November 24, 2019 - FIRST PETER SERIES, Christ is King

NOVEMBER 24, 2019 The smaller groups in our church community are inside our homes where we go deeper, build friendships, and walk out the Christian life with each other. HOME CHURCH GUIDE + “Breaking the Ice” question (group facilitator) + CHECK-INS: Introduce, check-in + CARE: Needs in the group + COMPASSION: What is the group planning? Are you inviting your neighbours to join in? + GROUP ANNOUNCEMENTS Church-wide, group-only + DIG IN: Discuss questions as a group + END AND HOMEWORK: Final questions, prayer huddles for personal requests. Consider breaking into small groups (huddles) of 2-4, by gender, if large enough. DISCUSSION questions: 1. How do you respond when someone tells you something you need to hear but does it roughly or in a mean way? What about when it’s in a kind and gentle way? + Can you think of an example? How does their delivery affect your relationship or thoughts about them? 2. In what large or small ways (if you’re a Christian) have you experienced criticism or rejection for your faith or doing good (in general, Christian or not)? 3. Give an answer...what are the different ways we can think about defending Christianity to those who are asking why? (With intent to discredit, etc.). What kinds of ‘arguments’ are effective in late-modern Canada? 4. How do you think the life of Jesus can produce hope in us now? 5. We tend to say it’s better to suffer because we did evil and deserve it (e.g. popular use of Karma). Peter reverses this assumption and says it’s better to suffer for doing good, why? 6. Verses 19-21 are perhaps the most complex in the New Testament (not talking about imaginative Apocalypse of Revelation). Peter is addressing people who are being (or will be) unjustly (or with unjust laws) punished by governmental powers- “legal” persecution. Baptism is about good conscious and a boundary marker, a citizenship oath, if you will. What do you see in this passage that would encourage the persecuted? 7. What claims do you see in verse 22? Prayer Requests: This is the final Sunday in the Western Church year, Christ the King Sunday. As we continue our First Peter Series, we will look at a challenging bit of the New Testament addressing how to think about threats and real suffering inflicted by empires against followers of Jesus. Peter addresses being a jerk and asks believers to “check ourselves”--are we suffering for Christ? In the midst of it, the author pulls on the teachings of Jesus and a strange ancient Jewish text, 1 Enoch. What can we learn about risking more for Jesus and engaging ancient wisdom around suffering? KEY VERSE: 1 Peter 3:13-22 (NET) For who is going to harm you if you are devoted to what is good? But in fact, if you happen to suffer for doing what is right, you are blessed. But do not be terrified of them or be shaken. But set Christ apart as Lord in your hearts and always be ready to give an answer to anyone who asks about the hope you possess. Yet do it with courtesy and respect, keeping a good conscience, so that those who slander your good conduct in Christ may be put to shame when they accuse you. For it is better to suffer for doing good, if God wills it, than for doing evil. Because Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, to bring you to God, by being put to death in the flesh but by being made alive in the spirit. In it he went and preached to the spirits in prison, after they were disobedient long ago when God patiently waited in the days of Noah as an ark was being constructed. In the ark a few, that is eight souls, were delivered through water. And this prefigured baptism, which now saves you—not the washing off of physical dirt but the pledge of a good conscience to God—through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who went into heaven and is at the right hand of God with angels and authorities and powers subject to him. THROUGH THE SCRIPTURE 3:13-17 repeats and builds on 2:19-20. 3:18-22 links and builds on 2:21-24. This is “reduplication”. 1 Peter 3:18-22 + He links, repeats, and builds from witnessing in behaviour to apologetics. + NOTE: This behaviour precedes answers and argumentation. 1 Peter 3:13-17 13-14 15-16 CONSCIENCE (see verses 16, 21) is a God-given capacity for human beings to exercise self-critique. It does not dictate the content of right and wrong; it merely witnesses to what the value system in a person has determined is right or wrong. It needs to be guided by a thoroughly and critically developed value system...ours must be shaped by the values of Jesus, to have a righteous response. (Bakers Evangelical Dic. of NT Theology, Ed 153) 17 “Avoid suffering at all costs” is not a Christian idea - there are worse things than suffering in this life. Again the condition is, “for doing what is right” not just any suffering, not seeking suffering out for its own sake. 18 19-21 Strangest passage in the New Testament? 1 Enoch 6-16 What is the function? “Do not worry” message to the suffering Christians. The powers of evil that motivate your persecutors have been already told their doom is sure. Stand firm, do not let the powers deceive you to abandon Christ. They are the bitter throes of an enemy who sees their court day coming. Peter says “baptism saves” then qualifies it immediately - denying outward washing accomplishes inward transformation. Water dip is not magical. IH Marshall, “We should not make the mistake of limiting baptism to the precise moment and action of being immersed or sprinkled with water. Rather, for Peter, the word “baptism” symbolically represents the whole process by which the Gospel comes to people and they accept it” (Marshall, 1 Peter, 130; BW3, 192). 22 IN SUMMARY Sources: Others, The NIV Application Commentary, By Scot McKnight; Anchor Biblical Commentary, John Elliott; IVP NT Commentary, I. Howard Marshall; Life Lessons, Max Lucado; Baker Exegetical Commentary on the NT, Karen H. Jobes; Daily Bibe Study Bible Series, William Barclay; NIV Biblical Commentary, Norman Hillyer; Believers Church Commentary, Erland Waltner; Story of God Bible Commentary, Dennis R. Edwards; Letters and Homilies for Helenized Christians, Ben Witherington III; NICNT, Peter Davids; Life Applications Commentary.