So put away all
malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. Like newborn
infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into
salvation - if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. 1 Peter 2:1–3
I think that
sometimes it is good to reformat a text of Scripture. At least that helps me.
So, I've taken the first sentence and made it into a list.
So put away
all
malice and
all
deceit and
hypocrisy
and
envy
and
all
slander.
Seeing it this way
makes each awful sin stand out. And seeing them in this way prompts a question.
Peter wrote this to Christians?!? And, of course, he did. I wonder if we
sometimes have too high of an opinion of ourselves, that we think that we don't
really sin all that much and certainly not the 'big sins'. One result of
thinking in this way is that we then feel the obligation to try to maintain the
myth of our goodness in our own eyes as well as in the eyes of others. While it
is important to hold tight to the truth that we have been justified by Jesus so
that 'there is now no condemnation', I think that it is also important to
imitate that tax collectors prayer, 'God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’
Then there is the
rest of what Peter wrote.
Like newborn
infants, long for the pure spiritual milk,
that by it you may
grow up into salvation
- if indeed you have
tasted that the Lord is good. 1 Peter 2:1–3
This is how you are
able to avoid the sin of any of the items in that list. Act like a hungry baby
and drink in the pure spiritual milk: the Word of God. And that makes sense.
The point of the Scriptures is for us to develop into whole people, people who
see the foolishness of acting like any of those items on the list, people who,
instead, act like Jesus.