερχόμενοιPNP-NPM, [13]λίθονASM ζῶνταPAP-ASM, ὑπὸ ἀνθρώπων μὲν ἀποδεδοκιμασμένονRPP-ASM, παρὰ δὲ Θεῳ ἐκλεκτὸνASM, ἔντιμονASM, |
4. While y’all are drawing near[14] to Him – the living Stone who has been despised[15] by men but who is select [and] precious according to God – |
4 To whom coming, as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious, |
4 Coming to Him as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious, |
4 As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, |
4 |
4 As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him— |
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5 καὶ αὐτοὶ ὡς λίθοι ζῶντες PAP-NPM οἰκοδομεῖσθεPPI οἶκος πνευματικὸςNSM, [[16]εις] ἱεράτευμαASN ἅγιονASN, ἀνενέγκαιAAN πνευματικὰςAPF θυσίαςAPF εὐπροσδέκτουςAPF τῳ Θεῳ διὰ ᾿Ιησοῦ Χριστοῦ· |
5. you yourselves also, like living stones, are being built[17] into a spiritual[18] household, into a holy priesthood[19] in order to offer up acceptable[20] spiritual sacrifices to God through Jesus Christ. |
5 Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. |
5 you also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. |
5 X you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. |
5 you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. |
5 you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. |
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6 διότι[21] περιέχειPAI-3S ἐν [τη[22]] γραφῇ· ἰδοὺAMM-2S τίθημιPAI-1S ἐν Σιὼν λίθονASM ἀκρογωνιαῖον, ἐκλεκτὸν, ἔντιμον, καὶ ὁ πιστεύωνPAP-NSM ἐπ᾿ αὐτῳ οὐ μὴ καταισχυνθῇAPS-3S. |
6. In proof of which it is contained in Scripture, “Look, I am laying a stone in Zion – a precious, select cornerstone, and the one who trusts in Him shall never be put to shame[23].” |
6 Wherefore |
6 Therefore it is |
6 For it stands in Scripture: "Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame." |
6 For this is contained in Scripture: "BEHOLD, I LAY IN ZION A CHOICE STONE, A PRECIOUS CORNER stone, AND HE WHO BELIEVES IN HIM WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED." |
6 For in Scripture it says: "See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame." |
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Isa. 28:16 לָכֵן כֹּה אָמַר אֲדֹנָי יְהוִה הִנְנִי יִסַּד בְּצִיּוֹן אָבֶן אֶבֶן בֹּחַן פִּנַּת יִקְרַת מוּסָד מוּסָּד הַמַּאֲמִין לֹא יָחִישׁ: |
Isa. 28:16 NAW Therefore, the Lord Jehovah has spoken thus, “Look, I am the one who laid a stone in Zion, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone, a foundation of foundations. The believer will not hurry. |
Isaiah 28:16 LXX διὰ τοῦτο οὕτως λέγει κύριος Ἰδοὺ ἐγὼ ἐμβαλῶ εἰς τὰ θεμέλια Σιων λίθον πολυτελῆ ἐκλεκτὸν ἀκρογωνιαῖον ἔντιμον εἰς τὰ θεμέλια αὐτῆς, καὶ ὁ πιστεύων ἐπ᾿ αὐτῷ οὐ μὴ καταισχυνθῇ. |
Isa. 28:16 Brenton Therefore thus saith the Lord, even the Lord, Behold, I lay for the foundations of Sion a costly stone, a choice, a corner-stone, a precious stone, for its foundations; and he that believes on him shall by no means be ashamed. |
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[1] This word is consistently the LXX translation of the Hebrew רע and describes evils from Abimelek’s murder of 70 relatives to Israel’s desiring a king like the other nations.
[2] This word is used in the Septuagint to translate the Hebrew מרמה (Gen 27:35, 34:13). It is prohibited by the 9th commandment, and Jesus said in Mark 7:22 that it comes out of the heart to defile a man. Psalm 24:4 In v.2 we see the alpha-privitave of the same word, which unfortunately most English translations render “pure” instead of “un-deceitful” as it literally is, showing that the Bible is the opposite of the world’s fables and deceptiveness.
[3] This Greek word does not appear in the Septuagint O.T., but was used to describe an actor in a Greek play. Whereas dolon is seeking to deceive with words, hypocrisies attempts to deceive with actions, saying that you are one thing – that you believe one thing, and acting like you believe the opposite and are the opposite.
[4] In humans, this is a “work of the flesh” (Gal 5:21 cf. Matt. 27:18, Philippians 1. (1 Timothy 6:2-5, NKJV)
[5] The wisdom books of the Bible teach the foolishness of talking down or uttering a word against good people, for instance Pro 20:13, James 4:11.).
[6] All the astericed words in the modern versions were rendered singular in English, but in Greek they are plural, so the original KJV is more accurate here.
[7] No other occurrence of even this root in the Greek Bible.
[8] Only other occurrence of this word logikon is Rom. 12:1... “reason,” “word,” and “spirit” stand in contrast to what is physical and fleshly. cf. 1Pet. 1:23-25. This Greek verb epipothesate is in the imperative mood, so it is not describing, it is a command.( cf. Psalm 42:1, 62:10, 84:2 119:131)
[9] This last prepositional phrase “into salvation” is not found in the Byzantine majority of manuscripts, thus is not in the KJV, but is found in all of the oldest-known Greek manuscripts, thus is included in the ESV, NASB, and NIV. The word “grow” is spelled in the passive voice. Compare with the active form of the verb in 2 Peter 3:18 and Colossians 2:19 and 1Cor. 3:6. The phrase “grow in salvation” does not show up anywhere else in the Bible, but passages like this give us a context for what is meant. Ephesians 4:14-15. Although the word is used here and there to refer to a child growing up, most of the times that this Greek word for “grow” appears in the Greek Old Testament are in the context of the fulfillment of the Creation mandate to grow and multiply and fill the earth. I find it interesting, however, that most of the time this verb appears in the New Testament, the context is the growth of the kingdom of God.
[10] Brephos is used of a fetus in the womb as well as of a neonate, so I prefer “baby” which holds that range of meaning in English better than “infant.”
[11] The oldest-known manuscripts (p72, א, A, and B) read the simple ει “since/if” as does Clement of Alexandria, whose commentary dates within a hundred years of 1 Peter. On the other hand, ει + an aorist verb would would imply that they had NOT experienced Jesus as being beneficial, so the per suffix is fitting to color the meaning with the implication that it was true. Eiper is used in half a dozen other places in the NT (Rom. 3:30; 8:9,17; 1 Cor. 8:5; 15:15; 2 Thess. 1:6), so there is nothing unusual about it being here.
[12] This phrase is a quote from Psalm 34:8: (cf Psalm 25:8 and 100:5) The word chreston occurs 6 other times in the NT; it does not mean “good” in the sense of “morally good” or “following the rules,” it is more the kind of “good” when you say something “tastes good,” it is good because it suits you well, meets your needs, and is beneficial to you. (cf. Matt. 11:30, Luke 5:39, Luke 6:35, Romans 2:4, 1 Cor. 15:33, Ephesians 4:32)
[13] This phrase “living stone” is not found anywhere else in the Bible but these two verses.
[14] It is in this way that we “draw near” to God. This Greek word proserchomai is used throughout the Bible to describe the respectful approach of someone to worship God and to ask for His favor. Hebrews 10:1&21 [They “approached” God’s holy place to offer sacrifices in Lev. 9:5-8, 21:21-23] cf. Hebrews 7:25, 4:16
[15] Peter now leaves the metaphor of nourishment as a part of growing up and jumps to a metaphor of house-building to continue his theme of growing up. He makes the segueway by picturing Jesus as the controversial cornerstone from Psalm 118:22
[16] This preposition is not in the Byzantine Majority or the Vulgate, but is in all the oldest manuscripts.
[17] I like what the NIV and ESV did in interpreting the present tense of the participle “approaching” at the beginning of v. 4 in a temporal sense. The participle “y’all coming” in v. 4 is telling us what is happening at the same time that the main action in v. 5 is happening – it’s all part of one sentence in Greek. As you come you are being built into a house.
[18] This Greek word does not occur in the Greek Old Testament. It refers to the fulfillment of OT typology in newly-revealed spiritual realities (Rev. 11:8, 1 Cor. 10:3-4), and it is used a number of times in the N.T. as a contrast word opposite that which is material, physical, fleshly (Rom. 7:14; 15:27; 1 Cor. 2:13-14, 3:1; 9:11, 15:44-46, Eph. 6:12).
[19] This is an allusion to Exodus 19:5-6 (cf. Septuagint of Ex. 23:22 which repeats this saying. Peter will bring this up again later in v.9). The Old and New Testament tell us what the spiritual counterpart is: Psalm 51, Hosea 14:2.
[20] I suspect that this is a Greek turn to the Hebrew phrase “sweet aroma” often descriptive of sacrifices, it is only found in four other NT passages (Romans 15:16&31 and 2 Cor. 6:2; 8:12).
[21] The Textus Receptus reads διο και “and for this reason,” but this is neither the reading of the Byzantine Majority nor the reading of the oldest-known manuscripts.
[22] While in the Byzantine majority of Greek manuscripts of this verse, it is not in any of the oldest-known manuscripts, and for this reason the ESV, NASB, and NIV omit the definite article. In this case it makes no difference because the quote is clearly from Isaiah – not just some “writing” but from “THE holy scriptures.”
[23] This, in turn, is a quote from Psalm 25:2-3 (cf. Psalm 34:5, 71:1, 119:116). The prophet Jeremiah talked about shame more than any other Bible author except David. (Jeremiah 6:15). I see two components of shame, which are consistent with the use of the word throughout scripture. First there is shame in the eyes of other people when you came up with a plan to help yourself and it didn’t work. The other side of being ashamed is law-breaking in the face of accountability.