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The Week After Pentecost 2026
Monday 25th May – Acts 2:1-21 Introductory Reflection: ‘Weak made strong’
Pentecost, the pouring out of the Spirit in a new and glorious way: on all people, for all time.
There’s so much we could say about this wonderful passage. How the manifest presence of God came to Jesus’ friends in wind and fire. How it ignited mission, and fulfilled what we looked at yesterday, as the gospel could now reach ‘to the ends of the earth’. How it came at just the right moment, when multitudes of nations were gathered and could take this good news back to their homes and neighbourhoods. How it was mistaken for drunken behaviour and ridiculed, as sadly it sometimes still is today. How it represented a ‘new law’ for God’s people, which is what Pentecost had traditionally celebrated. How it brought Joel’s famous prophecy (day 17) to life….
And we can celebrate all of those things. But as we spend this week in Acts ch2, celebrating this world-changing moment, let’s begin by looking at what it meant for the disciples, and how that might speak to us. I’ve been reminded recently of something profound written about St. Peter by the great Christian writer, G.K. Chesterton (and please forgive the non-inclusive language, Chesterton was of his time):
“When Christ at a symbolic moment was establishing His great society, He chose for its cornerstone neither the brilliant Paul nor the mystic John, but a shuffler, a snob, a coward – in a word, a man. And upon this rock He has built His Church, and the gates of Hell have not prevailed against it. All the empires and the kingdoms have failed, because of this inherent and continual weakness, that they were founded by strong men and upon strong men. But this one thing, the historic Christian Church, was founded on a weak man, and for that reason it is indestructible. For no chain is stronger than its weakest link.”
At the heart of our story today is Peter, who stands up before the crowds as a person transformed. Chesterton is right to note that Peter is essentially someone like us, and that this is why he proved such a great choice to lead in the upside-down kingdom of Jesus.
But this Peter has a new power inside him. He is no longer operating solely out of his human weakness, but in the power of Christ, which fills and equips Peter by His Spirit. Which means we can now look at Chesterton’s insight two ways: not just celebrating that God uses weak people (like us) to achieve His purposes. But also, since Christ indwells every Christian, then in fact every ‘weakest link’ is now far stronger than we could ever dare to imagine. Not our strength, but Jesus’.
Pentecost may have been a unique occasion, an unparalleled experience. But it speaks to a deeper truth for each of us: that the Spirit enables us to do things we could never have imagined possible. The Spirit is still enabling us today. What does – or might – that beautiful truth look like for you?
Ascension to Pentecost 2026: ‘Thy Kingdom Come’
Thy Kingdom Come is a global wave of prayer, which runs for 10 days from Ascension Day (Thursday 14th May) to Pentecost Sunday (24th May). This year’s reflections are largely based in St John’s First Letter (‘1 John’), and written by Rev. Bob Key. In particular, each day will give us the opportunity to pray for 5 people: to bring five people before God – friends, family, neighbours or colleagues who are not yet following the Lord Jesus. It is an encouragement to pray that the Holy Spirit will open their hearts and minds to God’s love, forgiveness, and peace.
We hope you will join us as we pray, ΄Come Holy Spirit.΄ And, if we can, let’s pray daily for our 5 people during this season.
Note: all Inspirations are now uploaded for the week – scroll down for Saturday’s, Friday’s, and earlier posts…
Sunday 24th May, Pentecost – Acts 2:1-4 ‘The God of the whole world’
The wait was over. Pentecost had arrived but whatever they had expected this wasn’t it. Pentecost was originally a Harvest Festival. You can read about it in Exodus 23.
The Pentecost story is all about signs, and God uses the sign of the Harvest Festival to point to a new harvest: not of crops but of people. It is a theme that Jesus employed in the Gospels when He loved to use farming imagery. He so often used pictures people would understand to teach the truth of God’s love and the urgent need of a response of faith to the good news He was bringing.
There are three signs for Pentecost: wind, fire, and languages.
The wind blew the infant church out of its comfort zone and into the streets of Jerusalem. The picture of the dove as a sign of the Holy Spirit is only ever used of Jesus at His baptism. The sign of guiding the holy, obedient Son of God is a gentle dove of peace. The sign for moving the church, which is so often comfortable in committee rooms discussing things that don’t matter, is a powerful wind.
The fire speaks of holiness. It’s a sign of God’s holiness that goes all the way back to Moses and the burning bush. Fire to burn away past failures, resentments, sins, and fears. Living the Kingdom means a longing for the Spirit of God to make us more like Jesus, to enable us to the be the people we just can’t be in our own strength.
Languages. Most people in Jerusalem that day would have known enough Greek to get by, but it wasn’t their mother tongue … and that’s what the languages or ‘tongues’ of Pentecost are all about. God gave the whole world the right to hear the Gospel without having to learn another language or a whole load of theological shorthand. So often our language is aimed at insiders, those who are already members of the club. Jesus didn’t do that and Pentecost sends us to do the same.
Continue to pray that the precious people we have been carrying to Jesus in our prayers these last 11 days may respond to His great love and receive His new life. Pray that we may Live the Kingdom clearly and simply ‘So the world may believe.’ John 17:21.
Saturday 23rd May – 1 John 4:13 ‘The God who empowers’
I think of it as the Niagara effect. If you have ever been to a great waterfall like Niagara on the Canadian-American border, or the Victoria Falls on the Zambezi river, or even if you have just seen pictures, you can imagine the limitless flow of water. The quantity, the power, the glorious array of colours of the light on the water combine to give an awe-inspiring picture of the beauty of God’s creation.
Now join me in taking that picture one stage further. Imagine you have a cup or a glass at the bottom of the falls. It would enjoy a never-ending supply of thirst-quenching power-giving water. That’s the Niagara effect and that’s a picture of the Pentecost power of the Holy Spirit.
Pentecost, which we celebrate tomorrow, is the day when what Jesus calls ‘the gift my Father promised’ (Acts 14) arrives. The Holy Spirit blows the early Christians out of their comfort zone and into the world to share the Good News of Jesus Christ. They were filled with the fullness of the Holy Spirit, who came with great signs full of significance and power.
Luke tells us being filled with the Spirit was something that happened several times over as new opportunities for the Gospel opened up or new situations arose. The phrase St Paul uses to talk about that filling of the Spirit translates literally as ‘be being filled’ (Ephesians 5:18). This is a Greek present tense suggesting a continuous action. We are to go on and on being filled with the Spirit. It’s the Niagara effect. As the glasses of our lives are held under the limitless, dynamic, powerful provision of God the Holy Spirit, then there is enough to meet our every spiritual need. Perhaps even more importantly, there is overflow to show Christ’s love, grace, power and salvation to those around us.
That’s how St John structures today’s verses. The Spirit comes to the believer and the outcome is that we see and share that Jesus is the Saviour of the world. Christ in us and the Gospel in the world. That’s what tomorrow’s feast of Pentecost is all about.
We pray that the Holy Spirit of God will open and fill the lives of our five folk today.
We can’t ‘Live the Kingdom’ in our own strength. But, with the Niagara effect of the Holy Spirit, anything is possible.
Friday 22nd May – 1 John 2:6 ‘The God who challenges’
God, our loving Father, not only wants the best for us, He wants to enable the best in us. He longs that, in the life and power of the Holy Spirit, we live the most productive, most effective Christian lives we can.
Today’s verse from 1 John seems blunt and hard-hitting, but that doesn’t mean it’s negative. A football manager roaring encouragement to his team as they battle difficult opponents is trying to spur them on to success. That’s what is going on here. St John knows that as the Christians in the churches try to live for Jesus in a very difficult world, he needs to encourage them to remember whose team they are in. It is still true, in the twenty-first century world, that Christian faith does not set the moral guidelines in public life, business ethics, or the way in which governments operate. We need the same encouragement.
We are playing in Christ’s colours and the standards by which we live must be His and not those of the prevailing culture. St John’s words are powerfully relevant in our world where there are many forces seeking to air-brush Christian faith out of the public arena and to ridicule Christian moral standards as out of touch with modern thinking.
What St John calls for is straightforward Christian integrity. There is to be no place for saying one thing and doing another. Hypocrisy is a real problem for Christian evangelism. As we seek to share our faith with those who know us, it will not help if they know that Jesus’ pattern of care for others is not one we follow.
The word John uses means not just ‘walk’, but ‘walk about’. It could be used of the clothes you choose to put on in which to ‘walk about’. Paul uses the same word when he encourages us to ‘walk in the Spirit’ in Galatians 5.16. From John and Paul, the daily challenge is to walk about in the character of Christ produced not in our own strength but by the Pentecost power of the Holy Spirit.
As we pray for our five folk today, pray that the lives of the Christians they meet will be Christlike and attractive in the dynamic power of the Holy Spirit. Living the Kingdom means that we can’t be cardboard cut-outs: looking superficially Christian but with little inner depth and reality. God has given the world the right to look at us and see the character of Christ.
Thursday 21st May – 1 John 1:8-9 ‘The God who forgives’
Psychologists, authors, celebrities, and saints all encounter guilt and deal with it in different ways. Some people see guilt as something we learned in childhood. Others think it is a positive thing that stops mankind from doing worse things than we actually do. Yet others think of it as a negative emotion that stops us realising our full potential, even if our success is at the cost of derailing the lives of those around us.
St John is wonderfully simple, straightforward, realistic, and practical. He invites us to look in the mirror and admit the truth. We’re not perfect, none of us is; and if we think ‘sinner’ is just a term that applies to other people, then we are simply wrong!
Even in prisons there is often a grading of offenders so that non-violent criminals see themselves as better than violent ones. Violent criminals can think, ‘Well, at least I didn’t kill anyone.’
Inside or outside prison, it is so easy to make ourselves feel better by finding someone else on whom we can look down.
For St John there is a great sense of release in a correct diagnosis. Reading today’s verses is like going to the doctor and being told that there is bad news and good news. The bad news is that there is something seriously wrong. The good news is that there is a never-failing cure.
St Augustine said, ‘Repentant tears wash out the stain of guilt.’ We claim the peace, forgiveness and atonement of the Cross and the restoration and resurrection of Easter morning when we confess our sins and believe into Christ. That’s what we are praying for as we think of our five people today. Pray that the Holy Spirit will open their eyes not to negative guilt that leads to despair but to the hope and joy of forgiveness in Jesus.
Living the Kingdom, as those who know themselves as freely loved and forgiven by God, leaves no room for feelings of imagined superiority like those in the prison. There is nobody for whom Christ had to die more than He had to die for me. So, in the power of the Holy Spirit: humility replaces pride; responsibilities replace rights; and service takes the place of selfishness.
Wednesday 20th May – 1 John 4:11-12 ‘The God who understands’
The disciples were not a naturally cohesive group of people. Left to themselves they were unlikely to have chosen to set up business together or even share a holiday. Matthew was a tax collector working for the occupying Roman authorities. Simon the Zealot belonged to a group that opposed paying taxes to Caesar, some of whose members had been involved in a revolt.
James and John, partners in a family fishing business on Lake Galilee, were known as ‘sons of thunder’, probably because of their fiery tempers and desire for power. This same John who refers to himself as ‘the disciple whom Jesus loved’ in the Gospel that bears his name becomes the ‘apostle of love’ in this Letter. His life has been utterly transformed, his character turned inside out by his relationship with the Lord Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit.
We see divisions all around us: gender, race, language, education, upbringing, nationality. Things that in themselves could contribute to the diversity of God’s creation become grounds for misunderstanding, strife, enmity, and even violence.
Our Heavenly Father, like a master artist, has a palette of rich and varied colours which are designed to paint a beautiful picture of His creation but which, in our sinfulness and selfishness, pride and fear, we fashion into an unholy mess. In this mess, so often, the poor pay the greatest price of our inability to be God’s reliable gardeners in His world.
John calls us, in today’s verse, to be defined by the love of God: not by anything else. St Paul puts it very plainly in Galatians 3:28: ‘There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.’
Pray that your five may find their identity in who they are in Christ.
Living the kingdom must mean building churches and communities where ‘Love one another’ doesn’t mean merely liking people who are like us. We are called to something much more radical, much more attractive. We are designed to be a community of servants: serving and being served by each other across all the manmade barriers that so often divide and discriminate.
Tuesday 19th May – 1 John 3:1 ‘The God who gives and goes on giving’
St John has a ‘WOW!’ moment in today’s verse. It is encouraging that even the apostles sometimes struggle for words to express just how great God is. His love, His compassion, His glory, His understanding, His coming to us in the Lord Jesus Christ leave John almost lost for words. He finally settles on a way to sum up God’s giving in creation and His giving of Himself. The expression he uses means something like, ‘love from another world’.
Our human understanding can’t get our brains round it, but the wonderful thing is that we can know it, receive it, rest in it, enjoy it, and share it. Genesis tells us that mankind was made in God’s image. John is now telling us that we have, if we have believed in Christ, been born again as God’s children; and that truth simply blows his mind.
My own father died when I was five, so I have few memories of him. In photos, we look quite alike; but if I am ever tempted to doubt whose child I am I have only to open the filing cabinet and read my birth certificate. Today’s verse with its great, ‘And that is what we are!’ is the Christian’s birth certificate. Our assurance is based not in our own feelings, but in the effective word of God. No wonder the modern translation uses ‘lavish’ to describe the generous, costly, self-giving love of God.
Pray today that the five you are holding in your heart will receive and rest in the love of the Father, which constantly calls them home to become His children. Pray that they will find in Him the peace and place in His family for which we were created and redeemed.
Living the kingdom, living as sons and daughters of the king, means sharing that generosity. At the feeding of the 5,000 there were 12 baskets full of the leftovers. Jesus tells His disciples as He looks at the hungry crowds, ‘You give them something to eat.’ He still does. As we live out the generous overflowing love of the kingdom then the hungry will be fed, the lonely befriended, prisoners visited, and the poor understand the good news.
Monday 18th May – 1 John 4:9-11 ‘The God who saves’
Imagine you can’t swim. For some of us that may not be very difficult. Imagine you are in deep water, you can’t touch the bottom, you are exhausted, scared and beginning to panic. What do you need? Imagine somebody offers to read out the introductory lessons from ‘Teach yourself to swim’. Another friend offers to swim near you so that all you have to do is copy how they do it. Neither would be much help. You don’t need a book of instructions and ideals you can’t follow, and seeing someone else apparently doing it perfectly will not be any use either.
What you need is a lifeguard. You don’t need educating, you don’t need inspiring, you need rescuing.
St John is quite clear that this is the whole point. This is why God’s Son came into the world. The motive was love, the purpose was eternal life, and the means was the cross. For two thousand years Christians have found different ways to express what the Lord Jesus’ death on the cross means. Like facets of a diamond, the various ways of looking at God’s actions in making us right with Himself reflect a different colour of the spectrum of God’s love. In these verses, John uses language that would have been very familiar to his audience: the sacrifice. All the background of the Old Testament comes into focus. There, people offered sacrifices of animals to God in order to find forgiveness. They show that the sacrifice died so the worshipper lived.
The cross works, not because we can ever fully understand it or perfectly explain it, but because our holy and loving God says it does. The person in the sea doesn’t need to know the physics of swimming or where the lifeguard learned to swim, he just needs to trust himself to the rescuer. As St John puts it in his gospel, we need to believe into Jesus. We give up self-reliance or trying to be good enough for God and allow ourselves to be rescued.
The thief who turned to Jesus as he hung dying on a cross next to the cross of Jesus and simply said: ‘Lord, remember me’, didn’t know much theology but he knew his need. In response, Jesus promised him paradise.
Pray that your five will allow Christ to rescue them and find that peace that comes from knowing you’re safe in someone else’s arms. As we Live out the Kingdom, there can be nothing of imagining we are better than anyone else. Instead, our lives and our words are, as the great theologian Paul Tillich put it, ‘One beggar telling another beggar where to find food.’
Sunday 17th May – 1 John 4:9 ‘The God who shares’
‘You don’t know what it’s like!’ is a cry of despair, frustration and pain. When we feel misunderstood, when it seems that friends simply don’t ‘get’ the pressure we’re under, when we feel unjustly judged or criticised we want to yell: ‘Try walking in my shoes. Try living my life.’
As we think of God, who He is, especially His greatness, majesty, glory … all those great biblical words that emphasise the ‘Wow!’ factor of the creator of all things, it is easy to slip into thinking: ‘So what can He possibly understand of my life in 2026?’ Isn’t God a spectator, an observer, all-knowing perhaps, but far away and uninvolved?
In this letter, St John underlines the greatness and glory of the great creator. He stresses His triumphant relational love which drives the whole story of salvation. Now it gets even better. In today’s verse we are assured that this Lord is no distant disinterested onlooker but one who understands what it is like to live our life, because He Himself came in the Lord Jesus Christ. This coming into the world is the guarantee that God understands us through and through because He has shared our life and walked in our shoes.
The one without whom, as St John’s Gospel puts it, ‘nothing was made that has been made’ ( John 1.3), was content not only to be a carpenter in Nazareth and a member of a downtrodden race in an occupied country, but also a microscopic foetus in Mary’s womb.
As we pray for our five today, we pray that they may catch a glimpse of what theologians call the transcendence and immanence of God, His glory, and His closeness. Pray that they may find Him a friend who understands them, and a Lord who loves them.
This verse is a wonderful reminder that love is not just a feeling, but a decision of the will. It shows itself in positive action as we Live the Kingdom. We love the hungry with food, the lonely with companionship. We love those who don’t yet know Christ by living and speaking for Jesus with humility and integrity.
Saturday 16th May – 1 John 4:7-8 ‘The God who loves’
Life can be seen as a search for love. We long to give love and to receive it. The New Testament, written originally in Greek, uses different Greek words for love. They express the variety of ways in which we find and understand what it is to love and be loved.
In these verses just one word is used. The Greek word ‘agape’. John uses it six times in just two verses. This love is special, different. This love has the heart of God as its source, the cross of Christ as its sacrificial expression, and the power of the Holy Spirit to produce in Christians that same quality of selfless love.
This is the love of God, the Holy Trinity, which calls from us a response of love which only His grace and power can produce in us. This agape love expresses the heart of the God who is love. This is the love that Jesus demonstrated as being greater than any other love. That selfless love touches the lepers, embraces the outcast, welcomes those whom polite society condemned, and opens His arms on the cross to encircle the world.
John is not content merely to soak up that love from God. He does want his readers to rest in that love, and to find in it the assurance of sins forgiven and the powerful liberty of the Holy Spirit to set them free from slavery to selfishness and sin; but He looks for more. As Christians, we are to be channels of that love which comes from God and which so demonstrates His nature that John says ‘God is love.’
It is a tragedy when any congregation fails to demonstrate that divine love in its relationship with the Lord, with fellow Christians, or with the world Christ came to save. St Paul wrote, ‘The greatest of these is love’ (1 Corinthians 13), and in Revelation Jesus writes to the Church at Ephesus, ‘You have lost your first love’ (Revelation 2). Let’s take a look in the spiritual mirror of God’s word and ask Him to make our love complete.
As we pray for our five folk today, let us remember their need of love. Let’s bring their emotional and physical needs to God and pray that they may open up to His eternal love, His healing, life and light. Living the Kingdom today is obedience to a straightforward command from the Apostle: ‘Friends, let us love one another.’ It was the mark of the life of the early church that convinced others of the truth of the good news.
Friday 15th May – 1 John 1:1-2 ‘The God who is’
First things first! ‘In the beginning God’ are the first words of the Bible. ‘In the beginning was the Word’ starts St John’s Gospel. In the opening verses of his first letter John brings the two together. Eternal Life is God’s good news. It is the free gift of God: Father, Son, and, as John makes clear in this Letter, the Holy Spirit.
God is complete love. As Billy Graham, a well–known proclaimer of the Christian faith, put it: ‘God didn’t create mankind because He was lonely; but because He is love.’ God loves us and loves relationship. Creation is pictured in Genesis as God speaking.
He speaks and things happen. Universes expand, worlds take shape. Light, darkness, colour, and texture combine in the beautiful wonder of creation. Microorganisms too small to see, galaxies too vast to comprehend, all have their place in God’s plan. Scientific theories may help us with the how of creation, but the Bible tells us the who of it. God created the world. He created us.
As the lens of Genesis focuses in on one planet and one species, we see that God makes human beings in His image to love and be loved. We are made for relationships – not only with each other but also with God.
After relationship comes responsibility. We are to be responsible for the creation that God places in our care within the context of our relationship with God. God loves us and created us for deep communion with Him.
This is why, in the picture-book of Genesis, God comes looking for Man and Woman in the garden, ‘in the cool of the evening’ (Genesis 3.8). After all, that is the time of day when work is over and friends gather to share and to talk.
John doesn’t present God as an interesting ‘add-on’ to life for those who enjoy religion. God is God. The Great ‘I AM’ from the beginning (the title He used to introduce Himself to Moses in Exodus) to the end ( Jesus applies it to Himself in John 8.58). He is the one who made us, loves us, welcomes us home in Jesus and is there whether we like it or not, believe it or not, want Him or not. He is the God who IS.
Take time today to pray for five people you know and love to know God’s love for them. As you pray for them remember we are the pictures of Christ in the world; icons of His love in the way we care for creation and minister to the needs of those around us.
Thursday 14th May, Ascension Day – Acts 1:10-11 ‘The God who reigns’
Angels get some crazy lines in the Bible. Gabriel appears to the teenager Mary in her simple house in Palestine and says, ‘Fear not!’ The shepherds outside Bethlehem, a group not known for their religious devotion, are told there is good news of great joy for them. The Ascension story is the same. The angels (young men in white) ask the disciples: ‘Why are you standing here looking into the sky?’
Surely one of the Apostles must have thought: ‘Why do you think we are? Jesus has just gone there and in the last six weeks our world has been turned upside-down. We have watched Him die, met Him alive again, had a wonderful time with Him of forgiveness, renewal, and teaching. Now He isn’t here anymore.’
My sympathy is entirely with Peter, James, John, and the others.
The angels are quite clear. Jesus has gone and He has told the disciples what to do. They are to wait for the gift of the Holy Spirit. Then, in His power, go into the whole world, even those parts they didn’t know existed. They are to proclaim the good news of God’s saving love in Jesus Christ. They are to call people to repent and believe in the Saviour.
That was, is, and always will be the task the church has been given to do. That’s it, in all its biblical clarity and simplicity. The Lord who ascended to heaven and reigns in glory has given us one great commission. We are to show and tell the good news of Jesus. In the book of Acts, St Luke shows us that this wonderful good news is demonstrated in every healing, every sermon, every breaking down of cultural barriers, in the provision of food for the poor in Jerusalem, in Paul taking on the philosophers in Athens, and so much more.
As we journey from Ascension to Pentecost, we follow the example of the first disciples. They prayed as they had never prayed before (Acts 1:14) and they planned for mission. Praying for our five folk who are not yet following Jesus is one way of getting involved in what God, the God who reigns, is doing. Just as those first disciples in Acts, we are to be living out the Kingdom. Everything we say and do becomes part of the proclamation. We are to be God’s adverts, living icons of His love in the world.
Easter Season 2026 – The First Letter of Peter
As we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ, St Peter’s amazing letter helps us put that hope into practice. Written in challenging times, its life-giving wisdom is just as relevant today!
Note: After Wednesday’s Inspiration in 1 Peter, we’ll switch on Thursday to reflections for ‘Thy Kingdom Come’ for 10 days, and then a week looking at Pentecost. But don’t worry, we will finish this amazing letter after that!
Wednesday 13th May – 1 Peter 4:7-11 ‘The end is nigh’
I’m sure many of you seeing that phrase – ‘the end is nigh’ – will have thought what I did, of the people walking up and down your local high street, wearing a big sandwich board with those very words! I must confess I haven’t seen one for many years, but it was certainly a common feature of British high streets in years gone by. The end is nigh – so what should we do?
Interestingly, Peter – who gave us this famous phrase – doesn’t tell his readers to wear it down the street! What he does do instead is give us four very practical tips for how to live, ready for Jesus to return:
Pray watchfully (v7). It may now be 2,000 years since Jesus promised to return, but that doesn’t mean we live as if it’s not going to happen anytime soon. The great saints of history all believed that Jesus was about to come back – they may not have seen it, but they lived more prayerfully and purposefully as a result. We are still called to read the signs of the times, and to pray with alert and sober minds, for our world and for the church.
Love deeply (v8). Two iconic phrases in two verses! Peter encourages us to love each other deeply, because ‘love covers over a multitude of sins.’ In light of yesterday’s passage, this most likely refers to those carrying guilt from their past, who need compassion and support. But of course it also refers more widely to the primacy of love, which enables all relationships to flourish – a theme also very much echoed by Paul (e.g. Colossians 3:14).
Host generously (v9). Hospitality was a big feature of the early church. It was a very concrete form of practising the kind of unconditional love and welcome which Jesus offers us. Many fruitful spiritual conversations would also happen around the table – and still do. Peter encourages us to do the same – without grumbling!
Steward faithfully (vv10-11). We all have different gifts (v10) – the key is to use them, to serve God and others. We do this ultimately in God’s strength, and for his glory (v11) – it is always God who builds up the church; but he needs his faithful people to offer their gifts, providing the material with which he can build most effectively.
As we offer ourselves to the Lord today, which of these encouragements speaks most to you? Pray for grace to act upon it today, trusting the Lord for the fruit. ‘To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen.’
Tuesday 12th May – 1 Peter 4:1-6 ‘Done with sin’
On Sunday I was privileged to take a baptism service. As is our custom, we gathered at the front and I introduced what was about to happen, including these words: ‘dying to sin, that we may live his (Jesus’) risen life.’ It’s emotive language, isn’t it? We don’t talk about ‘trying not to sin’, or just doing our best – we talk about a permanent change: when we turn to Jesus, we die to sin.
As we’ve been looking at over the last couple of reflections, this strong language is rooted in the theology of our salvation. Jesus literally died and rose again to save us; when we come to Christ and are baptised, we enact this same reality in a spiritual and symbolic way: dying to sin as we go into the water, and rising to new life with Jesus as we come out of it. From the point we turn to Jesus, we are done with sin.
This is exactly the phrase Peter uses here, as we begin chapter 4. The context here, though, is much debated. Is the suffering in the body he talks of in v1 just Jesus’ suffering, or does it also refer to suffering we also ourselves experience? The majority of scholars agree that the best way to read this text is the most straightforward: building on what Peter has already said, it is Jesus’ suffering which saves us, and from that point (Jesus’ conquest through suffering) all those who follow him are ‘done with sin’. This is the ‘same attitude’ all followers of Jesus should have.
It is possible, though, given that Peter is also talking about the very real suffering some of his readers are experiencing, that he is also referencing their own experience. Any of us who have suffered as a direct result of our faith, through some sort of persecution, often experience a particular closeness to Jesus, a sense of his presence and love which makes what might previously have been sinful temptations and desires seem paltry by comparison. It’s a shadow, if you like, of what Jesus experienced on our behalf. That said, we need to be careful not to push this idea too far – some have misinterpreted this verse to make themselves ‘suffer’ (e.g. by masochistic practices) to try and ‘conquer’ their sin, a dangerous ideology which has led to abuse. So, if we allow any thought that suffering may refine the purity of our life (which it can), may that only ever be trials that happen to us, not those we consciously inflict on ourselves or others.
In practice, what does it mean to be ‘done with sin’? Peter lays out the choice which faces all of us: to follow ‘the will of God’ (v2) or ‘what pagans choose to do’ (v3) – a lifestyle he lays out in striking detail in the rest of that verse. It’s clear that many of Peter’s readers lived in that culture, and turned their backs on it when they came to Christ – as a result of which, they were facing hardship and opposition. Their former friends now ‘heap abuse on’ them (v4, the word literally means ‘blaspheme’, a reference to the fact that this kind of living was dedicated to various pagan deities in the culture of that time, it wasn’t ‘secular’ as we would interpret it nowadays).
Peter reminds his readers that what God thinks of all this is what ultimately matters (v5), and concludes this short section with another much-debated verse (v6). We could spend much time reviewing the arguments, but the best analysis is again the simplest: the dead who had the gospel preached to them were simply followers of Jesus who have already died. Bear in mind that much of the early church expected Jesus to return in their lifetime, so the death of followers was a painful problem; did it mean they had been disobedient or weren’t saved? No, not at all – as Peter affirms, they will ‘live according to God in regard to the spirit’ (v6). Their salvation, their future, is secure.
It’s another tough text – but the message is simple: if we follow Jesus, we are done with sin; we have a new life, and now we live according to God’s will. It’s not easy, but it is the path to eternal life. May the Lord grant us all grace to walk in that path today; and may he continue to rescue those who are trapped in a different lifestyle they desperately want to leave. The gospels remind us that these are the people Jesus often spent time with, to bring his message of forgiveness and healing; may his Spirit inspire us to compassion and prayer, not judgement. Amen.
Monday 11th May – 1 Peter 3:18-22 ‘Saved by Jesus’ resurrection’
Here’s a tough text for a Monday morning! I can’t possibly do justice to all the learned theories written about verses 19-20, so I’ll give you my best summary of what all this means. Let’s start with the story of Noah’s Ark, right at the beginning of the bible. It’s a story of judgement and salvation: judgement on the universal wickedness of the world, and salvation of Noah and his family; crucially the water in the story was integral to both elements of the story, bringing judgement via the flood, but also enabling salvation (as the ark floated on it and was thereby saved).
Jewish tradition held that one of the root causes of the depth of human wickedness which led to the Flood was the activity of evil spirits or fallen angels – these are the spirits mentioned in v19 (an interpretation which is strengthened by similar mentions in 2 Peter 2:4 and also Jude 6-7). Jesus is not trying to ‘save’ these spirits, but to proclaim his triumph over them – over the forces which have held humanity captive since the Fall.
If the story of the Flood and the Ark is ultimately a story about the judgement of the world and the salvation of the righteous, Peter is making the point that Jesus’ death is also about exactly the same things. The whole world is being judged on the cross – only this time Jesus is taking the punishment on everyone’s behalf; as it says in v18, which we thought about last time: ‘for sins, once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous’.
Thanks to Jesus, and just like Noah, the righteous can now be saved – only this time it’s Jesus’ righteousness which saves us. This is why baptism matters: when we get baptised, we are enacting this judgment and salvation in a physical way, through a particular ceremony, which – like Noah – also uses water to symbolise both: judged as we go into the water (‘dead to sin’), and cleansed and restored as we rise out of it to new life…
…Only this time, it’s not the water itself which saves, something Peter makes clear in v21, lest anyone think that somehow we just have to perform a ritual to sort things out with God: ‘not the removal of dirt from the body, but the pledge of a clear conscience towards God. It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.’
It is Jesus’ resurrection which ultimately brings us life: it is proof of his divine status, of his defeat of sin and death, and also that he is able to grant life to all who follow him. The story of Noah lays the foundations for our understanding both of judgement and of salvation; but only Jesus enables it to be a life-giving reality for all. The life of the Spirit he enjoys (v18) is ours now, by his grace.
As we begin our week, give thanks that this glorious Jesus has saved us by his resurrection, and now imparts his life-giving Spirit to us, and to many millions of people all across the world. This same Jesus is now ascended into glory (as we’ll celebrate on Ascension Day this Thursday), with all power in submission to him (v22). He has all we need for today, for this week, and always. Amen.
Saturday 9th May – 1 Peter 3:18 ‘To bring us to God’
If you had to summarise the good news of the Christian faith, how would you do it? What would you say?
St Peter has just been encouraging his readers to do just that – to be prepared ‘to give a reason for the hope that [they] have.’ Helpfully – deliberately? – he gives his own summary straight after, and it’s one which is so good, so concise, it’s a brilliant verse for any of us to memorise as our ‘reason’ (today I’m going to quote it in the NRSV translation, which is very close to the original 1984 NIV, not the newer version I usually use):
‘For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.’
For Christ suffered… to bring us to God. That’s the basic idea, the heart of our good news – Christ brings us to God through his suffering. How?
For sins: sacrifice. Our selfishness separates us from God, and needs to be put right. Christ died for the sin – the fallenness, the brokenness, the selfishness – of every person who ever lived. Everything we’ve said, done or thought which dishonoured God. Everything we didn’t say or do or think which we should have. It’s all dealt with. Every last thing.
Once for all: sufficient. Because Jesus, the divine Son, was perfect, this sacrifice didn’t need to be repeated. Previous forms of atonement were all temporary, and indeed many religions nowadays still use regular or repeated rituals to appease their deities. Not so for the follower of Jesus: his sacrifice was for everyone, for all time. Once for all – and everyone, even all of us now, are covered by it, should we choose to believe it.
The righteous for the unrighteous: substitute. We can’t save ourselves. Our sin makes that impossible. Only a perfect substitute can take our place: a real human who can represent us; a real God who can intervene for us. This is not an angry God punishing his innocent son; the mystery of the Trinity is that this is God Himself (in the form of His Son) taking the punishment on our behalf. The righteous for the unrighteous; saving those who cannot save themselves.
Wow. 19 words, and it’s all there! Not a bad summary, is it?! To belt and brace it, he also reminds us that this life-giving work involves the Spirit, who raises Jesus, and therefore us, to new life. (As an aside, here again we see the beginnings of Trinitarian theology: this understanding that we worship a three-dimensional God: Father, Son and Spirit.)
As we close our week, what a way to end it! A verse for the ages, the heart of our good news. One that’s very precious to me. May it speak to you powerfully, too – filling you with hope, and making your heart sing. Amen.
Friday 8th May – 1 Peter 3:13-17 ‘The hope that we have’
Our lives speak all the week. This is the basic reality that Peter knows as well as anyone, and which underpins much of his teaching in this letter. Peter himself famously stumbled with his words just when he needed them most, so he understands that not all of us find it easy to share our faith. He also understands that most of his readers were living in tiny Christian communities under severe pressure, so they needed a practical strategy for survival. He returns to these themes again in today’s passage: make sure Jesus is first in your hearts (v15) and keep a clear conscience (v16) i.e. don’t bring difficulties on yourself by not living right. He also reminds them that our determination to do good is unconditional, regardless of circumstances or approval (v17), and that what we have is a real hope, a promise we can rely on (v15).
That said, he does now turn to the question of how we might witness more openly to our faith. Let’s assume that we’re living the kind of life he advocates, what should we do next? He gives them three very useful pieces of advice:
First, be eager to do good (v13) – let’s note the subtle distinction here. It is possible to do good grudgingly. Faced with opposition, we might decide that doing good is necessary, but only because we have to. It speaks volumes if we retain an enthusiasm to practise good, to (as the prophet puts it), act justly, love mercy and walk humbly with our God. May the Lord grant us all grace not to get weary of doing good.
Second, be prepared (v15). But if you’re wondering how much preparation you need to do, here’s what he says: ‘Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.’ All you need to prepare is a reason for the hope that you have. Not something polished or intellectual – just why Jesus has made a difference to your life. That’s it – your story. So, the only thing you might want to do today during your time with the Lord is to remind yourself: what is the reason for the hope that you have? Get that in your head, and then be prepared to say it, if the opportunity arises.
Finally, be gentle and respectful (v15). If someone responds negatively to what we say, then this is where this bit of advice is most useful. Don’t get defensive, don’t go on the attack. Be gentle and respectful, and leave the rest to God.
It’s simple stuff, isn’t it? We can all do this! Be eager to do good, be prepared with a simple reason, and be gentle and respectful. We rarely know when our next chance to share something about Jesus will come along; but, today, let’s pray that when it comes, we can put this into practice, that others might know the wonderful, eternal, life-bringing hope that we have. Amen.
Thursday 7th May – 1 Peter 3:8-13 ‘The Lord’s way’
‘I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for injuring me. If Cain is avenged seven times, then Lamech seventy-seven times.’ These chilling words from Genesis 4 brutally lay bare a fundamental flaw in the human condition. Once sin enters the world, we become our own gods, which in this case means agents of our own vengeance. The problem, of course, is that revenge escalates. Lamech kills in response to a wound, repays evil with worse again.
God limits this human tendency in the Law by insisting that justice means ‘an eye for an eye’ – in other words, the punishment is proportionate to the crime. This is the foundation of all our modern justice systems, and rightly so; but in the kingdom of Jesus, even this isn’t the limit of our capacity to love: ‘But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven.’
Jesus’ famous teaching from the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:44-45) takes the path of true righteousness to another level entirely. The ultimate way to overcome evil, Jesus insists, is with good. And it’s clear from this short passage today that Peter is reminding his readers of this teaching of Jesus. He quotes a psalm rather than Jesus’ words, but the thrust is the same: (v9) ‘Do not pay evil with evil or insult with insult. On the contrary, repay evil with blessing, because to this you were called.’ Called by Jesus himself, in his own words on this subject.
It is a hard teaching, possibly the hardest of all of Jesus’ amazing wisdom. Our natural response is to hit back (harder), to fight fire with (more) fire. To pray, to bless, to respond to evil with goodness seems almost impossible. In human terms, it probably is. Only the Spirit of Christ can cultivate this extraordinary capacity for generosity in us, because it was Christ himself who manifested this way of living most notably. We need his transforming presence, to be able to do the same. It is nothing less than a revolution of the heart.
But we have a great promise to motivate us: not only is this the way of Christ, but it also commands a blessing (v9) – indeed, it is our ‘inheritance’, the use of the word here being significant, since it is something which is already promised to all in God’s family. In other words, we don’t earn it, we inherit. It’s all grace.
This is important, because it saves us from treating Peter’s encouragements as some sort of divine slot machine: put the hard graft of good works and good words in, get a heavenly reward out. Rather, our following of the way of Christ safeguards and manifests the new life and the inheritance we already have, by his glorious grace. Thanks to Jesus, God’s eyes are already turned towards us; his ears are already attentive to our prayers (v12).
Nevertheless, this is a challenging passage. Knowing how to practise good in situations of injustice requires much wisdom, and I would encourage all who find themselves in this situation to seek the counsel of other mature followers of Jesus, as well as covering in prayer. But, by faith, we trust it is still the path to life, to freedom, and to blessing. May the Lord grant all of grace to walk this path, whenever it confronts us, knowing that our future is secure and that his grace is always sufficient. For when we are weak, then we are strong.
Wednesday 6th May – 1 Peter 2:21-3:8 ‘Of great worth in God’s sight’
I’m sure verses 1-7 of today’s passage aroused some strong emotions among many of you! Whenever we read passages like this, there are usually three types of response: those who reject it out of hand, for being out of touch in our modern world; those who want to treat it literally, regardless of the consequences; and those who take a more nuanced view, somewhere in between.
A short reflection can’t do justice to the bigger questions, though I’ve deliberately got us all to read a longer chunk to see where verses 1-7 fit in the narrative of the letter. It is important to remember that the context is one of dealing with ‘unjust suffering’, which might suggest that Peter’s mindset towards women might not be as crusty as you think. He also concludes the section by reminding everyone (‘all of you’, v8) of their obligations to be sympathetic, compassionate and humble.
Whatever we think about the interpersonal dynamics of the rest, what we can observe in this text are two universal truths which are frequently commended to all people, throughout scripture:
The first is the value of integrity: what matters most is not what we say about faith, but the quality of our lives. Peter addresses a specific challenge for those whose spouses do not believe: it is the purity of our lifestyle (v1) which will win them over ‘without words’ (v2). I think we can legitimately say this applies equally to women and men who face this situation.
Second, what matters is substance and not style. We live in a culture where the ‘adornment’ of fashion applies pretty much equally to men and women nowadays; so, again, it is legitimate to draw a more universal reflection on this teaching: (v4) ‘a gentle and quiet spirit… is of great worth in God’s sight.’ We’ve all seen documentaries where the same garments, made in factories with often dubious practices, then have different logos sewn on, which determines whether the garment is sold for £5, £50 or £500. This is not the kingdom way: what matters is the life which wears the garment, which Peter eloquently describes as one of ‘unfading beauty’.
For all that, I appreciate that many of you may find this passage a hard read. All the more reason, then, to take a closer look. There is still gold to mine here, unfading beauty to appreciate. May the Lord grant us all grace to live authentic lives, where what we do speaks louder than what we say. And may his Holy Spirit cultivate that ‘gentle and quiet spirit’ within each of us; whoever we are, this is of great worth in God’s sight.
Easter Week
- Saturday 11th April – John 17:1-7,20-23 ‘That they may be one…’
Let’s ask ourselves a cheeky question for a few moments: if Jesus was to visit earth for a while this year, which church would he join? Would he be a charismatic or a Catholic, an evangelical or a liberal? Is he secretly an Anglican or a Baptist or a Pentecostal? Would his requirements be very specific?
I’m sure most of us will be thinking two answers to my question. The one we’ll say aloud with a beatific smile on our face is: ‘Jesus would be happy to join lots of churches.’ The one we’ll be thinking is: ‘but I’m sure he’d prefer my church to the other lot round here.’ And from one perspective, that’s fine: to be honest, if we don’t think Jesus would want to join our church we’re in the wrong church.
But although we joke about it, there’s a real issue here. On one level, a huge movement like the church is going to have lots of faces, and we should celebrate that. On the other hand, the fragmentation and divisions should make us weep. It’s not what Jesus planned – look at what he prays in our passage for today – ‘That they may be one, as we are one.’ Jesus loves diversity, but not division. His desire is for us to be one.
As most of you know – but some may not – we are an ecumenical church. What that means is that several types of church – Anglican, Baptist, Methodist, Reformed and Catholic – have partnered together to be one church. It’s our little way of saying that what divides us is way less than what unites us. We will all disagree over some stuff, but being together as one community of Jesus is much more important.
And today’s passage reminds me why I want to be a minister leading that kind of church. It’s what Jesus wants for us. We might not always do it very well, and I’m sure there’s loads I could do better, but, as best we can, we’re trying to be faithful to what Jesus prayed for us: to be one, a community of love which in turn reflects his love to the world.
But this is not some wishy-washy ‘love is all you need’ type of message. It is based supremely in one act. ‘Glorify your Son,’ Jesus prays, and what he means is: glorify him as he gives his life on a cross. This is how we know what love is, St John reflects elsewhere – Jesus laid down his life for us. True love is selfless service: and as Jesus loved us, so we offer that to each other and to the world.
So, today, let’s celebrate that we are one; but let’s also remember that this one-ness calls us to offer ourselves for the good of others, wherever we are. Then the world will know that God sent Jesus and has loved us, even as God loved him. Amen.
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