There is a humorous quip that goes like this: "Education is a process of getting information from the notes of the teacher into the notes of the student without passing through the minds of either of them". You may smile, but when we apply the same idea to the field of religion, the observed results are very sobering. We decry those who spin wheels and believe that every spin sends a prayer up to heaven, or the repetition of meaningless phrases is called worship. However, how much of the mind is involved in the rituals we practice in our own worship?
In our last paper we pointed out that faith is a response of the mind. Peter, here in the first chapter, urges us to think about what brought about our
redemption. Christianity is not based on some mindless, emotional mumbo-jumbo. It is based on the fact of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ,
twenty centuries ago. Faith is the grasping of that fact, and the response of the mind to its implications. Too much of religion today is based solely on
the emotional part of the mind. However, true faith involves the thinking function of the mind and the will, which changes the behavior of the person.
Religious activity which energizes us in the assembly but doesn't translate into a change in our behavior outside the assembly, does not represent real
faith. As James says, "Faith without works is dead".
In this chapter, Peter is insisting that it is necessary to put our minds into our religion if we are to be holy as He is holy. Paul says the mind must be
renewed if we are not to conform to this world, and Peter agrees. Right after telling us to prepare our minds, he says be self-controlled, and not conform to the "evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance". Emotional action, or ritual response does not lead to self-control. Only the disciplined mind,
activated by a recognition of realized facts, will control the individual to be the kind of person God wants.
I want to consider two phrases Peter uses in the last part of chapter one. He says, "Live your lives as strangers here in reverent fear". Later on he says,
"Through Him you believe in God...so your faith and hope are in God". Let's use our minds to consider these two statements.
In the first one, Peter says we are strangers here. We are passing through. We don't really belong to this temporary, vapid existence. Those who preach
that faith in God leads to earthly blessings of riches and success put your citizenship in the wrong place. The term "reverent fear" could be translated
"disciplined fear". Not fear of God, but fear of the forces which would separate us from God and from holiness. The faithful mind must be ever alert.
The second statement is the foundation of the Christian faith. Christianity is not based on a fine philosophy or ethical excellence, although it has
both. It is based on a solid fact. The death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ is an historically verified fact. Upon that fact our belief in God, as the creator, and on His love, as the basis of our hope, rests eternal. Faith in that is the response of a seriously logical mind, and a heart dedicated to the truth. Such a mind, combined with the grace of God, makes you holy, for He is holy.
