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Real Talk: Living as exiles

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Opening What does it look like to live faithfully in a world that often feels hostile to Christianity? The Apostle Peter wrote to believers facing suffering, uncertainty, and oppression, yet his message is filled with hope and confidence in Christ. In this episode, we have Dr. Will den Hollander back to discuss his book and Bible study guide on one Peter. Together, we'll explore why this letter speaks so clearly to our times, what it means to live as exiles in this world, and how the gospel always provides living hope for suffering sojourners. A big thanks to Trivan for making this conversation possible. Please check them out at trivan.com. Intro The world's changing fast, but what questions should we really be asking? You're listening to Real Talk, a podcast presented by Reformed Perspective, where we take God's Word and apply it to the nitty gritty of life. Buckle up for real questions, real answers, and real direction. This is Real Talk. Tyler Vanderwoude Doctor Will. Thanks for joining us again. Appreciate it. Dr. Will den Hollander Glad to be here. TV Yeah, it's a real privilege, honestly. Last time we were here, I don't know how long ago that was. It was… WdH December, beginning of December, I think. TV You would know better. That's a very pointed part in your life, so yeah. I guess condolences on passing of your father too. WdH Thank you. TV If I could say that on air, we kind of did already. When we sat here last time it was like, yeah, not knowing what God had in store. WdH Yeah. TV And it really became a heavy couple episodes that we put together, so but really well received, and even by your family, yeah, was really cool. Appreciate it. WdH I watched the first one with my mom the Tuesday after, or I guess a week and a half after he had passed away, and it was a gift. It was an amazing thing. God was busy also preparing me in advance to think about these things. TV Yeah, it was really humbling. Got to be honest, it was like I think we re-recorded the intro for that one, and that was a that was a difficult thing to do. And then I mean your family was so gracious with it. So yeah, really appreciate it, but it's a pleasure to be sitting here again. WdH Yeah. TV So I don't get to come out here to the studio very often, so it's a pleasure to be sitting down with you again doing this. So, but yeah, that was a couple really well received episodes. So appreciate your wisdom on heaven and hell, and people should go back and check that out. But today we're pivoting to a couple of your other interests. You've got a book. I guess I could I could hold this out. WdH Yeah. TV And this is this is the impetus for this episode, which we love, episodes when they're geared around a book, but this is a based on, or essentially a series of sermons. WdH Yeah. TV 30 sermons on one Peter, which is five chapters if anybody… no, not the book. The book is long, but 1 Peter is five chapters, and turned it into 30 sermons, and then a question guide or a Bible study guide. So this is why we’re talking. WdH Fresh off the press, yeah. TV This is awesome looking cover. WdH Yeah. Shout out to Monique Bijker for the for the design. She did a fantastic job. TV Yeah, it's a great looking book. So that's going to be on your shelves shortly, everybody. So have a look out for this thing when it releases. But yeah, we want to talk about 1 Peter. And when we were preparing for this, I think this idea got floated of like let's dive into it because this book is out. And then I started listening to 30 sermons, and I thought I don't know how you get 30 sermons into an hour, hour and a half on a podcast, but we're like that's our mission. WdH There you go. So I mean, the sermons are on the podcast as well, anyway, on my own Spotify profile, so if people want to dive into the full 30. TV And they’re good. Everyone should go listen to all 30 of the sermons. WdH 15, 16 hours or something like that total. Maybe yeah. TV I got to say, I probably I jumped around a little bit when I was watching them, but I think I probably watched 15 of them. There were some that I specifically like when I was reading 1 Peter preparing for this. We've never done an episode on a Bible book before, and so I was like, I was kind of treating this like a Bible study. I was like, I really gotta… but doing the whole Bible study for one episode, which is you know, yeah, it could be two seasons worth of stuff. So there's 30. There's 30 chapters. So it's like a season worth of Bible study. WdH Maybe two seasons, two years. Yeah, and a couple of Bible studies have done it already. The Cornerstone Men's Bible Study trialed it for me graciously before it was published, so they gave me sort of the go ahead and said it's worth it's worth pursuing. TV Oh, neat. Oh, that’s cool. Yeah, I mean, it is just, 1 Peter is worth studying. So, um, but yeah, I jumped around a little bit, and then I was like, I wonder what this passage is about, and then I listened to the sermon on it, and it gives way more clarity. So, again, everyone always encourage people to go get books and do more listening and research. So we want to talk 1 Peter, so let's just dive in. I think a good place to start would probably be who is Peter. We all know Peter. He denied Christ, but then understanding who Peter is as a man, and then the context, like his life, his role with Christ on Earth, and then after that, what happened to him, and then how did he get to a point where he's writing this letter to the churches in Asia minor? WdH Yeah, yeah. So it's a great place to begin, actually. So I did write a specific chapter for the Bible study guide on Peter because I wanted to have people come to the letter with sort of a picture and understanding of what the scripture teaches us about Peter, because I think it really deepens our understanding of the letter when we when we see it coming from this real historical figure who experienced a great change the work of the Spirit in his in his life, bringing him from sort of how we know him as the impetuous, impulsive Peter to the seasoned apostle who speaks wisely as the pastor to these Christians living in modern day Turkey. So one of the things you get very clearly in the Gospels, and especially the Gospel of Mark, because Mark is probably Peter's Gospel. There's good reason to think that that Mark is sort of, Peter is telling his story to Mark, and Mark is writing it down. TV I had heard that before, but I never really thought about it. WdH Papias is the second century church father who says that Peter, Mark is Peter's gospel, and there's some makes a lot of sense. TV There’s some reasons like to believe that in the exactly the book. There's like urgency and like that's right. WdH It fits with his character. I love like the idea of reading Mark's gospel with Peter in your mind, and you see like he immediately, immediately, immediately, and you get this picture of somebody running around like crazy. TV Are there references to Peter in there that you're like, oh yeah, he would…. WdH So there's a really fascinating one at the Transfiguration. At the Transfiguration, Peter, James, and John are with Jesus on the on the Mount, and then Moses and Elijah appear, and then Peter is the one who says, "Should we make three tents” so he can like sort of stick around, like hold this moment? And then, and then Mark's gospel tells us because he didn't know what to say, which is just this my favorite part of the gospel because who knows? Only Peter knows why he said that. Right. I mean, so Peter's giving us a little insight. He's the kind of guy who like fills the silence. I was like, I don't know what to do. I don't know what to say. I'm just gonna say something. Like, should we put up some tents? TV So, Mark's like, so why did you say that? He's like, I don’t know. WdH I couldn't handle the silence, so I had to say something. So that that's a little insight. And then there's other things that really fit with a with a context in the city of Rome. So Peter, Peter ended his life, or his life ended, he was he was martyred in the city of Rome under Nero, almost certainly, probably crucified upside down. The legend is that he was going to be crucified, and he didn't feel like he was worthy to be crucified like his Lord. So he asked if he could be crucified upside down. There's good reason to think at least the broad strokes of that story is true, and certainly Jesus alludes to the martyrdom of Peter at the end of John's Gospel, right? When he says John specifically says he spoke about the death of the death of Peter, how he was going to end his life. Where was I going with this? Oh, so the Gospel of Mark has these has these indicators that it was probably written in the city of Rome, and Peter ends his life in Rome. Probably writes First Peter from Rome as well. The very end of First Peter, he talks about the church in Babylon, who's likewise chosen, greets you, and Babylon at this time is like a cipher for Rome, a safe way of speaking about Rome, or a way of sort of subtly criticizing Rome without doing it really obviously. Think of Revelation chapters 17 and 18, the fall of Babylon as well. I mean, so there's all sorts of correspondences that make it seem, okay Peter's gospel is recorded for us in in the Gospel of Mark. And so Peter's this really fascinating figure, really larger than life. I think on the pages of the gospel, and he's the one who has all these really highlights and lowlights in his ministry with Jesus. Like he's the one who makes the good confession, "You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” When other people are saying, "Well, he's Moses, he's Elijah, he's one of the prophets,” and he makes the good confession. But then it's right after that that Jesus is speaking about his crucifixion and his death, and the Son of Man must suffer many things and be crucified and hand over the hands of sinful men. And then Peter says, "No, like far be it from you, Lord, for these things to happen.” And then Jesus turns to him and says, "Get behind me, Satan!” Right, and so he goes from this like incredible moment where blessed are you, Simon Bar Jonah, because you've confessed what God has revealed to you to like being called Satan, essentially, and that those moments really to me underline the radical change that happens before he writes First Peter, because First Peter is the title of the book that I that I landed on was Living Hope for Suffering Sojourners, it's really about suffering as a Christian. What does it mean to suffer as a Christian? And as a disciple of Jesus, Peter wasn't willing to suffer, and he wasn't prepared for suffering. And he thought Jesus's path should be free of suffering. Like the thought of the crucifixion was like, no, no, like that's not a path that we want to choose. And that's why he objected to what Jesus was saying. And then you fast… and so the moment, for example, when Jesus is arrested, then Peter's the one who cuts off the high priest's ear with, or the servant of the high priest's ear with his sword. He's the brash, impetuous one. Take up your sword to prevent suffering. He's the one who denies Jesus, as you alluded to already earlier, because he doesn't want to suffer with him, avoid suffering. So here's a man who's a loving disciple of Jesus, following him, loves his Lord deeply, but is unwilling to suffer for his name's sake. And then he becomes this apostle who whose letter is almost entirely devoted to encouraging believers to endure suffering, to embrace suffering, to see suffering for the sake of Christ in the light of the eternal hope that is ours in Christ. And so there's this amazing switch that's a testimony to the work of the Spirit. Like you think of even Pentecost, that's the moment, of course, when the Spirit is poured out of the church, and Peter is with the others, and they're in the upper room, and they're jumping at shadows, and they're afraid because of the authorities, and then the Spirit is poured out on Pentecost, and then Peter's the one who's who goes out in the streets and preaches boldly, and then he gets thrown in prison, and he goes right back to the streets and preaches boldly again, and He’s like, “I got to do the will of God”, and he's receiving all the suffering willingly. In fact, Acts wonderfully says they considered it joy to for the privilege of suffering for the sake of Christ, and so there's this amazing shift in in Peter that's a testimony to the work of the Spirit in his life that really animates the letter. I think it shows us that Peter knows what he's talking about. He knows how hard it is to suffer. He knows how uninclined we are to suffer, but he also knows that this is the path that we need to follow. Those who suffer with Christ will also be glorified with Christ, and so our path too goes through the through the cross. TV Yeah, that's so cool. They, yeah, you often think about Peter in the Gospels being this the one who's not willing to suffer or stuff like that. But then, if you think about the timeline, like how long was it between Christ's crucifixion or ascension and this letter being written, or the end of Peter's life? WdH Yeah, so if 33 A.D. if we stick with that date for the crucifixion, and this letter depends on who you ask, but it's probably written in the 60s, and I happen to think it's probably written in the around 65 A.D. So we're talking 20 some odd years, in in the meantime, or sorry, that's 30. My bad, my math is bad, that’s 30. TV Like so, I'm yeah, like you think about Peter in the light of the gospel and what we read there because that's what we often are reading. But then that's about you say approximately a three years when he's following Christ in his ministry. He's got three years of not being willing to, you know, suffer, and then he's got 30 years of the suffering. So really, when you're reading this book, it's you're actually getting a lot more life experience from Peter, the man who's willing to suffer. WdH Exactly, and I really think that the tone of his… so he's coming as one who knows our human inclination to avoid suffering as well because he's been there in the past. He knows that about us, but he's coming as the as the elder brother, the pastor. Like he calls us beloved in the letter a number of times, and he calls himself the fellow elder and the shepherd alongside the other shepherds and so you really get this sense in which he wants to bring encouragement to his beloved brothers and sisters in Christ who are who are in difficult circumstances and he wants to encourage them with the hope that he has discovered that he has found in Christ as well. TV So I guess we should touch on who he's writing to. Peter at the beginning of Acts is I mean they're Jewish, but then he's a lot more focused on the Jews, right? Like he's in Jerusalem. WdH That's right. And Paul's the apostle to the Gentiles, and Peter's sort of the local apostle of the Jews. TV Yeah and then he has a vision of the unclean animals or the clean unclean animals like so those types I always think of Peter as kind of the Jewish or like he's trying to bring Jews but then reading on 1 Peter his audience isn't all Jewish, or mostly not Jewish. WdH Yeah, exactly. Probably a mix of the two. It's clear that in that some of them certainly were not Jewish because it talks about them doing what the Gentiles used to do, sort of living in the patterns of disobedience and whatnot. That's the beginning of chapter four. So he's clearly addressing some who are not who are not Jewish. Yeah. So there's a there's a bit of a there's a gap in our understanding or our knowledge of what Peter is busy with. We don't even really know did he have a personal relationship with these Christians because he's writing to Christians in modern day Turkey, in Cappadocia, Asia, Bithynia. TV Do we know if he does a…? WdH No, we don't. There's time in the sense of there's enough of a time gap in our understanding with history, that he that he could have, and then he might be writing to churches that he established or that he built up further. But we just don't we just don't know. We basically know that he had his ministry in Jerusalem and the surrounding area, and then he ended his life in Rome. He met the Apostle Paul on occasion. Galatians talks about that, but beyond that, we don't have a lot of details in the in between period. TV That's pretty common for other, like James, the brother Jesus. You don't really know where everywhere he goes, WdH Exactly. So, that's not surprising at all. TV Though Acts follows like what follows Paul. WdH Yeah, so Peter, Peter, the first half, the chapter, what is it 10, 11, 11, and then and then Paul after his conversion, and then it's really about Paul after that point. So we don't we don't really know. It could be that he has no relationship with these with these Christians. It's a large area that he's writing to, like Christians scattered throughout the dispersion. He says the dispersion in these different Roman provinces: Cappadocia, Asia, Pontus, Galatia, and Bithynia, which is all Turkey. TV If you look at on a map, it's like the whole, to all of you over there. WdH It’s massive. Yeah, exactly, exactly. So I was just came back from the trip to Turkey and Greece in the footsteps of the apostles, and we skirted sort of the coastline, and so we visited many of the churches that are addressed in the in the book of Revelation, but probably many of these churches and Christians that Peter's addressing are far in the interior of Turkey, and there some of them are in towns, some of them are in villages, some of them in rural contexts. So he's addressing a really a wide variety of believers in fairly radically different contexts too. From the most Greek probably context being on the coast to much more sort of native culture in in some of the other areas, so a broad range of possible experiences. TV Okay, cool. And then like obviously a broad range of churches. So it's not he's not writing as in Revelation where you have like hey you your church is doing this, and you don't have the same kind of level of intensity or specific mentions as you would in like Galatians, Ephesians. So then, are these are the churches that or the letters we have to churches like Galatia, like Ephesus and Philippi from Paul, where obviously he has a relationship with those people. Are those contexts different? Like the cities we know a lot about, like Ephesus, for instance, or like we don't really know anything about these churches. It's more of a like a wide range. Like yeah, would is that why this ends up being like a letter that can speak to us really well? WdH I think so. Like they're often called the non-appalling epistles, the Catholic epistles, and I think that speaks even to, they sort of have this universal appeal in a way that this the specifics of the letter to the Corinthians don't, of course. Like so, for the letter to the Corinthians, you want to get a real handle on what's going on in Corinth and how is, why is Paul writing this way? Whereas with First Peter and some of the other epistles, James, it's much more applicable across a broad range of experiences because it's not addressing particular circumstances, but believers who are in in different places experiencing different kind of pressures with a commonality though, and I think it's that commonality that helps us to take the scriptures in the 21st century and apply them really directly to our own circumstances because we don't need to in a sense dispense with the particularities or sort of say well that was that was then it comes much more directly to us in the 21st century than perhaps some of the other letters and it becomes easier to apply to us to ourselves as well. TV Yeah, that makes sense. It's interesting that he writes a letter to such a broad range of churches. Like, yeah, why there and not like why wouldn't he just say to everybody or to like is it does he is he excluding a piece of the world? WdH I think what’s probably happening is that so at the very end, he mentions Sylvanus, who's worked on this with him, and who's probably taking the letter. So he he's addressing the church. It's going to go everywhere. I mean, we're reading it in 21st century Canada, of course. But he he's imagining this sort of travel itinerary of Silas as he brings the letter to the various churches. So he has a concrete group of people in mind, or scattered across a concrete area, and his idea is that Silas travels from place to place, as opposed to just sort of sending him out to the winds and sayings wherever you see, go find all the Christians. He’s saying no, no, in this part of the world. TV So essentially Silas is planning a missionary journey, essentially, and he's like here's a letter to those people. WdH Yeah, I think that's the best way to understand what's going on there with Silas's role as well. TV I read there was a footnote somewhere I read that was that said the order in which he lists is likely the route that Silas would have taken. WdH That's one interpretation. TV I don't know where you would get that from, but it also if you look at the area it doesn’t work very well, it doesn't work. No, it doesn't. It's like a nice WdH No, it doesn’t work well. It’s not a nice circle. TV I don’t know if this guy had MapQuest or what, or what they had back then, but he should probably have gotten a map out. But yeah, that's interesting. So, I guess what can we learn about that the commonality then from the churches that he's writing to, or is it just happen to be that Silas is going to do this this trip, and he said, "Okay, just read it everywhere”, or is there something about… well, I guess explain like the cultural context of those churches too. You mentioned they're different than some of those major cities too. WdH So the commonality. I mean, there is a great spread of Greek culture at this time. So that it's the world is very, uniform is putting it too strongly, but experiences are very similar throughout the Mediterranean world because of after Alexander the Great and the spread of Greek culture, things become very similar, and you have Romans adopting Greek gods, and every local god in a sense has a corresponding Greek and Roman gods, and so even religiously, there's sort of a there's a homogeneity to it, even while there's the local practices and the local impacts, but what that means is that the gospel goes out, and Christians experience similar challenges in any local circumstances. They live in a world full of gods, and that's going to create pressure points. Whether that god is the Greek god of war, Ares, or it's the local Syrian mother god Asibali. Like either way, it's going to create pressures on Christians because one of the most significant things to note about this time period is that they don't have we have this sort of separation between religion and the rest of your life, or we can imagine that. We shouldn't, but people can imagine the idea like you keep your religion at home and you keep it on your Sunday church experience, and then for the rest, don't let… In the ancient world, there was nothing like that. Social, cultural, economic, religion, everything is wrapped up in themselves, especially the economic side of things. So if you are a local tradesman in a local town, and then you would have to belong to the local guild, the association that had to do with that particular, let's say, tanner, community of tanners. Well, that wasn't just a economic institution; it was a cultural, social, political institution, a religious institution. So you would have your patron god, and so as a Christian, let's say you came to faith in Christ and you're like dispensing with all this false religion. Well, that meant now like how can I be a member of this local association? How can how can I be a member of this guild? Or if I do, I'm going to hold out on these religious the religious aspects, and how are the people going to view me, and they might, to their view, if the gods are displeased with us for whatever reason, it's going to impact our bottom line, right? And so the idea that these Christians were undermining the favor of the gods towards them. So when you decided to become a Christian, or when you came to faith in Christ, I should say, it had a huge, wide-ranging impact and negatively on the situation you found yourself in in the town or city where you were living. You stood out now, but you were not just standing out, but you were a potential threat to the harmony of the gods, like the peace of the gods, in that in that place, which is which is why you get like I know you know about the fire of Rome in 8064 right? Nero blames it on the Christians. Why in the world he's blaming on the Christians, on a religious group? Well, because he needs to reassure the people of Rome that that the gods are still going to be happy with us. You need to appease not just the people but the but the gods and ensuring that peace, and so that you pick on this group of people who are known to be stepping outside of the social order, outside of religion, and so you blame them because they're easy to blame. I mean, so you have that sort of thing going on, and in fact, one scholar, and I think this is a compelling thesis, suggests that Peter's writing after that fire in Rome, and in a sense, it becomes a bit open season on Christians after Nero in the city of Rome. It's very localized persecution for a time when they're being burned at the stake and whatnot. But across the empire, you have the sort of the spillover effect of Christians become public enemy number one, or if there's a problem, if you're you have a bad harvest and you're like, what's going on? Why are the gods displeased with us? We're like, maybe it's this bunch of Christians here who refuse to participate in our festivals and who are stepping out of their associations, and so they become the go to when anything goes wrong, and so you can imagine that it makes it more uncomfortable for Christians to exist in that kind of environment. TV Yeah, that is interesting. I never thought about the connection of how intertwined their religion was with their culture or their yes, yeah, like the gods are everywhere. Like you read about Paul entering Athens, right? But like you also, I didn't think about that being economic and political and everything. Like they would just right away blame a religious group for what's happening to them economically. WdH You remember the story in in Acts on Ephesus, right, and the and the silversmiths were like, yeah, it’s affecting the sale of our of our little statues, great is Artemis of the Ephesians, and so there's a big riot. TV Literally the whole city is in riot in a riot because this guild is has a problem, WdH And there's a really fascinating. So this is later than First Peter, but in Bithynia, which is one of the areas he addresses, this is the early second century. There's a governor named Pliny the Younger, who who's there on behalf of Trajan, and he's written a whole series of letters that we have. And two of the most famous letters are letters about Christians. What should I do with Christians? And he addresses them to Trajan the emperor, and basically says, like, should I pursue them? Should I root them out? Should I? And when once somebody accuses them of being a Christian, what should I do? And they determine that they shouldn't sort of try to find Christians, but if somebody accuses somebody of being a Christian, they should have a test. Like, will they deny Christ? Will they sacrifice the emperor? If not, if they refuse, then they should be executed. So that's the decision they make. But one of the really interesting things is he says after he has done this that the sale of meat in the temples is back up again. Like there's an economic the Christians have had had an economic impact on the area, such that the temples aren't being frequented in the same kind of way and so once the Christians are being persecuted, being executed, then things are sort of back to normal. And so, it's just a really enlightening experience to say, like when the Christians decided to worship Jesus, it was not just a declaration about their personal faith, sort of this personal relationship they had, and the rest of life could go on as per usual. It was no, Peter says, Jesus is Lord, right? When you set apart Christ as Lord in your hearts, when you acknowledge Christ as holy, that that's going to have an impact on the entirety of your human existence, and that's going to create all sorts of challenges when you live in a in a culture that doesn't honor Him as Lord. In fact, honors competing deities as lords. TV Man, that's fascinating. I don't like think of that context as much. And then knowing Peter writes from Rome, even around the time, even if it's not after the fire, but around that time, you can feel that hostility. Then you can read it in the letter, like you can kind of feel it like, and the suffering kind of comes to life. Then, so what is the dispersion? He says to those in the dispersion, does that mean that these that these Christians came from other places, or what is? WdH So dispersion. So you're going to have different interpretations of this. TV I just want the truth. WdH Yeah, you want. Okay, I'll give you the. I'll give you the cold hard truth. Dispersion connects to my mind with the with this other phrase for these Christians, which is exiles, and he calls them that at the very beginning chosen exiles, and then later on in chapter two as well, he calls them exiles and strangers. I mean, what I think what he's doing with all that is he's casting the Christian experience and the Christian identity in sort of Old Testament terms. Dispersion has to do with diaspora, has to do with the scattering of the tribes of Israel after the exile, and so he's saying there's a there's a way in which the experience of Christians in this world is similar to what happened to the Jews after the destruction of the temple. They went into exile in Babylon. They were scattered around the Mediterranean world, so they're far from their homeland, far from the place of God's presence in Jerusalem. And so, what he wants to do with that is he wants to remind Christians, wants to remind us, that this isn't our home. That this isn't our eternal home. That we are here as those who are exiles, far from home, in fact. And that that ought to shape the way that we live. It ought to shape the way that we view our life in this world, and it orients us towards the future. Like he's also the one who says. That we're born into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, into an inheritance that will never perish, spoil, or fade. And he's saying, "Where's our inheritance?” We’re like Hebrews 11, the men and women of faith who are looking for a city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God. And so uses the same language there. Hebrews does it calls Abraham a stranger and a sojourner in this, and so that's Peter's favorite word for Christians, and that's that marks the entirety of his understanding of the Christian life. TV Right. WdH What it means for you as a as a Christian is that while you live here and you work here and you do all the things that you do here, at the end of the day, your forever home is in the New Jerusalem. It's when Christ returns, and so there is going to be a degree to which you will always feel uprooted, like a diaspora member, like an exile in your present experience. TV Right. Like the word dispersion and exiles makes me think of makes me think that Peter's addressing Jews in that like that's the context that they were living in. They were they were exiled from their land and but I, the metaphor is so much deeper than that I guess but he's not necessarily like you mentioned he's not necessarily writing to Jews so he is using this as in metaphorical, a metaphorical sense. But are these are these Gentile Christians, are they are they from all over? Are they like likely native residents of that area? Does it matter? WdH Yeah, that’s hard to say. I don't think it matters entirely. I think it does matter to say that he's addressing some Gentiles, because one of the wonderful things that Peter, of course, is known for is that he has that vision. You mentioned it earlier: the in-gathering of the Gentiles. And one of the things I think that's challenging for us in the 21st century to grapple with is the significance of the in-gathering of the Gentiles into the Jewish community at the very beginning. Right, the thought that the Gentiles should be on equal status with the Jews. TV Well, that’s why I love Peter because…. WdH It’s a huge issue for the first century church. Right, Peter even himself, Paul confronts him in Galatians, or he tells the story of his confrontation because he's refusing to eat with Gentiles at a certain point. So when we understand that backdrop, and now we understand he's writing to some Gentiles, and then he says the things he says about the church, in especially chapter 2:9 and 10. You are a holy race, a chosen priesthood, a royal priesthood, a chosen nation. All these amazing things, and he's addressing a mixed body of Jews and Gentiles, and he addresses them alike as this dispersion, alike as exiles. What he's saying is, there is no… he's saying what Paul says elsewhere. There's no Jew or Greek. There's no. There's no Gentile or there's no outsider, insider. The body of Christ is one. Whether your story is Jewish or your story is Gentile. TV Yeah which for some reason it hits different from Peter. Like it just because his context. Like you read his context with the Jews in Jerusalem and then you don't really read about him a lot otherwise. But Paul is like very clearly going to the Gentiles, like that just feels like his calling. WdH We expect that from him. TV We expect it from him, yeah. But then from Peter to see him addressing Gentiles in this way. WdH I think it's amazing, especially as Gentiles, TV It always fascinates me, though. Like, I mean, our respect that we should have for the Jews, but then also like the watching these Jewish guys, like Peter, trace that line to be like, oh, this is what that meant. Like, this is what the inclusion of all nations meant and then they get there, like in in one Peter, he's addressing this, and likewise everybody, like it's just a, it's we're all one church. Obviously separating ourselves from the Jewish. I mean, religion, Judaism, I guess. But as Christians, so it's interesting. I actually like, he actually uses the word Christian too, which is not.. WdH yes, which is very rare in this time. And it begins and it begins as sort of a pejorative term, like a negative thing, like little Christs. And if you think especially of Jesus having been crucified, it's like these little people who follow the crucified guy. Right. It's really it's not meant to be a, but the Christians wear it as a badge of honor. But in Peter's context, he mentions it because frequently, the when we talk about the suffering that they're experiencing this time, the persecution, it's probably mostly at this point the type that you would experience verbally. Like he talks a lot about being maligned, being slandered. So it's not yet at the level that we see later on, where you're going to be crucified or thrown to the lions for the sake of your faith. But you're starting to really feel like exiles, like you're feeling as though we don't fit in. And my neighbors throw these things at me; they accuse me of things that that make me realize that I I'm not at home here anymore. I mean, so the Christians goes along with that. Like, here are these here are these Christians. Who do they think they are, and what do they think they're doing? And so, it's the tensions that that come when you're living in a society that's hostile to the Christian faith. And that and that's where I think it so helpfully translates to our contemporary context for the 21st century because we're not living in a world, by God's grace and His providence, where you'll be thrown in prison for the sake of Christ not today you won't be executed for the sake of Christ and yet we are living in a world in which to bear the name of Christian no longer has the same significance as it did in the past. It's no longer comfortable, TV Like it's social capital, or it's not social. WdH You won’t win votes by being a church going politician anymore, sort of naturally. TV Which is like honestly a recent change. WdH It is. So there's a I don't know if you call him theologian Aaron Wren social commentator as well and he separates out in the Christian in the West he talks about the positive world the neutral world and the negative world. Positive world when Christian, Christianity was valued honored sort of across the board. The neutral world where it didn't really matter. And I want to say he traces the negative world where it's in a sense a bad thing to be a Christian to like 2013, 2014. So we're talking we're talking 12, 13 years ago where things have sort of shifted to a different place, and it's really interesting to think of things like if we just look to our neighbors to the south, Barack Obama on homosexual marriage. When he begins, he is against homosexual marriage, and then he and then he flips, and that I think in particular the Obergefell decision marks like a significant, or like a, I don't know what you would call, like a bellwether in terms of how does the culture view Christianity and how will Christians fit in the public square? You go from your morals aligning with public opinion to your morals being completely out of touch and out of step with public opinion, and I think the sexual revolution in many respects, has made our world a lot more like the first century world than we've ever experienced before. TV Yeah, it's man. Start talking about start talking about our culture. It's like, it is fascinating that those little things, but it's also like we I think we've even gotten past like you mentioned 2013, 2014, that's probably when you started seeing us getting past the idea that it was even just morally superior to be a Christian. Like, even if you don't believe it, like the way we're acting is still like you still have to respect it. Like, and that's why our politicians were all like, "Well, we're Catholic.” Yeah, like no one, yeah, no one's been to a church in forever. But I think was it Biden who said Palmist or Pasalmist or something? Just like, just like yeah, shows this exactly. WdH Yeah, have you read your Bible? TV Oh yeah, you have no idea. Never opened this before, but like before, it was like if I say I'm Catholic or whatever, then I'm at least showing I have a moral compass that has some relevance. But now I don't even think that that's the case. WdH No, especially not in Canada. And in fact, worse it will mean for some people and perhaps the loud minority or maybe even majority that if you're following the scriptures, you're misogynistic. You're a bigoted. You're you are homophobe, and those things are actually leveled, which is I think the kinds of things that were being leveled at Christians the first century. Not those words, but different kinds of words. Well, if you're a Christian, then you must.. TV Homophobe probably wasn’t... Although it does sound fairly Greek, actually. WdH It is very Greek. Very Greek. It is perfectly Greek, but they had other accusations. So they were accused, for example, of being incestuous in the first centuries because they misunderstood brother/sister language. And I mean, if you go to a wedding in our churches these days too, this brother and sister are getting married. I've always thought for an outsider, that must seem really weird. Don't TV Don’t put that transcription into AI. WdH Yeah, exactly. Or cannibals because they misunderstood the Lord's Supper. Baptism was misunderstood, and so they all these sorts of things. So Tacitus, the Roman historian, talks about Christians as being haters of the human race. Like they were hateful people, and that and that's what we're experiencing today, and so Peter's addressing people who are for this, because they bear the name of Christ, are being targeted, ridiculed, slandered, labeled in different kinds of ways, and so then I think when we put it that way, it starts to speak really powerfully to our contemporary experience. TV Does Peter write to them like he's writing to them in their suffering, in their context? But he's also suffering or about to suffer and die in a very much a different type of suffering, I guess. Like, is he writing? Can you feel in the letter that he's writing out of his pain, or like I've been imprisoned, and I've been like Paul writes like that, right? Does Peter bring that out, or is it more focused on like what you guys are experiencing? WdH I think I think it's gotta be both. And I mean, when he when he talks about himself as a partaker in the sufferings of Christ, I'm a witness of the glories that we reveal. That's in chapter five. He's speaking not only about one who witnessed the sufferings of Christ, but it was one who is experiencing fellowship with Christ in suffering, and his might look different than the others. And I think he's what he's also doing is preparing them for the eventuality of greater suffering. Like now you're being maligned, now you're being slandered, now in a sense it's sort of verbal persecution. You just wait, and he talks because he talks about fiery trials, and I don't think, and most people would not think that that's happening already. It's not the time when people are literally being burned, unless it's just at Rome after the fire in Rome. But he's preparing them for future suffering, and he's saying, how should you anticipate? How should be prepared for? And there too, it speaks so powerfully to us to say, are we ready for greater suffering for the sake of Christ? We need to be, the time to prepare for suffering for the sake of Christ is not when it happens, it's now. It's now in a sense when we are, are we preparing our children as parents to bear the name of Christ and to be prepared for the suffering that accompanies bearing the name for Christ. Are we prepared? I always tell my catechism students when we talk about memorization, the songs and the and the scriptures and the catechisms, like what I what I want is for you when you are in prison for the sake of Christ to have enough scripture in your heart that if they take your Bible away, you won't you won't need it. TV I think about that with memory work for our songs that we sing in elementary school and stuff. WdH Paul and Silas singing in singing in prison in Philippi. I saw the prison there in Philippi the other week and had to think of them singing hymns. Did they have their hymn books with them? Did they have their iPhone so that they could pull it up quickly? No, they had it hidden in their hearts. And so, for us too, like to be steeped, to be ready now to suffer for the sake of Christ, I think is so important. Will we despair? Will we throw up our hands? Be discouraged? Will we react with fear, worry, anxiety, or will we entrust ourselves to the Lord? TV Yeah, yeah, man. I want to, I want to dive deep on this suffering thing because I want, like, when you're studying through this this Bible study, which all of our listeners are going to buy, obviously, and study through intensely, because as you're as you're working through this, like there's a quote I got it from 4: 12, which is you already mentioned the fire trials, “Beloved, do not be surprised by fiery trials when they come upon you to test you as though something strange were happening to you.” Yeah, and I think we all know that. Like we all we all say, yeah, yeah, like we know. But then we talk about it in our Bible studies. We say, well, you know, persecution is different for us than it is for you know Nigeria or China or like, and so our context is different. The, say suffering, we have is different and what we're preparing for, like what we're going to not be surprised by, is different. Like, so when we think about Peter sitting in Rome writing this letter, well, he's like you read about Paul, like he's basically preparing himself to be like martyred, like, but he's not… Peter doesn't address these Christians necessarily in that context, but he's he is saying, be ready, don't be surprised when this happens, don't be surprised if the world hates you, like the world will hate you. WdH Yeah, which Jesus said already. TV So, how do we like.. I'm always trying to make… I'm asking myself this question: Like, am I ready? Like, I actually like in preparing for this, I sat down with my wife and I said, are we ready for this? WdH That’s a great question. TV What does that mean? Like, I don't even know what I'm asking when I say, are we ready for this? Like, are you ready for a fiery trial? Well, my mind always says, "Okay, well, you have to think reasonably about what you think… How is that going to come about? And like that's just something that we just, yeah, we like to think about our culture. We like to think about, okay, well, this is happening, that's happening. You know, Bill C9 just passed. Yeah, I mean, if you go through the last three years of the bills that our government has passed, it's horrifying. But nothing's happening. Like nothing. Like right now, we could we can publish this episode on YouTube. Now we can't probably get monetized, but like it's not going to get removed. It's not. Maybe that's because no one listens. But everyone should tell their friends about the show so it gets removed off YouTube, but like if you have a platform and you talk about these things, it's not like Canada, like in our Canadian context, or even in the States that we're just getting, we're not getting persecuted exactly by like removal of our stuff and we're definitely not being thrown in jail, but there's like, is it a leap to say that you might? On that like we're close. WdH Yeah, absolutely. TV But with Bill C9, like there's a really easily logical path to having you thrown in jail for what you're teaching in your class. WdH Absolutely, or preaching from the pulpit. TV Yeah and so like the question of like, are you ready to suffer? Is yeah, those things mean different things in my head. So how do we understand what is suffering? Because on the one hand, I'm like, yeah, we are suffering in a cultural context. You know, it's not social capital to be a Christian, therefore, we have to give some, we have to be willing to give something up in our businesses to say we're Christians to act like Christians to wear it on our on our sleeves. WdH Yeah. TV On the other hand, like I'm not being thrown in prison, but when I do, like, how do I prepare myself to be thrown in prison? Like we have a podcast. If I say like with Bill C9, like I could literally say something now that would get me thrown in prison, or could. Now I don't feel that as a threat but like something I say today might land me in prison the evidence would be this episode. WdH Right yes, and so there's two things to say in terms of how do you prepare yourself for that the one is you don't. What I mean by that is that God is the one who provides the strength when we face the consequences for confessing the name of Christ in a fallen world. What I mean to say is, when you think about the suffering that some of the martyrs in the past have done, you've probably had the same experience as I have, where you think like I could never do that, or like this is this is crazy. Like, would I? And you ask the question: Would I have the strength to endure something like that? Like a man like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, for example, in the Second World War, or Richard Wormbrand in Romania under the communist dictators? Could I endure having my fingernails pulled out for the sake of Christ? Right? And you think no, but God provides the strength to His children when they when they need it. TV Well, that's what I lean on. WdH My mom, of course, recently we went through the loss of my dad. I shouldn't say the loss. He's gone into glory. And one of the things it was a shocking loss. It was it was a shocking, sudden death, and God gave the strength in the midst of it. And if you had asked my mom in November, would you be strong enough to endure something like this? She would have said, “no”, or “I don't know”. But God gives God gives the strength. Peter himself gives us the encouragement at the very end that that passage that's really famous because of the profession of faith form that we have. “After you've suffered a little while, the God of all grace will Himself confirm, restore, strengthen, establish you.” I think we got to cling to that. Where is where is our hope ultimately? Is it because we've done all the right things in advance? Because we, because we're such strong believers? No, our hope is in is in God who strengthens, confirms, establishes, and keeps us firm. So we want to look to the future, the possibility of suffering, with firm confidence in in the God who, the God who made us, and the God who loves us, and the God who sustains us. But then the second answer too is, how will you be ready? Is by already now growing in your faith and your love for the Lord Jesus, if you if you don't love Him now, you're not going to love Him when hardship comes. If He doesn't mean much to you now, you're not going to hold fast to Him, and He's not in a sense you're not going to hold fast to Him when trouble comes. And so the question is, what are you doing now to deepen your walk with the Lord, your love for the Lord. How great is your joy in the eternal inheritance that will be yours at the return of Christ? Like, how much do you think about eternal glory instead of just your present momentary life? I think there's a reason why he calls us exiles, is because we so easily become at home here. Like we busy ourselves with our lives, you know that as well as I do. Like you become busy with building a family, buying a home, with the job, with the next thing, and we're always upgrading, and we have these dreams and ambitions, and those are all really good things until they make us forget that this isn't, that you don't only live once. That we have eternal life in store for us. And so actually, then suffering is a blessed reminder. Like I do think one of the greatest challenges of Christian faith is comfort and complacency. For us to be super comfortable, no threats to our faith, and we just go through life, and we perhaps at the end of our life realize, wait, I never really loved the Lord. I was just doing my own thing and sort of baptizing it in the name of Jesus, as opposed to living in deep fellowship with Him. And when suffering comes, we're forced to reckon with what ultimately is the place we find our hope, and what are we looking for in this life? TV Yeah, so I mean, my mind goes 100 different ways here. I think about preparation like that, like, I don't think it's necessarily just like what you're saying. The conviction you have to work on that. You have to work on your faith. You have to work on your love for Christ. And I don't think it's just… I mean, yeah, God will give you strength in that moment, and you don't know what strength that is. And we like there's examples of people doing superhuman things physically that we could never imagine. WdH Yeah, TV And like I think there's a reality under all of that that's true. Like God will give you more than you can imagine in those moments, and that's how we see people martyred, and like you say, well, could that be me? Well, yeah, I think it could be, like because God will give you that strength. But on the other hand, like I, I love to hunt, and I moved out to Alberta, and I climb up on mountains where grizzly bears live. WdH Right. You got to take me one time. TV So you know. I would. We wouldn't get much hunting done. We just do this whole time. There is a lot of sitting and looking through Bibles on the top of mountains, so we could talk about all sorts of books in the Bible. But you know, I take a backpack from my truck and I hike up for a day or two, and I camp up on top of mountains, sometimes by myself, in Grizzly Bear Country. The only way that you can do that is by sitting at home and thinking about that. If you want to sleep good at night on the top of a mountain in Grizzly Country, you have to think like first of all, what are the odds that this is going to happen? It's not going to happen. This, and secondly, like, what would I do? What preparation can I…? You have to be prepared. You, but it's more than just. It's more than just. I know I need to bring bear spray. I have a gun. Like, just because you have the things doesn't mean that you're ready. Like, you have to think about using them. You have to almost play scenarios in your head. I've never been attacked or confronted with a bear, but like the times that I'm worried is the times I haven't thought about that enough. And I think about this is the same. It's like the suffering. Are you going to be ready for this? Because, I mean, I think about this podcast. I think about, but then I think about my family. I'm like, I have a responsibility to my family. Yeah, like I'm more worried about preparing my family. I'm all game with suffering. Like, if you were like we'll go to prison okay whatever like I'm less worried about myself but my family like it's that's the part for me that I like how do I prepare my family for my suffering and then you just start avoiding it you just start thinking well I'm just not going to say anything on this podcast that would get me arrested, right? But then your then your witness is goes away eventually, like maybe not right away, but eventually, or you know the government's going to say you can't quite say that, and then, but like at what point do we have to seek it out? At what point like are we called to seek out the suffering in more real ways when it presents itself, like, or are we like called to sit back and… Obviously, we're called to our daily calling. Like, I'm not a minister, so I'm not about to get up on a pulpit and preach. WdH Yep. TV But then again, like, I have a podcast, and if the government says you can't say that homosexuality is wrong, like, should I come on the next podcast and go homosexuality is wrong, or is that is that unwise, or is that leaning into my calling and being willing to suffer? Because I you could frame it as like, well, that's just not wise. WdH Yeah, that’s just dumb. TV Like if you knew if you knew there were transgender activists in your church specifically to catch you on a Sunday morning saying something, would you say it? Well, it's like there were ministers during COVID who did these types of things, and it's not universally been like, way to go, guys. Like good witness. But like where…? My brain's been thinking of this for two years, but like you have to think about it because if we get in a spot with RP with the podcast where we're basically being told what we can say and what we can't say, well, we're just not gonna like we can't have that, and we all agree. But then, to what level are we not allowed to have that? WdH Well, I don't, I don't think that that God calls us to seek out suffering in the sense of that we that we need to find ways to produce the kind of suffering that Peter is talking about, and yet he certainly doesn't call us to avoid suffering either. I mean, so I would say if you were if you had these transgender activists in your church and you were going to preach a certain passage, then you ought to preach that passage in just the way you would have if they hadn't been in their presence, and if that gets you into trouble, then then so be it. You embrace that suffering, so you don't avoid it. But I wouldn't say like if you had been planning to preach on John 3:16 or something like that, that you now choose something that's going to ruffle their feathers in a particular kind of way, trusting in the work of the Spirit anyway to bring conviction of sin and renewal of their hearts. So I don't think we're called to look at look seek it out. It's also true that we all have different we all have different places and different roles and different responsibilities. So for me, yeah, to continue to preach the gospel faithfully and boldly is really important. Is to preach the whole counsel of God, and one of the beauties of going through a letter like First Peter or doing expositional preaching is you don't get to avoid any of the topics. Like if it confronts the culture in the scriptures, you got to preach that gospel. So I went through the sermon series on marriage, right, addressing the women, submission, which is a very unpopular topic in today's culture, and so it's going to press up against… And I shared, throughout the book, you'll see that wanted to make it very contemporary, I shared the conviction that this is addressing our contemporary context in terms of homosexual marriage and all these kinds of things. You want to say those things directly because not saying them in this context would, in a sense, be saying perhaps the opposite. Or so, yes, you, is that seeking out suffering? No, it's being it's being faithful to your task and calling. And yours is different. You have this podcast, and that does place you in a different place than somebody who doesn't have that kind of a platform. Should that other person start a podcast so that they can also embrace that concept. No, I don't, I don't think so. So, in a sense, we're all going to be called to suffer differently. Just like not everybody is called to suffer like Bonhoeffer or Richard Wormbrand. As far as your children are concerned, how do you how do you prepare them for suffering? Is you teach them what it means to be a Christian, and at the end of the day, it doesn't mean that the life of blessing is comfort, success, stability. You teach them what does it mean to be a Christian. It means to follow in the footsteps of Jesus, as Peter puts it in First Peter 2: 21. Wherever that may lead, and it may lead to suffering, and it may lead to whatever the future may hold, but the best life to be lived is a life in fellowship with Christ. So it's really not different than it always has been. I do think health and wealth gospel, for example. There are corners of the Christian world that that seem to think that being a Christian means if you're a good Christian, you should be comfortable, and you should have health, and you should have wealth, and that's the farthest thing from what Peter is saying. He's saying actually that by far the most common experience of the Christian has been it's hard to confess Christ in a fallen world, and so are you ready for that for your kids? Are you ready to stand out? Sometimes even in our own Christian schools, because these are the things that we hold to be true in terms of our Christian witness, and some of the other kids might not understand it, and you might get poked fun of. Are you ready to endure that? Are you secure in your identity in Christ? Do you know that at the end of the day, what matters most is that you are loved by the eternal God in Christ Jesus, and that's the thing that you need to hang on to, and you may experience a lifetime of suffering, but a day is coming when Christ returns in the clouds of heaven, and He is going to usher in a world without any of that. And if you partake in His suffering, you'll partake in His glory as well. All those kinds of things. So it's really simple. It's to say, teach your children the glory of the gospel. That's why living hope is the other part of the title. Are we going to be characterized as people by living hope – a hope that is rooted in the resurrection of Jesus, that that looks at life on a infinite scale as opposed to this temporal, momentary trial? Are we going to look at life in light of the resurrection of Jesus, and is that going to transform us into people of hope, hope that's recognizable, right? In in First Peter 3:15, he talks about they will ask you the reason for the hope that's within you. That's the mystery of it all. Like as we live as Christians in this world, and we stand out, we're weird, and we're different, and we're also somehow compelling. Like that's that was really in the first century too. They were rescuing babies off the garbage heaps, and they were doing they were taking care of the sick, and they were taking care of the poor. And people are like, you guys are really weird. You say some things, and I think you actually hate people, but somehow you're doing these loving things, and they couldn't they couldn't mesh the two, and they looked at the people and they saw especially the hope that was in them. Like how can you be people of hope when your culture rejects you, maligns you, slanders you? How can you be people of hope? Well, let me tell you the gospel, and he envisions that being the opportunity for us to share the reason. The church, by God's grace, is growing, I think in Canada and in the Christian post Christian West, from people who see how dark it is outside, and realize that there's something compelling and beautiful in the Christian gospel message. And so, especially young men, right, in places like Finland, but also here in Canada, in the UK, young men who are disillusioned with the state of the world that that they're in, they see the blackness of it all, the darkness of all, and they're being drawn to the to the light. And I think it has to do with exactly this sort of thing, to say when we are people of hope in a dark world, we will radiate like lights in the universe. TV Yeah, yeah, I think even there's a there's an element of the world looking, like men especially, looking for that suffering because it's been so like I always struggle because of the affluence. It's like, what does it mean to struggle or suffer in a world that you're so affluent in? That you could avoid. WdH It’s not good for us. It's not good for us. Peter talks about the very beginning, the first chapter about our faith being refined like gold. Right, he uses that image of the gold refinery. And if you're not in the flames, your faith isn't growing terribly well. I imagine you've had the experience that I've had the most difficult seasons in my life. I mean the moments in which I have experienced the greatest spiritual growth, and experienced the fellowship with Christ most intensely. It's when life is coasting along that that you don't feel particularly close to God. You don't experience, and you don't grow in holiness and sanctification either. God uses the suffering, so comfort is never good for the Christian. TV No, that's right. Well, heavenly comfort. WdH Right, eternal comfort. Yeah. TV But when you think about the hope that you have, it and the… I mean, I feel like every time we're sitting here, we're just sitting in this. You know. We did this with the heaven episode two. Like we're thinking. If you think about the hope that we have eternally, we it makes you feel so small and so like you want to just get up and like suffer for Christ. But then I think there's an element of in our affluent world, in our Western world, like you almost have to be intentionally looking for it. Like, but I don't know. Like you mentioned, like I think even in culture, people are starting to do that. They're like, okay, well, I know it's been comfortable for the last little while, but look, there's look at the darkness that's on the other side that that comfort that comfortable life. Like, WdH And I think one of the things that we need to wrestle with too is that we don't we don't pursue the comfort in every aspect of our lives either. Like I think, so last night I spoke at the Guido grad and spoke on Hebrews 11, Abraham and Sarah who left the comforts of civilization and Ur of the Chaldeans and traveled to a land that they didn't know and had been promised to them, but they never received what was promised, and they lived in tents. That's what the Hebrews tells like for their whole lives, like not just for two weeks in the summer, but they lived in tents their whole lives. And I think that's a very deliberate, like you say, decision that they made not to put down put down roots in the promised land because it wasn't theirs yet, and they were putting their hope in the inheritance that would be theirs at the return of Christ, and so they were living as strangers and sojourners throughout their life. And I think maybe we need to stop trying to put down roots too firmly in our contemporary context. We need to stop busying ourselves entirely with trying to build our kingdoms here on earth, because we need to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. I think that's a real danger for us living in comfort that we forget that order of priorities. I mean, then sometimes we need to do really radical things that are out of step with our, especially Protestant work ethic. We need to... I mean, there was a Pastor Ian Wilderboer working on downward mobility. I listened to a podcast a little while back, and it's so counterintuitive. Like, how in the world would you would you live like that, where you would actually embrace hardship for the sake of Christ? And I think we need to wrestle with that. Be prepared. Jesus says, "Take up your cross and follow me.” Like, be prepared to live that kind of radical way. TV Yeah, right. Is that what we're called to? Like a downward mobility to like, yeah. Like again, I think you have to seek it out. You have to, if you want to suffer, a lot of us have to be intentional about it. WdH I don't think, in the sense of not everybody is going to look, life is going to look the same, and we're not all called to the same sort of thing. But in many respects, it begins with how do we live in the places God calls it to be already? How do you live as a husband sacrificially? Like that is embracing suffering. The easiest way is for us to follow our hearts, and if we're going to follow our hearts in our marriages, well, our marriages won't last very long. The same thing goes for parenting. Is our leadership in the home as husbands and fathers? Is it an exercise in self-denial? Is it to serve them as opposed to our own needs, our own wants, our own desires? When we vacation, what is our what is our ultimate design, our ultimate desire; when we buy homes, when we buy vehicles? Are we doing these things spiritually? Are we doing them as prayerfully as we can? And then also considering the question of how do I make this decision as a follower of Jesus Christ? How do I make this decision as one who is a partaker in His sufferings and a partaker in his glories to come, and I think that starts to shift the needle, and it's so it's every aspect of our life. I mean, the very exercise of at the beginning of your month in your budgeting, giving money to the church and supporting this cause and that cause, and letting go of some of your financial freedom and your financial comfort, so that you can support an orphan living in Mexico or Africa is an expression of a willingness to suffer for the sake of Christ. It’s to say, I could save this, and I could buy myself a bigger house, or I could have this nicer vacation, or I could do this, that, or the other thing. But because I'm oriented towards the eternal future, I'm going to embrace the challenge of meeting my budget at the end of the month because I've already given away so much of my income. TV Just for some of us, that like for so many of us, I think in order to feel anything at the end of that month, you would have to give 80% of your money away. Like that's like you have to be the lady at the in the temple giving her last points. Like 10% is like you don't feel it. Like you can and like I mean, there's definitely people struggling, but then you know what suffering is. For those of us who are we're living in, you know, you're living in Canada already you're you know top 1%. WdH The top 1% and in the history of the universe, the top like 0.0001% of…. TV And so like I think about these Christians that Peter's writing to, and I think, like, I mean, they may have been affluent too, I guess, but… WdH Probably not. TV Not in there, like, but for us, like, yeah. If you want to suffer, like, there's so much we can give that, before you're really there. And then, what does suffering mean? Like, I mean, our world, like everyone's a victim, so we can define suffering very surface level. But if you're looking at suffering of Peter and Paul, and like these guys are getting whipped and they're in chains, and none of us are close to that. WdH No, and our brothers and sisters in the around the globe are experiencing much the same, and we never want to minimize that or elevate our suffering to the same degree, or suggest that we are in that kind of a situation, and yet, it's hard to live by faith and not by sight. Like I think we also don't want to minimize simply the effects of the fall into sin on our own sinful hearts and minds. I love to say, being a Christian is not for the faint of heart, and it is not a walk in the park. It is not. When you are called to deny yourself, to take up your cross, and follow Jesus. It means that the Christian walk is going to be hard, regardless of where you're living. And if it's not, then then you ought to ask yourself the question: Am I really following in the footsteps of Jesus? Like if you if you find yourself constantly pursuing the easiest path, if you find yourself trying to satisfy the desire of your heart, and your marriage, your relationships are falling apart because you're oriented towards yourself, or you're enjoying all of the good things and you're not feeling the call to self-denial. Well, then I think we need to ask ourselves the question and look in the mirror and say, “Are we following Jesus or are we following our own our own sinful hearts?” I think any time we follow in the footsteps of Christ, there's going to be an element of hardship. Jesus said, "In this world, you will face trouble. Take heart! I've overcome the world.” And so, which is which means is the blessed confirmation for us too that we're walking in fellowship with Christ. Like when you experience in your marriage the hardship of living with another sinner in close proximity, and you experience all the joys of it too, but those moments where it's difficult, and you have to literally wage spiritual warfare in your own heart because what you want is different than what you should do in that context. That is suffering of a different kind, but it's suffering for the sake of Christ. You have chosen in that moment to follow Jesus instead of following your sinful heart, and so I would draw a really broad understanding of suffering for the sake of Christ. I would not include the consequences for our sinful behavior, and Peter makes that clear too. Like don't suffer for being a meddler or a thief or a murderer, right? Like, don't dignify, or sometimes, and sometimes even as Christians, we can unhelpfully seek out suffering. Like, don't do stupid things so that you can claim suffering for the sake of Christ. But each of us will experience it as we fall in the footsteps of Christ in different kinds of ways. TV Right. Well, that answers my questions. WdH All of them. TV All of them. Now I know exactly what I'm going to do. No, I mean, like the context always changes, but I think, I mean, that lays a really good groundwork for the book. For I mean, everyone should go listen to all the sermons. Pick the book up. When's it available? WdH It's available already. This copy was from upstairs in the Reformed Book Services, and Amazon has it, but buy it from your local Christian bookstore, and if they don't have it, tell them to stock it. TV Come down Reformed Book Services in Brantford. We have one Calgary actually, WdH And Chilliwack now. TV Yeah, they’re expanding. They're doing good work. Well, I appreciate it. I hope everyone picks this up, and I hope a lot of Bible studies do it. I'll be encouraging our Bible study to pick this up in the in the fall, so that'd be it'll be a good discussion. I think it's it it's good for us to sit in this together and talk through not just the not just how the world is and like what is outside, but like talk about our context. How do we actually suffer? How do we live out, and how do we think through that living hope? WdH And what my great desires with it is that we would have conversations like this, and that you would, as brothers and sisters in Christ, sit around the table and really address what's going on in our hearts. Like, are we living, are we characterized by living hope? Peter describes Christians as those who love the Lord Jesus. Do we love the Lord Jesus, and is that the way that we are conducting our lives? And so I'm really excited. I've been praying over this book for a long time. I'm just amazed at God's kindness in in using weak and imperfect efforts to do his work. I'm just really excited to see what he does with it and in building people's, building up people's faith in in Christ, love for Christ, devotion to him, wonder at the eternal inheritance that is ours in Christ, and yeah. So we'll see where the Lord leads it. TV Yeah, I'm sure he'll use it in many people's hearts. So, thanks again for everyone for listening. And again, go pick up the book and dive into 1 Peter. He's got a lot of a lot of wisdom in here, a lot of things to talk about. So, thanks again, Doctor Will. WdH You're welcome. TV Appreciate it. We'll have to do this over and over again because it's always fantastic. So, I always leave here thinking very deeply. WdH Praise God. TV So much appreciated. Thanks, everybody. Keep having Real Talk.