The Lord Is With You
Jeff Strite
1 Peter 3:13-4:7
OPENING: When I asked you to turn to I Peter 3:13 this morning, did you realize that about 800 years ago… you couldn't have done that?
Do you know WHY you couldn't have turned to I Peter 3 back then?
Because there were no chapter divisions back then. That didn't happen until 1227, when Stephen Langton (Archbishop of Canterbury) went through the Bible and created the chapter numbers we now have. If he hadn't done that I'd have been saying something like ''Turn to I Peter and go through it a few pages till you find a sentence that begins with (whatever).''
Chapter divisions are a good thing. They help us to be able to find places in the books of the Bible that would have been much harder to identify before Archbishop Langton performed this service for us. Being able to find places in our Bibles quickly is the main advantage of having our Bibles divided up into chapters and verses.
BUT, the disadvantage of those divisions is that sometimes those chapter numbers create a break in the middle of a thought, and we lose the continuity of what the writer is trying to tell us.
That's what's happened here in I Peter 3 and 4.
Now, before I get into that part of the message I want to remind you of something I spoke of a few weeks ago. The people Peter is writing to here are under persecution. And the entire letter is dealing - in one form or another - with the struggles the believers there are having with that discrimination and harassment.
So, the first part of I Peter is dedicated to reminding the Christians there of their blessings.
They've been chosen (1:2).
They've been sanctified (1:2).
They've received mercy and forgiveness (1:3)
They've been given hope in a hopeless world (1:3)
And they've received an inheritance that this world can't take away (1:4)
And that's just for starters.
The reason Peter starts the letter that way, is because these people are struggling. And when people face hard ...
Jeff Strite
1 Peter 3:13-4:7
OPENING: When I asked you to turn to I Peter 3:13 this morning, did you realize that about 800 years ago… you couldn't have done that?
Do you know WHY you couldn't have turned to I Peter 3 back then?
Because there were no chapter divisions back then. That didn't happen until 1227, when Stephen Langton (Archbishop of Canterbury) went through the Bible and created the chapter numbers we now have. If he hadn't done that I'd have been saying something like ''Turn to I Peter and go through it a few pages till you find a sentence that begins with (whatever).''
Chapter divisions are a good thing. They help us to be able to find places in the books of the Bible that would have been much harder to identify before Archbishop Langton performed this service for us. Being able to find places in our Bibles quickly is the main advantage of having our Bibles divided up into chapters and verses.
BUT, the disadvantage of those divisions is that sometimes those chapter numbers create a break in the middle of a thought, and we lose the continuity of what the writer is trying to tell us.
That's what's happened here in I Peter 3 and 4.
Now, before I get into that part of the message I want to remind you of something I spoke of a few weeks ago. The people Peter is writing to here are under persecution. And the entire letter is dealing - in one form or another - with the struggles the believers there are having with that discrimination and harassment.
So, the first part of I Peter is dedicated to reminding the Christians there of their blessings.
They've been chosen (1:2).
They've been sanctified (1:2).
They've received mercy and forgiveness (1:3)
They've been given hope in a hopeless world (1:3)
And they've received an inheritance that this world can't take away (1:4)
And that's just for starters.
The reason Peter starts the letter that way, is because these people are struggling. And when people face hard ...
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