Reading 1 Peter Together, Day 7 - 1 Peter 1:22-25

In the previous verses Peter instructed the believers to live holy lives because they had been called by holy God and purchased with the blood of Christ.  Now he instructs them to live lives characterized by love for one another.  They were, and now we are, to love our brothers and sisters in the church sincerely, earnestly, and from a pure heart.  And again, this is not to earn God’s favor or earn our salvation, but because we have already been born again of imperishable seed.  

They, and we, were born again through the living and abiding word of God.  Peter echoes what Paul says in Romans 10:17, that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ.  There is no belief, there is no saving faith, without hearing or reading the word of God.  Paul makes it clear in Romans 1 that creation gives us enough knowledge of God to be held accountable for our sins, but as he will say in Romans 10 and what Peter affirms in these verses is that it is only through the living and abiding word of God that sinners are brought to saving faith.  

Throughout the first chapter Peter has repeatedly distinguished between the temporal, gold and silver or things that are perishable, and the eternal - salvation, the blood of Christ, and the word of God.

Here are today’s questions:

What is the relationship between being born again and loving one another?  

Do you think it’s possible for someone who hasn’t been born again to genuinely love someone else?

Why is it so important for Christians to love one another, particularly in times of suffering as Peter’s original readers were experiencing?

Why do you think Peter keeps stressing the difference between the temporal and eternal to those suffering believers?  Even in times of peace, how should this influence the way we live?

Knowing that we were born again through the preaching of the living abiding word of God, what should we be doing with the word of God?