It was a privilege to attend Perth Women’s Convention last month, along with over 600 other women from around Western Australia (and a few from beyond).
It was also a happy coincidence that this year’s talks were on the book of 1 Peter, which has been the subject of ProvidenceCity preaching for the last several months. The title for the ProvCity series was ‘Strange’, and the theme of Jenny Salt’s talks at PWC was ‘A Foot in 2 Worlds’ – both reflecting a prevalent theme in Peter’s letter that Christians live as “strangers in the world” (1:1). Jenny helpfully fleshed out some of what this looked like for Peter’s original readers in 1st Century Turkey, and what it might look like for us.
Jenny used to be a Qantas flight attendant, and made use of a great metaphor in her first talk, “Flying Straight in a Wonky World”. She talked about how pilots need to rely on their instrument panel, with its depiction of where the aircraft is in relation to the horizon, because their own feelings cannot reliably tell them when they are tilting and moving off their flight path. Incredibly, the slightest tilt – completely imperceptible to passengers and pilots except by the use of said flight instruments – can be enough to eventually send the aeroplane into a deadly tail-spin.
Peter wrote this letter to Christians living in what is now Turkey, who – under the pressures of persecution – were losing sight of fundamental gospel truths. There was a gradual erroneous tilt in their flight path, taking them away from where they ought to be headed, and Peter knew it would be fatal to that church if they weren’t put straight.
Thus, Jenny showed us how, in his first chapter, Peter provides three essential ‘flight instruments’ to get and keep his 1st Century readers, and us, on the right path in our Christian journey.
The first is our Identity in Christ: “God’s elect, strangers in the world, scattered… who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to be obedient to Jesus Christ and sprinkled with his blood” (1:1-2).
An entire conference, indeed an entire lifetime, could be spent expounding the wonderful truths in these two verses. But even a quick readings shows us unmistakably that Peter wants to remind us that we are first and foremost citizens of God’s kingdom; Perth is not our true homeland. Jenny also pointed out the significance of the cooperating work of all three members of the Trinity in choosing us, saving us, and bringing us into lives of obedience to the Lord Jesus through His blood.
The second ‘flight instrument’ Peter gives us is our Hope in Christ: “a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and… an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade”(1:3-4). This ‘instrument’ fixes our eyes on “the goal of [our faith], the salvation of [our] souls” (1:9); it reminds us that just as we are not true citizens of this world, nor are we living for this life. Christ’s resurrection assures us that death will not be the end; that we will be raised with Him.
The significance and beauty of this living hope is made so much clearer when Christians face hardship, rejection and the threat or reality of death, as many of Peter’s readers would have. At the conference this was really brought home to us by hearing first-hand the story of Eritrean Christian, Helen Berhane, who spent about 3 years imprisoned in a shipping container and suffering unbelievable hardship because of her faith in the Lord Jesus. We were challenged by the way she spoke of her joy in the Lord in the midst of that suffering, and her description of how His Word truly became her food in that time, how she craved it and fed on it, knowing it was the only thing that would sustain her.
As someone who, no doubt like most ‘comfortable’ Christians, struggles to regularly read and meditate on God’s Word, I was so challenged by this reminder of what an absolute gift and privilege it is to legally possess a Bible in my heart language – and have the ability to read it! And of course convicted of how easily the pleasures, stresses and busyness of my comfortable life displace my love for and delight in the Lord Jesus.
The third ‘flight instrument’ Peter provides is our Life in Christ. He reminds us that the way God has redeemed us from our sin (“with the precious blood of Christ”, 1:19), and the glorious hope to which we have been called (1:3-4), mean we ought to be living a certain kind of life in this world, and much of the remainder of his letter is dedicated to describing what that life should look like. We are to be clear-minded, “self-controlled”, and focused on our eternal destiny (1:13). Rather than conforming to the world around us, we are to ‘take on the family likeness’; to be holy (set-apart) in all we do, “just as he who called [us] is holy” (1:15). In light of the high price that was paid for our redemption, we are to “live [our] lives as strangers here in reverent fear” (1:17) and to “love one another deeply, from the heart”.
In the interests of keeping this post a readable length, I won’t go into the details of Jenny’s other two talks. If you are interested, the audio of all of Jenny’s talks will eventually be available for download here. Until then, you might like to read through 1 Peter yourself, and perhaps listen through the ProvCity 1 Peter series again (here).
We often live the opposite of what we know and have – living as if it is not true, living by sight or by how it feels. But knowing and following Jesus, and feeding our minds on the wonderful truths found in Peter’s letter and throughout all of Scripture, keeps us flying straight: safe in a living hope. So let us encourage and spur one another on in living Gospel-shaped lives as strangers in this world, for the glory and praise of our Lord Jesus Christ.
But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy… Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us. (1 Peter 2:9-10,12)
