Bible Study - 1st Peter 3:8-12

Greetings all. Today is going to be a short post. The good news is our Bible Study group finally met. The bad news is that we only got through the first seven verses of chapter three, which I already covered last week in this post. My group also decided they want to go in a different direction with the Year of Faith starting tomorrow. I can't say I blame them. It's been a real struggle for us doing this Bible Study with none of us ever having led one before. Fear not though my readers, my wife and I are going to at least finish 1 Peter 3, so I will still post on it every Wednesday like I have been until 1 Peter 3 is finished. After that? Who knows? On to my commentary though.

If you'll recall, last week we read about Christian spouses. This week, Peter deals with Christian conduct. We are call to be of one mind and loving toward one another. This sounds obvious and easy to do, but whenever you get people together, personalities conflict and disharmony can occur. Why do you think we have 1000s of Christian denominations? Because people can't get along and think they are right. So if an argument occurs, instead of working it out, they leave. Walking away has become too easy in our modern world. Look at divorce. 1 in 2 fail. Those aren't good odds. So ground your marriage in God and His Church. As Fulton Sheen wrote, "It takes three to get married."

Next, we are told to not return evil for evil. This echoes the teachings of Jesus, and stands in sharp contrast to the "eye for an eye" mentality. This too is hard to do, because if someone hurts us, we generally want to get even with them. But no, Peter says to bless those who do evil to you, so that you might inherit a blessing, i.e., eternal life.

Then, we see in verse 10 we need to keep the tongue from evil. First, James tells us this in James 3, and now Peter does the same thing. Taming the tongue is hard to do and generally regarded as the last step to Christian perfection. That's how hard it is to do! Verse 11 is straight forward. Turn from evil. Do good. Seek peace. All obvious things, but all not easy to do. If it was easy, Peter wouldn't have had to tell people to do it. They just would.

Lastly, we see that God listens to the prayers of the righteous people. This is something we should all do well to remember. If you aren't honoring God by loving Him and loving others, then why would you expect Him to listen to you? Well, that's all I have for you today. Come back Friday for my Sunday School lesson. Thanks for reading, and have a blessed day!