One people, one church, one Lord, one word.
Bible Study Ideas and Commentary for 1 Peter 2:1-10
Peter now elaborates on how these very diverse believers are to show brotherly love to one another in a church. One, they can't treat each other like the world would. But two, they must recognize that they are now a new kind of family in Jesus, a "living house" -- united in praise for salvation, not overcome by the cultural divergences that destroy other families.
Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people (2:10)
When We Studied This Passage in 2016
Per usual, I try not to cover exactly the same thing from post to post, so if you are interested in these topics, please take a look at this older post:
Building blocks
Healthy eating
"The Priesthood of All Believers"
Is "milk" positive or negative?
Stones don't build themselves
"Royal Priesthood"
The GenZ Post?
This week, a lot of my illustrations and discussion ideas come back to GenZ (those currently in their teens and twenties). It just worked out that way. I have two GenZ kids, so I found it interesting, but you could very easily shift the focus to any other generation with a little research of your own. The focus would be:
cultural pressures to conform
difficulties in communicating clearly
Both matters are closely tied together.
Leadership Warning
The last section of the lesson covers some incredibly important verses -- make sure you save plenty of time to talk about them.
Handwriting Contest
This is not a "can you read cursive?" topic (although that's a lot of fun, especially if you have younger people in your group). This isn't even a "do you think it's important to teach kids cursive?" topic. No, this is simply a "how legible is your handwriting?"
One of the topics below dives into how people today communicate via texts and tweets and memes, with an important consequence that kids today rarely write anything by hand.
My idea has three parts, and you would have to tailor it to your group:
Which of you has the prettiest/most legible handwriting?
Which of you is the most competent at writing things out by hand?
Which of you does the most handwriting?
The point of this topic is this: In this week's passage, Peter tells us that part of the purpose of being God's holy people is to declare His praises. So, how confident and competent are you in communicating with other people (Christians or non-Christians)?
I'm picking on "handwriting" this week because it came up multiple times in my reading.
Internet Slang -or- Teen Culture Slang
If English is not your first language, I doubly apologize for this upcoming section on slang. But it is the point -- one of my emphases this week is "difficulties in communication".
I saw this commercial on Superbowl weekend and thought it was hilarious. I relate to the dad who is trying to embarrass his kids.
And of course, it made me think of this older commercial about social media.
So -- here's my topic/game: here are some current slang terms; do you know what they mean?
Based
Bussin
Cheugy
Fandom
Gassy
Rizz
Simp
Skibidi
If you need answers, this sems like a safe website to get them:
That page also has a handy list of Gen Z abbreviations, Gen Z hashtags, and current influencers. Yes, I feel extremely old going to a website for this information, and no, I'm not apologizing for it.
Let's say you feel good about that list. Do you know what these refer to?
"straight-bro-coded mediaverse"
"jomo"
"my internet knowledge is tea"
"cool-to-cheugy-to-cool pipeline"
"brat summer is definitely over"
"emo tumblr era"
(Do you really want to know?)
But wait, I have more! How about:
joker mode
quietcations
one-percent cosplay
Chalamet effect
rizzed up gyatts
hobbyfications
youthmaxxing
major flakes
hard hypebeasts
dermfluencers
emoji politicization
steezoween
pledgetok
strego nonas
All of that comes from a teen culture website mentioned in an article I link below -- Archive - undefined of After School by Casey Lewis. And I think I'm allowed to say them on a Bible study website? I'm not 100% sure?
My point: a language barrier is building even between members of the same household. How do we overcome it for the purpose of building a multi-generational church?
Slang When You Were a Teenager
Every high school peer group has slang. Do you happen to remember yours? Do you remember where you picked it up? I know my peer group reveled in our slang -- it was the inside joke that we were all privy to.
What seems to be different about slang today and its connection with social media is that it all seems to be more forced, less willing. My high school group shaped our own subculture out of the things that interested us. Kids today seem to be on the receiving end of a firehose of "culture" that has been carefully curated to exploit them. It's exactly what Peter warned us about in last week's passage; how good are we at speaking into that culture?
Microtrends and Peer Pressure
Here's where I'm going with all of these topics. It comes back to peer pressure, doesn't it? And is that really any different with you?
At least one thing is different: when I was in high school, I had to keep up with the trends (fads) of my peer group.
Kids today? They're being bombarded with trends from every peer group all over the world. There are so many trends, no one can keep up with them all! And all of those trends are designed to extract money; this stat is amazing: 100 billion garments were produced last year, double what it was in 2000, and 100% disposable.
Do you know what these trends (they're so disposable that they're now called "microtrends") represent?
mermaidcore
dark academia
tweecore
delulucore
cinammon softcore
britcore
What are trends you have observed in your peer group? Among your kids and grandkids? Are you able to explain them? Able to articulate what is "good" or "bad" about them to your peers, kids, or grandkids?
That's one of the skills Peter is telling us we need to have.
This Week's Big Idea: The Challenge of Being Gen Z
Believe it or not, all of this connects with 1 Peter 2.
I recently read two articles (related to GenZ) that struck me as apropos to Peter's warnings. Here's the executive summary of the articles:
First article: Gen Z is feeling the "pressure to conform" in a way that's different from the experience previous generations.
Second article: Current technology is adversely affecting Gen Z's ability to explain and communicate their experiences.
Obviously, the first article connects more directly with last week's passage, and the second with this week's passage. But to Peter, all of these things are connected. The more conformed we are to the pattern of the world -- and the way of the world's thinking -- the more difficult it will be for us to not only live like God's people but also communicate God's perfect truth.
And that works both ways. On the one hand, resisting the conforming power of the world helps us think more clearly and communicate God's truth more clearly. But on the other hand, being able to communicate God's truth more clearly also helps us resist the conforming power of the world. Have you thought about that before? That's one of the great fears of some sociologists -- that the ways young people communicate is adversely affecting their ability to think clearly.
Both of my kids are Gen Z, and we have together laughed at the sorts of things that I put in those lists above. And they have both warned me away from slang that is actually quite inappropriate. (Christian leadership tip: don't accidentally use offensive slang.) But these articles have made me realize that this isn't just a silly topic to joke about. Gen Z is facing
incessant pressure to conform to culture, and
the loss of ability to communicate clearly.
That's serious.
And just as important -- do you really think Gen Z is the only generation to be facing these challenges? Are you not facing them, as well?
The Pressure to Conform: Microtrends
Here's the catchy summary of the first article:
Every generation feels pressure to keep up with trends, especially in its youth. But many members of Gen Z seem to be under particular stress: The fire hose of social media offers endless opportunities to feel left out. Others say they just can’t afford — mentally or financially — to try to keep up.
Too Many Trends! Every generation has chased trends. But to some members of Gen Z, the objects of teenage yearning feel more plentiful and less durable than ever before.
I'll just use a few really powerful paragraphs from the article to summarize it.
Today’s young adults can comfortably discuss the way that social media and fast fashion keep many members of their generation buying, sharing and discarding items. They are aware, sometimes painfully, that their insecurities are being harnessed for someone else’s bottom line. But awareness does not equal liberation.
A sense of consumption fatigue has set in, she said. “Eventually, you’re just kind of like, ‘This is gross. Why am I even participating in this culture?’” she said. “I think creators and brands are increasingly having to answer to that understanding from young people.”
“Lately I wonder if we’re living through a mass psychosis expressing itself through trend reporting,” the fashion critic Rachel Tashjian wrote for Harper’s Bazaar in 2022.
Yikes! Any time "mass psychosis" is being seriously used to describe a culture, that has to be a red flag. Is the secular world realizing that Peter was right all along?
Losing the Ability to Communicate
If you read this second article, you'll realize that it's focused pretty heavily on handwriting. But read it closely, and you'll see the deeper point -- that handwriting is a reflection of a person's ability to communicate.
The rise of digital technology has significantly altered how we communicate, but a troubling trend is emerging among Generation Z—those born between the late 1990s and early 2010s—that could have lasting effects on their ability to engage in meaningful communication. A new study reveals that approximately 40% of Gen Z is losing their proficiency in handwritten communication, a skill we’ve relied on for over 5,500 years. This decline raises questions about the long-term implications of the digital age on our cognitive and communication abilities.
Professors, like Nedret Kiliceri, point out that students are now writing in fragmented sentences rather than full, coherent paragraphs. The art of crafting a thoughtful, well-structured argument has become less common. The digital world has encouraged short bursts of communication, leading to a decline in writing that requires sustained focus and coherence.
So, church, what are we going to do about this What's our role in this? I can guarantee you that Peter would not say, "Ah don't worry about it. It will work itself out."
Where We Are in 1 Peter
You've noticed that Peter has crafted an extremely tight argument. After opening his letter with a wonderful word of praise for God's priceless gift to Christians in Jesus Christ, Peter gives them the first "therefore": you have been bought with the precious blood of Jesus, therefore live like it. And the first thing major assertion is showing brotherly love for fellow church members. That is the bare minimum starting point for Christians. But it's still a big deal! These new Christians had come from different countries, cultures, social statuses, economic classes, religions, and worldviews, and now they thrown together into a new kind of family, the likes of which had never been seen before. This would not be easy, which is why Peter went to "brotherly love" first.
This week, we get Peter's second "therefore" -- what are the behaviors and truths that will enable these new Christians to show true brotherly love to one another in their churches?
Part 1: Stop the Behaviors That Prevent Sincere Love (1 Peter 2:1-3)
1 Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all slander. 2 Like newborn infants, desire the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow up into your salvation, 3 if you have tasted that the Lord is good.
This "therefore" dives further into how these believers should have sincere love for one another. I'm not happy with using the word "stop" in my title because that implies everything Peter says is negative. But Peter has a two-pronged approach to brotherly love:
Stop certain destructive behaviors -and-
Focus on what helps you live in love.
Peter is not giving an exhaustive list; these are simply the kinds of behaviors that undo brotherly love.
Malice is a vicious action.
Deceit is lying or fraud.
Hypocrisy is personality deception.
Envy is both spite and jealousy.
Slander is the verbal intent to harm.
It should not be hard for your group to identify how these specific behaviors get in the way of building a community of brotherly love.
Those are the sorts of behaviors associated with the outside world. Has that changed? Christians are not to treat one another the way the world does; we are to be infinitely better than that.
And so the positive instruction is for these new believers to reset their identities as "born again in Christ". When you were a baby, you required your mother for sustenance, and with her help, you grew from an infant to a toddler, and so on. Peter is basically saying, "Go back to the beginning; unlearn all of the harmful things you learned growing up in a world of anger, fear, and hatred. Start over, but this time let the Word of God be your sustenance."
So, what exactly did that mean to Peter? We've established that they didn't have a complete Bible like we have today.
"Pure milk of the word" is "logikos milk", logikos being the Greek word for "rational" or "reasonable", coming from the root word logos, "word", which is what Peter used in 1:23 and 1:25. It's clearly a play on "word", which is why the Christian Standard translation says "pure milk of the word". And to this point, Peter has spoken of what we call the Old Testament as the "word" of God. In other words, build your life on the truths in the Old Testament. But remember that Peter had a front-row seat to how Jesus fulfilled and explained the Old Testament (e.g., the Sermon on the Mount), so I think we are fully in the right to conclude that Peter would say to us that we should build our lives on the Bible as we know it (the Old and New Testaments).
Realize that Peter is not suggesting that we can be saved by learning the Bible. "Tasted" is an experiential word -- we "experience" Jesus in salvation. We also "experience" Jesus in our suffering. There are a lot of allusions to Psalm 34 in this letter. For example,
Taste and see that the Lord is good. How happy is the person who takes refuge in him! (34:8)
That Psalm is about God rescuing His people from danger, specifically about David's close call with Abimelech. Suffering is part of the way we understand the true meaning of the Bible -- the Beatitudes certainly mean something different to a person who has truly suffered for their faith in Christ.
Aside: The Gen Z Bible
I can't ignore the topic of the Gen Z Bible (which you can buy on Amazon). Realize that it started life as a silly thing a youth pastor did to try to communicate Scripture with his youth group, and it has since taken on a life of its own. If you thought that those slang words I shared above wouldn't come up again, think again!
Here is part of this week's passage from the Gen Z Bible:
1 Peter 2: 1. So, like, get rid of all the hate, deception, fakeness, jealousy, and gossiping, 2. Like, yo, as newborns, be all about that authentic milk of the word, so you can level up and grow, you know? 3. If you've experienced how awesome the Lord is, then you know what's up. 4. When you approach someone, like approaching a super cool vibe, know that they might not be popular among everyone, but they're special and highly valued by God.
Uh huh. That's a thing that exists on the internet. Started tongue-in-cheek, and now some people are taking it seriously.
To be sure, some parents "get it". They say they use it simply as a starting point to talk about the Bible with their teens -- a way to start learning the Bible. In that, it's not really so different from something like a Reader's Bible (NIrV for teens?). The problem is when the Gen Z Bible becomes the only Bible. Is the Gen Z Bible the "pure milk of the word"?
I would be prepared to hear the question, "Which translation of the Bible is best?" I try to get people to stop saying "best" here -- the different versions of the Bible are intentionally based on different philosophies of translation. These "spectrum" graphics can be found all over the internet, and they are very helpful:
The Gen Z Bible is obviously a "paraphrase", which puts it in a similar category to the Message Bible and the Good News Bible, both of which people in our churches regularly use!
Some people really trump up the "superiority" of word-for-word translations of the New American Standard or the English Standard. Those people have never read Hebrew or Greek. There is no one-to-one-correspondence in translation; if we tried to keep Greek or Hebrew word order in English, no one would understand it. Every translation has to make accommodations for modern English.
That's why my personal "favorite" translation is the Christian Standard Bible, which you can see sits kinda in the middle of the translation philosophies.
But when I am studying the Bible, I use more than one translation.
Some Bible study techniques, like this one from The Navigators, specifically put "paraphrasing" as part of their process in learning what a passage means --
That would suggest value in a translation like the Message Bible, or perhaps even the Gen Z Bible . . . as a part of the larger process of studying the Bible.
But that does lead to a topic you might enjoy: how do you study the Bible? A Bible study group isn't just here to study the Bible together but also to learn how to study the Bible.
I will try to put this together for my group; I encourage all of you to do the same.
Part 2: A Jesus-Church Is a "Living House" (1 Peter 2:4-8)
4 As you come to him, a living stone—rejected by people but chosen and honored by God— 5 you yourselves, as living stones, a spiritual house, are being built to be a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 6 For it stands in Scripture:
See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and honored cornerstone, and the one who believes in him will never be put to shame.
7 So honor will come to you who believe; but for the unbelieving,
The stone that the builders rejected—this one has become the cornerstone, 8 and
A stone to stumble over, and a rock to trip over.
They stumble because they disobey the word; they were destined for this.
Peter starts revealing multiple meanings to his metaphors. The overarching metaphor is "a church, the people // a church, the building". Peter's transition is this humorous, unspoken, observation: how strong would a building be if its stones were fighting with one another? Of course that would be ridiculous -- that's Peter's point. So you, Christians, had better not fight with the other "living stones" God is building together into your church.
The word for spiritual "house" (oikos) is a brilliant word that can be used of a physical house, a temple, or a family (household), and Peter is using all of those meanings here.
Realize that the first "living Stone" is Jesus Himself. Peter is uniquely able to make this connection:
16 Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” 17 Jesus responded, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my Father in heaven. 18 And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overpower it. (Matt 16:16-18)
You remember that "Peter" is a play on a Greek word for "rock". Peter realized that Jesus isn't just the foundation of His church (specifically, the confession that He is the Son of God), but He is the connection of the entire building -- the cornerstone, the capstone, and every other stone of structural importance. The church does not exist without Jesus -- either as a building or as a people (who have their shared identity in salvation through Him).
Peter then rips through three Old Testament quotes to show that God has always had these images in mind when thinking about His people -- in need of a perfect Cornerstone to bring them all together:
Isa 28:16
Ps 118:22
Isa 8:14
Read those chapters and ask how you think they relate to Peter's broader point.
Peter then shifts into another meaning of this illustration -- it's not just that God thinks of His people as a spiritual house, it's that His people the Jews rejected the Cornerstone that He set for them.
When Peter talks about "house", it makes him think about the temple in Jerusalem, and that makes him sad. And certainly, there are a number of former Jews reading this letter (else why have all of the Old Testament references), who probably have similarly conflicting emotions. "The Jews were God's people. Jerusalem has God's temple. What went wrong?"
Those Jews rejected Jesus. They attempted to "build their house" without Jesus.
"Destined for this" I think refers to the fact that God's eternal plan of salvation required that Jesus must be the "sacrificial Lamb" for and by the Jews. His people had to reject Him and put Him to death so that salvation could be made available.
In any event, those who "disbelieve the word" -- by this, Peter means the gospel message of salvation in Jesus (1:25) -- are doomed to stumble (a polite way of saying "reject Jesus and be condemned to hell"). Do you remember Peter's message to the Sanhedrin?
11 This Jesus is the stone rejected by you builders, which has become the cornerstone. 12 There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to people by which we must be saved. (Acts 4)
Sound familiar? What was the accusation here -- why would God liken rejecting His Son Jesus to "stumbling over a stone"?
The discussion is something like this: Is your family / your church built on the foundation of Jesus? What does that mean and how do you know?
Aside: Cornerstones
"Cornerstones" were a very important part of construction for most of human civilization. Artisans would spend a lot of time cutting a "perfect box" out of stone. Then, builders would lay that stone first, and the rest of the building would be lined up (plumbed) to it.
As construction techniques have changed, the cornerstone has lost its importance. But many Christian buildings still use a symbolic "stone" to identify the purpose of the building.
Part 3: A Jesus-Church Is a New People (1 Peter 2:9-10)
9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his possession, so that you may proclaim the praises of the one who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
These verses are so unbelievably thick and important. Save as much time as possible to talk about them.
"God's people" used to describe the physical people of Israel, genetically related to one another through the twelve sons of Jacob. Gentiles, by definition, are not a part of that people. But in Jesus, we learned that God was doing something new -- revealing what it really meant to be a "child of Abraham" (read Romans 9, for example -- "8 That is, it is not the children by physical descent who are God’s children, but the children of the promise are considered to be the offspring.").
So, the people who had come into these churches Peter was writing to who weren't Jews by birth? They were part of a "new" people of God, a people not traced by birth but by salvation in Jesus.
That obviously includes us today.
[Aside: "New Israel"
Peter is not saying that Christians are the "New Jews"; we are the fulfillment of what God started with the Jews that we read about last quarter in Exodus and Leviticus. This is important when we try to understand how some of those Old Testament rules/laws connect to Christians today.]
These are some of the allusions Peter makes --
Ex 19:5 Now if you will carefully listen to me and keep my covenant, you will be my own possession out of all the peoples, although the whole earth is mine, 6 and you will be my kingdom of priests and my holy nation.’ These are the words that you are to say to the Israelites.
Deut 10:15 Yet the Lord had his heart set on your ancestors and loved them. He chose their descendants after them—he chose you out of all the peoples, as it is today.
Isa 62:12 And they will be called the Holy People, the Lord’s Redeemed; and you will be called Cared For, A City Not Deserted.
Isa 43:20 Wild animals—jackals and ostriches—will honor me, because I provide water in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert, to give drink to my chosen people. 21 The people I formed for myself will declare my praise.
Pretty much all of Hosea 1 and 2.
Mal 3:17 “They will be mine,” says the Lord of Armies, “my own possession on the day I am preparing. I will have compassion on them as a man has compassion on his son who serves him."
These images originally applied to "physical Israel" -- the descendants of Abraham. But as we get into the prophets, the image begins to blur, opening the door to what Peter realized was a "spiritual Israel", realized specifically in those who came to Jesus for salvation. Christians are now God's chosen people, God's special possession.
So, let's bring it back to our study of Exodus and Leviticus:
What does it mean that Christians are a royal priesthood?
What does it mean that Christians are a holy nation?
Baptists have rightly understood this to mean that we do not need a priest to be our mediator to God; all Christians have direct access to God. Baptists have sometimes taken it too far, though, that we can be a "priesthood of one" (have you heard the phrase "priesthood of the believer"?). that completely misses Peter's point. Christians are to be "priests" for and with one another. We minister to one another even as together we serve God. There is no "nation" of one person. We are supposed to be together in churches.
And no, I don't think Peter would have nice things to say to those Christians who don't think they need to be a part of a church family.
The call to be holy (together) calls back everything we studied in chapter 1.
Corporate Worship
Peter's exhortation to "declare God's praises" is one of the reasons why we do corporate worship the way we do. You might say, "I don't like to sing." Well, one of our functions as God's people is to declare God's praise. In Peter's context, it's something that we're supposed to do together. Singing is one of the few things that a large group of people can coherently do together. So, we sing songs that
declare God's praise,
thank Jesus for salvation,
encourage each other to holiness,
remind us of our God-given responsibilities.
It seems to me that this is what Peter wants of us.
(And that ties my GenZ thoughts back in -- doing something "together" demands a common language and vocabulary. We have to teach our kids what our "churchy" words mean and why they matter, and we also have to use language that is intelligible to the outside world.)
And how could we not want to praise God for delivering us from darkness to light! Those professing Christians who are not interested in singing God's praises, I question how much they have "tasted and seen" the goodness of the Lord. I spend a lot of time marveling at how I don't deserve the many blessings God has given me, and I know many of you do the same.
And the starting point of this praise is God's mercy. God's mercy is the "narrow gate" that all of God's people walk through starting our lifelong walk with Jesus to heaven.
People start on this walk from all sorts of places, right? "Every walk of life" as we say. But we are all walking to the same destination, right? So the further we walk, the closer we get to each other. "Following the Jesus path" is that unifying factor that turns very different people into "the people of God" -- that which unites us is infinitely greater than that which divides us.
Peter will continue to explain what this looks like, especially in a culture that is hostile toward Jesus and what Jesus taught. But for now, we're just focusing on the big picture of
realizing the joy of salvation
recognizing that we are part of a new people of God
acknowledging the rights and responsibilities thereof
If we can come away from this lesson with a new appreciation for getting to be a part of a church with other Christian believers, we have done well.
If you have group members who "live on the periphery" of church, spend some time praying about how you can appeal to them the same way Peter has appealed to us. What God is doing in and through us is a joy, something we should be excited and grateful to be a part of.
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