A man named Rock is writing about stones. Jesus once named Simon the rock his church would be built on (Matthew 16:18), and here the apostle hands the image away. The living stone is Christ: 4"rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious." Everyone who comes to him becomes a stone too. 5"Living stones" are "being built up as a spiritual house." The stones are being built up.
Peter gathers three Old Testament texts around the stone, from Isaiah 28, Psalm 118, and Isaiah 8, and together they describe one person whom some build on and others trip over. The same stone is a foundation to the one who believes and an obstacle to the one who will not. Isaiah's promise under the stone is that whoever believes in it will not be put to shame (1 Peter 2:6). 7"The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone." Rejection first and vindication after is the pattern of the whole letter, and Peter tells scattered, slandered believers they are living it. The builders' verdict counts, and God's verdict comes after it.
Then the titles come, four in a row. Every one was first said of Israel at Sinai, where God called the people a kingdom of priests and a holy nation (Exodus 19:6). Peter gives all of it to a scattered church. The Greek word for priesthood, *hierateuma*, names the priesthood as a body, and it belongs to the whole community, serving together.
The next clause says what it is for. The election exists 9"that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light." That is the spiritual sacrifice. The offering here is praise spoken aloud. The titles are a vocation, and the vocation is witness.
10"Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people." The words come from Hosea, where a child is named Not My People. Hosea's words now describe Peter's readers. Peter tells them who they are before he tells them what to do, and everything after this rests on that order. A people with no claim on God's attention has become the people he calls his own.
Then he turns. 11"Abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul." The verb for wage war is a soldier's verb. Desire is an active campaign aimed at the soul. 12"Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation." The slander stings, and the answer to it is a life that can be seen. Some who speak against you may one day glorify God because of what they watched you do.
Ask yourself which of those titles is hardest to believe about you, and who is watching what you do this week.
Prayer
Father, you chose the stone the builders rejected and made him the cornerstone of your house. Build us together as living stones, and teach us that we are your own people. Once we were not a people, and now we are yours. Give us honorable lives among our neighbors, and loosen our tongues to proclaim the excellencies of the one who called us out of darkness into his marvelous light. In Jesus' name, amen.