1Peter 2:7
My level of frustration in the current reporting and news cycles continues to grow. Truth is so hard to find and identify in all of the talk. It seems that everyone has an agenda and reports to their desired end. On just about any given topic you can find people earnestly arguing with opposing facts. How can the average listener find the truth? How do we weed out the untruths in a report and find the nuggets that actually are true?
1 Peter 2 tell us that some people will stumble over Christ because they reject Him or refuse to believe He is who He says he is. I understand the fear and confusion of falling for an untruth. None of us wants to be in the position of aligning ourselves with someone and later finding out that the person has been dishonest about his character or personhood. People will always let us down at some point. No human is perfect. Jesus is the only “spotless lamb”, blameless, perfect, absolute truth. 1 Pet 2:7 says,” You who trust Him recognize the honor God has given Him. But for those who reject Him, the stone that the builders rejected has become the corner stone.” The One that people couldn’t believe in, is actually the most important One of God’s church. He is completely trustworthy, precious to all believers, and the foundation of the church.
In Eph. Paul talks about the church as “the body” of Christ. Jesus is the “head” and each believer is another member of the body. Here in 1 Pet., Peter tells us that the church is a living, spiritual temple, where Jesus is the foundation and cornerstone, and each believer is another stone in the building. These word pictures help us to understand, in a clear and simple way, how the church is supposed to function because of who Jesus is. He is the foundation because He gave His life to make a way for us to have relationship with God. We cannot be in God’s presence unless we are washed clean and made pure. We have no way to make ourselves pure. It is impossible for us to do on our own. So Jesus took our place and paid our cost with His own blood, His life for ours so we can live in relationship with God. Using Peter’s analogy, without Jesus there is no cornerstone or foundation for the church. Let’s take the analogy a bit farther. One stone does not make a building or even a wall. One stone is kind of useless on it’s own. It takes many stones to make a building…many believers to make the church. We should remember especially now in this super isolated time of living, that we need other believers. In our individualistic society, it’s is easy to depend on ourselves instead of remembering that He built the church on interdependence between Christians. The notes in my Bible say about this passage, “When God calls you to a task, remember that He is also calling others to work with you. Together your individual efforts will be multiplied.” Beautiful!