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Daily Devotional • April 9
Bryan Hollon
Imperishable
A Reading from 1 Peter 1:13-25
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. 14 Like obedient children, do not be conformed to the desires that you formerly had in ignorance. 15 Instead, as he who called you is holy, be holy yourselves in all your conduct, 16 for it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”
17 If you invoke as Father the one who judges impartially according to each person’s work, live in fear during the time of your exile. 18 You know that you were ransomed from the futile conduct inherited from your ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without defect or blemish. 20 He was destined before the foundation of the world but was revealed at the end of the ages for your sake. 21 Through him you have come to trust in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your trust and hope are in God.
22 Now that you have purified your souls by your obedience to the truth so that you have genuine mutual affection, love one another deeply from the heart. 23 You have been born anew, not of perishable but of imperishable seed, through the living and enduring word of God. 24 For
“All flesh is like grass
and all its glory like the flower of grass.
The grass withers,
and the flower falls,
25 but the word of the Lord endures forever.”
That word is the good news that was announced to you.
Meditation
1 Peter offers essential advice for a Christian community living in the hope of Jesus’ resurrection in a pagan culture. Indeed, Peter writes to “exiles of the Dispersion” throughout Asia Minor who are “chosen and destined by God the Father” (1 Peter:1-2). In verses 1-12, Peter insists that his message is from Jesus Christ himself, and that his readers are a chosen people, made imperishable through faith while enduring hardships that will make them stronger.
In verses 13-25, Peter advises the church on how to live into the strength of Christ. The whole passage is structured around three simple commands. First, the church must think carefully about its call and place all hope in the grace of Jesus Crist. Although the NRSV uses the phrase, “prepare your minds for action,” a more literal translation is gird “up the loins of your intelligence.” Peter envisions a strenuous intellectual struggle if the church is to place its hope in Jesus and not in the idols of a pagan world. Second, Peter tells his readers to conform their lives to Jesus Christ and his holiness, not to the world. Much like Paul in Romans 12:2, Peter knows the seductive power of the pagan world to disorder lives. Christian faith entails a necessary right ordering, always counter-cultural but also life giving. Finally, Peter insists that Christians love one another “deeply from the heart” (22-25).
Taken together, these three commands are like ingredients that, when received into the life of the church, liberate God’s people from bondage to a disordered and dying world, all the while binding us together in divine love through the Word of God, making us imperishable.
The Very Rev. Cn. Dr. Bryan Hollon is the 8th Dean President of Trinity School for Ministry. He and his wife, Suzanne, met at Baylor in 1991 and have three grown children: Harrison, Claire, and John.
Daily Devotional Cycle of Prayer
Today we pray for:
The Diocese of Derry and Raphoe – The Church of Ireland
Episcopal Church of St. John the Baptist, Wausau, Wisconsin
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