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Stones & Priests: A Renewed Community

Stones & Priests: A Renewed Community

This week we continue in our ‘Renovate’ series and turn to a passage in 1 Peter 2 that builds upon two specific Old Testament themes: stones and priests. How might these two OT illustrations reshape the way we view our church community now, and the work that God desires to do through us moving forward?

1 Peter 2:4-10
1 Peter 2:4-10 / New International Version

The Living Stone and a Chosen People

As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him— you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house[a] to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For in Scripture it says:

“See, I lay a stone in Zion,
    a chosen and precious cornerstone,
and the one who trusts in him
    will never be put to shame.”[b]

Now to you who believe, this stone is precious. But to those who do not believe,

“The stone the builders rejected
    has become the cornerstone,”[c]

and,

“A stone that causes people to stumble
    and a rock that makes them fall.”[d]

They stumble because they disobey the message—which is also what they were destined for.

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

Footnotes:

[a] Or into a temple of the Spirit
[b] Isaiah 28:16
[c] Psalm 118:22
[d] Isaiah 8:14

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