Lesson 43: “A Chosen Generation”

1-2 Peter, Jude

Purpose: To help class members live in holiness and be a chosen generation.

LESSON DEVELOPMENT

Introduction

Some of you probably spent part of the last few weeks looking forward to seeing family members you haven’t seen for a while – if you didn’t have any visitors this Thanksgiving, you remember what it was like to anticipate a holiday in the past. What are some of the best parts about looking forward to an anticipated event? What is the flip side of anticipating a happy event – what is it like to look forward to something you dread? How can our anticipation – either with good expectations or fearful ones – affect the life we live today?

In many ways the First Epistle of Peter is about these ideas, about living a holy life today, even while we look forward to both better times with the Savior in the future, and also difficult times between now and that good future. The Lord – and his great apostle Peter – want us to be preparing for eternity, bracing ourselves for hardships to come, but most of all, not forgetting how blessed we are today, and how we should live today.

Peter wrote this epistle from Rome – which he calls “Babylon” in his letter – to the early Saints in five churches in the Roman province of Asia Minor, today’s Turkey. Unlike many of the letters of Paul, which were addressed to specific churches to address problems those congregations were having, Peter’s letter is a more general letter of counsel and instruction, applicable to all of the Saints. It sounds like a talk you might hear from President Monson today, closing a General Conference: addressed to the Saints in many places, reminding them of their eternal destiny, cautioning them about potential problems, and mostly counseling them to live as they have been taught.

Let’s turn to First Peter and talk about some of his counsel.

Scripture Discussion and Application

1. Live in faith and holiness as a chosen generation.
2. Follow the Savior’s example in enduring trials and persecution.
3. Partake of the divine nature and strive to make your calling and election sure.
4. Resist false teachers and those who deny the Second Coming.
1. Additional discussion.
2. “No … scripture is of any private interpretation”

Let’s start with the very first verse:

1 Peter 1:1:

1 Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia,

[Write “strangers” on board – you’ll be writing words from each section that will, in the final part of the lesson, turn out to describe the spirits Christ preaches to in prison as much as they do the Saints living in the world.]

Peter addresses the saints as “strangers,” rather than as brethren or friends or fellow-servants. What is a “stranger,” and why might Peter have chosen that term? Are you now, or have you ever been, a stranger in the same sense? How does a keen awareness that you are a stranger affect your daily life and outlook?

In the next several verses, Peter reminds his readers of the glorious hopes they have for the future through Jesus Christ, despite the probability of temptations and trials. The result of their hopes and faith, he says, will result in

7 … praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ:

8 Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet bet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory:

[Write “appearing of Jesus Christ” on board.]

How are you like these ancient saints, in relation to Jesus Christ? Those saints were evidently converted after the mortal life of Christ – just as we are. Peter acknowledges that although these saints have not seen Christ, they love him. Does that description fit you? Can you say that, like those saints, even though you have not seen Christ, you “rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory”? Have there been times in your life, or the life of someone you are close to, when that described your feeling for Christ? How can we increase the frequency of feeling “joy unspeakable” in remembering Christ?

Peter continues with instruction on looking to Christ for salvation and putting our hope in him. Then he broadens his focus from Christ to include the Church itself, in verse 22:

22 Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently:

What is “unfeigned love”? How does a pure soul and the help of the Spirit lead to “unfeigned love of the brethren”? which brethren? What does “fervently” mean? If our love for our spiritual brethren is fervent, how will it be manifested?

The language of the King James translation can obscure the meaning of scripture, yet it can also be incredibly beautiful and poetic, and convey ideas to us through poetry that would not strike us as forcefully if they were said in ordinary language. Let’s read verses 24-25:

24 For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away:

25 But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.

[Write “gospel is preached” on board.]

We’re going into a month that is going to seem very, very long to the children in our families – and yet to us, looking back, whole decades have disappeared without our seeming to see them fly. What, though, are some of the things that do endure, despite the rapid passing of time?

Peter goes on in the next verses to teach the saints about this life, this world, and their place in it. He warns them against certain vices that they must abandon:

1 Peter 2:1

1 Wherefore laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings,

Those are words we’re all familiar with, but let’s define them and consider individually whether we have “laid them aside”: What is malice? guile? hypocrisy? envy? evil speaking? How do these things interfere with our living together in the love that should exist among us?

[Write “lay aside evils” on board.]

Jumping ahead to 1 Peter 2:9:

9 But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light:

Peter is quoting a passage from the Old Testament, the words of the Lord to Moses in the wilderness:

Exodus 19:5-6

5 Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine:

6 And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel.

[Write “chosen generation” on board.]

What did it mean to be a chosen generation in the days of Moses? in the days of Peter? in our day?

“A royal priesthood, an holy nation” – those terms sound powerful, don’t they? To be priests of the king – especially the King of Heaven — to be a nation, that’s power. But contrast those phrases to how Peter refers to the saints in verse 11: “I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims.” There’s that word “strangers” again. And what is a “pilgrim”?

How are the saints, either in Peter’s day or our own, both a nation under a king, and aliens and wanderers, all at the same time?

Are there events in contemporary life that lead you to feel alternately a “kingdom of priests” and “strangers and pilgrims”? What are some of those times? How do you cope?

[Write “priesthood” on board.]

What responsibilities come with being a royal priesthood and a kingdom of priests?

Is there anything attractive and enjoyable about being a stranger and a pilgrim? (“Let us once and for all establish our residence in Zion and give up the summer cottage in Babylon.” Neal A. Maxwell, “A Wonderful Flood of Light,” BYU Devotional, 26 March 1989)

Peter offers advice on how to live as a stranger:

1 Peter 2:11-15

11 Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul;

12 Having your conversation honest among the Gentiles: that, whereas they speak against you as evildoers, they may by your good works, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation.

13 Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake: whether it be to the king, as supreme;

14 Or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers, and for the praise of them that do well.

15 For so is the will of God, that with well doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men.

This is familiar advice – turn the other cheek, pray for – and treat well – them that despitefully use you. This is not just sweet, theoretical advice from Peter, either. Peter is writing his epistle from Rome, probably during the rule of the Emperor Nero, who will eventually put Peter to death. Nero, in an attempt to focus Roman dissatisfaction away from the policies of Nero himself, has made the Christians in Rome the scapegoats for all that is going wrong there. Christians who have not fled from Rome are being imprisoned, and sent as victims to the wild animals and the gladiators in the Coliseum. Although the persecution of Christians is still centered at Rome, Peter foresees a time when those persecutions spread to the Roman provinces.

Is Peter’s counsel applicable to us and our circumstances in 2015? Does that mean we should always submit, in all things? Is there a difference between an empire like the one Peter lived in and a nation like ours, where “we, the people” have responsibility for making and enforcing laws?

This epistle contains a teaching that is dear to the hearts of many Latter-day Saints:

1 Peter 3: 18-20

18 For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit:

19 By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison;

20 Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.

1 Peter 4:6

6 For for this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit.

These verses are meaningful to most Christians, who understand them to mean that Christ overcame death and hell, that he descended below all things before returning to his Father, ascending above all things – and that is true. But to Latter-day Saints, they signal the opening of a new and essential phase of Christ’s ministry. What is that?

The New Testament is filled with quotations and allusions to the Old Testament, as new apostles quoted the teachings of earlier prophets – we’ve mentioned one or two of those today. The same is true in our dispensation, where we look back to earlier writings, reinterpreting them for our day and looking for the fulfillment of prophecy. One of the most explicit conversations between ancient scripture and modern scripture involves these lines from Peter. Joseph F. Smith, the sixth president of the Church, tells us the vision that was opened to his eyes almost one hundred years ago:

Doctrine and Covenants 138:1-19

1 On the third of October, in the year nineteen hundred and eighteen, I sat in my room pondering over the scriptures;

2 And reflecting upon the great atoning sacrifice that was made by the Son of God, for the redemption of the world;

3 And the great and wonderful love made manifest by the Father and the Son in the coming of the Redeemer into the world;

4 That through his atonement, and by obedience to the principles of the gospel, mankind might be saved.

5 While I was thus engaged, my mind reverted to the writings of the apostle Peter, to the primitive saints scattered abroad throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, and other parts of Asia, where the gospel had been preached after the crucifixion of the Lord.

6 I opened the Bible and read the third and fourth chapters of the first epistle of Peter, and as I read I was greatly impressed, more than I had ever been before, with the following passages:

7 “For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit:

8 “By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison;

9 “Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.” (1 Peter 3:18–20.)

10 “For for this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit.” (1 Peter 4:6.)

11 As I pondered over these things which are written, the eyes of my understanding were opened, and the Spirit of the Lord rested upon me, and I saw the hosts of the dead, both small and great.

12 And there were gathered together in one place an innumerable company of the spirits of the just, who had been faithful in the testimony of Jesus while they lived in mortality;

13 And who had offered sacrifice in the similitude of the great sacrifice of the Son of God, and had suffered tribulation in their Redeemer’s name.

14 All these had departed the mortal life, firm in the hope of a glorious resurrection, through the grace of God the Father and his Only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ.

15 I beheld that they were filled with joy and gladness, and were rejoicing together because the day of their deliverance was at hand.

16 They were assembled awaiting the advent of the Son of God into the spirit world, to declare their redemption from the bands of death.

17 Their sleeping dust was to be restored unto its perfect frame, bone to his bone, and the sinews and the flesh upon them, the spirit and the body to be united never again to be divided, that they might receive a fulness of joy.

18 While this vast multitude waited and conversed, rejoicing in the hour of their deliverance from the chains of death, the Son of God appeared, declaring liberty to the captives who had been faithful;

19 And there he preached to them the everlasting gospel, the doctrine of the resurrection and the redemption of mankind from the fall, and from individual sins on conditions of repentance.

[End wherever times requires, leaving two or three minutes for conclusion.]

The Vision of the Redemption of the Dead goes on to state that Jesus Christ organized the faithful spirits to preach repentance and salvation to others in the spirit world.

35 And so it was made known among the dead, both small and great, the unrighteous as well as the faithful, that redemption had been wrought through the sacrifice of the Son of God upon the cross.

36 Thus was it made known that our Redeemer spent hsi time during his sojourn in the world of spirits, instructing and preparing the faithful spirits of the prophets who ahd testified of him in the flesh;

37 That they might carry the message of redemption unto all the dead, unto whom he could not go personally, because of their rebellion and transgression, that they through the ministration of his servants might also hear his words.

Where Peter tells us of Christ’s visit to the spirit world to redeem the righteous of earlier generations, Joseph F. Smith’s vision goes much farther: [Touching on the points listed on the board, summarize the Vision of the Redemption of the Dead: the spirits of the dead are strangers in that world, separated from God; Jesus Christ appeared to them, preached the gospel, which was a gospel of repentance. He “organized his forces and appointed messengers clothed with power and authority, and commissioned them to go forth and carry the light of the gospel to them that were in darkness” (D&C 138:30) etc.]

strangers
appearing of Jesus Christ
gospel is preached
lay aside evils
chosen generation
priesthood

[Testify that we are a chosen generation, blessed with the knowledge and power to live in holiness, if we choose. This power and obligation not only directs us in mortality, but will extend beyond the grave, where all “shall receive a reward according to their works, for they are heirs of salvation” (D&C 138:59).]