Library
<< 1 Peter 2:16 1 Peter 2:18 >>
Articles, Bible studies, and sermons that contain 1 Peter 2:17:
I Peter 2:17-21
Excerpted from: Submitting (Part 2)Do you see that? There is oppression and abuse all over the world. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. People abuse when they get power—whether it be in the family, whether it be in the community, or whether it be in the nation. There is abuse of authority. And we are moving rapidly toward the time in this country when Christians are going to be abused far worse than they have ever been in the past in this country. We were called to this—to submit to evil out of respect for God, out of faith. I do not mean submit to do evil; I mean submit to God in the face of evil.
There it is! The world will not submit to God and that is why the world is in the state that it is! Rather than submit to God, men seek to gratify—or satisfy—their desires. The pattern began early—when Helel did it! The result was that he went to war with God! Then came Adam and Eve. They did not submit to God. God said, "You may eat of all of the trees (there may have been hundreds of them), but there is that one there of which I do not want you to eat." Instead what they did was to follow their own desire and they took from the very tree of which God said to not eat. And that brought them into conflict with God!
The Christian is called to suppress his lusts. It is not wrong to have desire. But it is wrong to not suppress the lust which can lead one to exceed his own authority and, therefore, bring oneself into a state of disobedience or non-submission to the authority that God permits in this world.
So to this we were called. We are going to be among the first harvest—the size of which I have no idea. But it is going to include all of those people, beginning with righteous Abel, who submitted to God rather than man. These are they who submitted to evil rather than rebelled against it. They did what they did for the same reason that we will do what we will do—we all see God ruling His creation and know that our first priority in life is to submit to Him.
Christ, it says, committed Himself to Him who judges righteously. Christ knew that Pilate was wrong. Christ knew that Ananias was wrong and that all the Sanhedrin was wrong. But He submitted to death and to the authority that was constituted by God in those men. He knew there was going to be a judgment, did He not? Those men are going to be judged for what they did by the very God that Christ, by faith, was submitting to. He would let God make the decision as to whether He did what was right or whether Ananias and Pilate did what was right. He did not resist the government, but allowed them to take His life. The resurrection shows that He was right. And the resurrection shows God's judgment because He vindicated His Son.
I Peter 2:13-23
Excerpted from: Self-Government and Responsibility (Part One)There was His faith; God would vindicate Him. If we go back to verse 13, Peter says, "every ordinance." God does not give us the right to pick and choose which one we are going to submit to and which one we are not. "Oh, I like the traffic laws, but I don't like the IRS." Or "I like the laws regarding littering, but I don't like the laws regarding traffic." We are supposed to submit (hupotasso), make ourselves subject to, control ourselves, control that human nature, and govern ourselves so that it does not go beyond the parameters of what God has said in His Word.
SermonsWe Must Learn to Fly
Love Thy Neighbor (Part 1)
Don't Meddle and Always Be Ready to Answer
Pilgrim's Progress
<< 1 Peter 2:16 1 Peter 2:18 >>
Join 138,286+ readers
A Verse and a Thought,
Every Morning
Consistent Bible study is hard to start.
The Berean gives you the starting point: one scripture and a focused commentary in your inbox each morning — read it in minutes, or go as deep as you like.
Free, daily, and spam-free. We never share your address. Unsubscribe anytime.