Grace and peace be yours in abundance. You are invited to come to the Wednesday evening prayer meeting and pray. (8:30 PM EST Wed., Feb. 6, 2002) (If you have e-mail prayer requests, please send them before 5:00 PM.):

As of now, I am planning on taking some time off from writing these weekly prayer meeting invitations and messages, but I will still check my e-mail for prayer requests. Part of the reason I'm planning on taking time off is that I'm not sure where to go next. Please pray for God to guide me in this. Also, I'll consider any suggestions that any of you may have.

Dean

"She who is in Babylon, chosen together with you, sends you her greetings, and so does my son Mark. Greet one another with a kiss of love. Peace to all of you who are in Christ." (1 Peter 5:12-14 - NIV)

These are Peter's closing remarks to "God's elect, strangers in the world." Peter is sending his letter with the help of Silas (or Silvanus - see NIV footnote). According to the commentaries, "with the help of" refers to his sending the letter, rather than his writing it, although Silas may have also helped him write it by taking dictation or by helping him with his Greek. (They say that the Greek in 2 Peter is not very good, but that the Greek in 1 Peter is very good.) But we know and believe that all of the words are breathed by God through his Holy Spirit.

Peter says that he has written to us briefly. But as with much of the Bible, what he has said is highly condensed. I have expounded on what God has told us through Peter just a little bit. Matthew Henry, in his Commentary on the Whole Bible has 35 pages. Matthew Henry's commentaries are printed in very small print so that there is about three times as much text on a page as with other books. My Wayne Grudem commentary on 1 Peter has 239 pages.

Nevertheless, the message is not complicated. It's about God's grace. We are God's elect. He chose us, we didn't choose him. And as a matter of fact, we rejected him, but he had mercy on us anyway.

God chose us to be pure and holy, cleansed of all sin by the precious blood of Jesus Christ, and for obedience to him. He gave us a new birth into a living hope through Jesus's resurrection. We have the certain hope of eternal life and of glory and honor when Jesus is revealed. We love him because he loves us. We will be with him forever.

By his grace, God chose us to be free of all malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy and slander -- to be a royal and holy priesthood bringing spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. He Chose us to be like Jesus who, on our behalf, was willing to suffer all kinds of abuse, even to the point of torture and death, because he had entrusted himself to the one who judges righteously.

By his grace, God chose us to be tried with many painful trials, but with the assurance that we are participating in the sufferings of Christ so that we may rejoice with him when his glory is revealed.

By God's grace, he has chosen us to fight a war with a very powerful enemy. It is a war that is not fought with tanks and airplanes and ships. It is not fought with guns or bombs. It is not even fought with swords or spears. It is a war that is fought with the word of God and with humility. We are chosen to humble ourselves under God's mighty hand so that he may lift us up in due time.

We are chosen so that the God of all grace, who called us to his eternal glory in Christ, after we have suffered a little while, will himself restore us and make us strong, firm and steadfast. To him be the power forever and ever. Amen.

Concerning all these things Peter has written to us to encourage us and to testify that this is the true grace of God. He wants us to stand fast in it.

To continue, Peter says in verse 13, "She who is in Babylon, chosen together with you, sends you her greetings, and so does my son Mark." "She who is in Babylon" certainly refers to the church. The expositors generally agree that "Babylon" is really Rome. There is extra-biblical evidence that Peter wrote this letter from Rome. Rome was the center of government, of pagan religion and of all things worldly. The analogy is to the Babylonian captivity in the Old Testament, where God's chosen people had to live among the pagan Babylonians. We are now God's chosen people, God's elect. We are strangers in this pagan world. We are only here temporarily. We are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness (2 Peter 3:13).

Now to get back to 1 Peter 5:13, when Peter says, in verse 13, "She who is in Babylon sends you her greetings, and so does my son Mark." He is telling his readers that the members of the church at Rome, as well as Mark (who is probably the author of the book of Mark), are thinking about them and, no doubt, praying for them as well.

Most of the apostle Paul's letters also end with his passing personal greetings to those to whom he is writing. It's very important for all the church all over the world to be connected together through personal relationships.

Verse 14 says, "Greet one another with a kiss of love." The apostle Paul also frequently ended his letter with instructions to "greet the brothers with a holy kiss." In our present culture, we don't generally greet each other with a kiss, except maybe family members. But Peter (and God) want us to be far more warm and intimate with other believers than I think we are. A friendly handshake won't do it. We shake hand with nonbelievers. Maybe a "holy hug" would be good. That's Wayne Grudem's suggestion.

Finally, Peter says, "Peace to all of you who are in Christ." This is really a prayer. It can only be made on behalf of believers. There can be no peace for anyone else. They are God's enemies. We were too at one time, but now we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Praise his name.

Come and let's pray for each other as well as for the whole church. Come and encourage your brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus. Love them.

PS: If you absolutely can't make it to the prayer meeting, send your prayer requests back to me by e-mail and we'll pray for them.