Week 50 Peter
Peter starts by talking about one of the restrictions that’s applied when it comes to believing in the Lord. It’s that I can’t be both a believer and at the same time be a material-things-are-everything guy. Peter wrote: you love (the Lord) even though you have never seen him. Though you do not see him, you trust him…Your reward for trusting him will be the salvation of your souls… (which also means that being a material-things-are-everything guy has limitations).
Anyway what really caught my attention was Peter’s comment about the OT prophets who forecasted NT events long before they happened: this salvation was something the prophets wanted to know more about…they had many questions as to what it could all mean…They wondered what the Spirit of Christ within them was talking about…They wondered when and to whom all this would happen.
I need to keep this in mind next year when I’m reading the OT…to remember that when the OT writers like Isaiah and Daniel were making their long-range forecasts:
a) they really didn’t know details of how those things would play-out
b) they knew very well they were forecasting in the dark
c) the not-knowing gap perplexed them and they tried to dope it out
d) but they lived and died wondering.
There are lots of things I don’t really understand while I’m reading-through. So it’s a small consolation to know that some of the writers didn’t either.
Note: quotes from 1 Peter 1:8-9, 10-11 (NLT)