1 PETER 2:1–10
YOU ARE LIVING STONES
Peter has just told his readers that they have been born again through the living and abiding word of God.
Now he tells them what that new life should look like—and then gives them a remarkable picture of what God is building.
Christ is the living Stone.
Those who come to Him become living stones.
Together they are being built into a spiritual house.
And Peter uses language once applied to Israel—chosen race, royal priesthood, holy nation, God's own people—to describe those who belong to Christ.
We need to read this carefully.
2:1 — PUT THESE THINGS AWAY
Peter begins:
“So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander.”
The word “so” connects this directly with chapter 1.
They have been born again.
They are to love one another earnestly.
Therefore certain things cannot remain among them.
Peter names five:
Malice — wanting or doing harm to another.
Deceit — misleading another person.
Hypocrisy — pretending to be something we are not.
Envy — resenting what another person has.
Slander — speaking against another person in a way that tears him down.
Notice that all five damage relationships.
Peter has just commanded sincere brotherly love.
Now he identifies attitudes and behavior that destroy it.
2:2–3 — CRAVE THE WORD LIKE A BABY CRAVES MILK
Peter continues:
“Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk…”
The picture is easy to understand.
A newborn baby doesn't need to be persuaded to want milk.
The baby craves it.
Peter wants Christians to have that kind of desire.
But what is the “milk”?
The immediate context points us back to the word of God in 1:23–25:
“The word of the Lord remains forever.”
Peter has just said:
“This word is the good news that was preached to you.”
So Peter's picture is not primarily about Christians remaining spiritual babies.
He is talking about hunger.
They should crave God's truth because:
“by it you may grow up into salvation.”
New birth should lead to growth.
Peter then adds:
“if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.”
That echoes Psalm 34:8:
“Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good!”
Once again Peter's language is saturated with Israel's Scriptures.
2:4 — COME TO THE LIVING STONE
Peter changes pictures:
“As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious…”
The living Stone is Jesus.
That sounds almost contradictory.
Stones aren't alive.
But Jesus was rejected and killed—and He lives.
Human beings rejected Him.
God chose and honored Him.
That contrast will become important throughout 1 Peter.
Human judgment and God's judgment are not always the same.
People may reject what God calls precious.
Peter's suffering readers needed to remember that.
So do we.
2:5 — YOU ALSO ARE LIVING STONES
Then Peter turns the picture toward Christians:
“You yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house…”
Jesus is the living Stone.
Those who come to Jesus become living stones.
But notice something important.
Peter does not picture Christians as individual stones scattered across a field.
They are being built together.
Christianity is personal.
But it is not merely private.
God is constructing something from His people.
Peter calls it:
“a spiritual house.”
The language of God's dwelling place has moved from a physical building to a people.
This fits a much larger New Testament theme.
Paul writes:
“You are God's temple and God's Spirit dwells in you.”
— 1 Corinthians 3:16
And:
“In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.”
— Ephesians 2:22
The church is not primarily a building Christians enter.
Christians themselves are God's building.
A HOLY PRIESTHOOD
Peter continues:
“to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”
Under the old covenant, priests served at the sanctuary and offered sacrifices.
Peter now calls God's people themselves:
“a holy priesthood.”
And they offer:
“spiritual sacrifices.”
Peter doesn't define all those sacrifices here.
Other New Testament passages help us see what such language can include.
Romans 12:1 speaks of presenting our bodies as a living sacrifice.
Hebrews 13:15 speaks of the sacrifice of praise.
Hebrews 13:16 speaks of doing good and sharing with others as sacrifices pleasing to God.
The important point here is that Christian worship and service are offered:
“through Jesus Christ.”
Christ is at the center.
2:6 — THE CORNERSTONE
Peter now begins bringing several Old Testament passages together.
First, Isaiah 28:16:
“Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone,
a cornerstone chosen and precious,
and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”
The cornerstone was crucial to the building.
Everything was aligned in relation to it.
Peter identifies that stone with Jesus.
And notice the response Peter emphasizes:
“whoever believes in him…”
The decisive issue is our relationship to Christ.
2:7–8 — THE SAME STONE, TWO RESPONSES
Peter continues with Psalm 118:22:
“The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.”
Then Isaiah 8:14:
“A stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense.”
It is the same Stone.
But people respond differently to Him.
To those who believe, He is precious.
To those who reject Him, He becomes a stone over which they stumble.
The difference is not in the Stone.
The difference is in the response to Him.
Jesus had applied Psalm 118:22 to Himself in the Gospels.
Peter had also used the same passage when preaching about Jesus in Acts 4:11.
The Jesus rejected by human builders is the One God has made central.
2:8 — “THEY WERE DESTINED”
The end of verse 8 requires some care.
Peter says:
“They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.”
Does Peter mean God arbitrarily selected particular people to reject Jesus and then condemned them for doing what He made them do?
The verse should not be made to say more than it says.
Peter explicitly gives the reason for their stumbling:
“because they disobey the word.”
What has been appointed or destined can reasonably be understood as the consequence attached to unbelief: those who reject God's cornerstone stumble over Him.
Christ is the dividing line.
Those who believe find Him precious.
Those who reject the word stumble.
We should allow Peter's own words to establish the emphasis rather than importing an entire theological system into one sentence.
2:9 — “BUT YOU…”
Then comes a dramatic contrast:
“But you…”
Peter piles description upon description:
“You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession…”
Those expressions come directly from the Old Testament.
Especially important is Exodus 19:5–6.
At Sinai God told Israel:
“You shall be my treasured possession among all peoples…”
and:
“You shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.”
Now Peter uses that language for the people who belong to Christ.
This is especially striking because Peter's readers apparently included many Gentiles.
Peter is not merely giving them some nice religious titles.
He is locating believers in Christ within the story of God's people.
HAS THE CHURCH “REPLACED” ISRAEL?
This passage sometimes enters arguments about whether the church has “replaced Israel.”
But that language can create more confusion than clarity.
Peter doesn't use the word replacement.
He does something more interesting.
He takes Israel's covenant language and applies it to the community centered upon Israel's Messiah.
Paul describes something similar in Ephesians 2.
Gentiles who were once:
“alienated from the commonwealth of Israel”
have been brought near by Christ's blood.
Christ has made Jew and Gentile:
“one new man.”
Peter's emphasis here is not on two separate peoples of God pursuing two separate destinies.
Those who come to Christ are being built together into one spiritual house.
The cornerstone determines the identity of the building.
WHY HAS GOD MADE THEM HIS PEOPLE?
Peter tells us.
They are:
“a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession…”
Why?
“that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”
Election has a purpose.
Privilege brings responsibility.
God's people are not chosen merely so they can congratulate themselves for being chosen.
They have something to proclaim.
God called them out of darkness and into light.
Their lives should tell the world something about God.
2:10 — “ONCE YOU WERE NOT A PEOPLE”
Peter concludes:
“Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people…”
That language comes from Hosea.
Hosea's children had been given symbolic names expressing God's judgment upon unfaithful Israel.
One was called Lo-ammi:
“Not My People.”
Yet Hosea also promised restoration.
Peter now says to his readers:
“Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people.”
Then:
“Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”
Peter's emphasis is not on ethnic ancestry.
It is on God's mercy.
Their identity exists because of what God has done.
LOOK AT THE CHANGE
Peter has described an extraordinary transformation.
Once: not a people.
Now: God's people.
Once: without mercy.
Now: recipients of mercy.
Once: darkness.
Now: marvelous light.
Once: separated stones.
Now: being built into God's house.
And all of it centers upon Jesus Christ, the living Stone.
GOD DOESN'T LIVE IN THE BUILDING
There is an important practical implication here.
We commonly say:
“I'm going to church.”
Everyone understands what we mean.
But strictly speaking, Peter's picture is different.
The building is not the church.
The people are.
The building may be useful.
It may provide a place for Christians to gather, teach, encourage one another, and worship together.
But bricks, wood, stained glass, pews, pulpits, and steeples do not make something holy.
God's house is made of living stones.
That means Christians gathering in a home are no less God's spiritual house than Christians gathering in an expensive cathedral.
The holiness is not in the architecture.
God dwells among His people.
THE BIG PICTURE
Peter began this letter by calling his readers exiles.
Now he tells these scattered people that they belong to something much larger than themselves.
They may feel displaced in the world.
But they have a home.
They may be rejected by people.
Jesus was rejected too.
They may appear insignificant.
But God is building them into His house.
They are:
living stones,
a spiritual house,
a holy priesthood,
a chosen race,
a royal priesthood,
a holy nation,
God's own people.
And none of those descriptions gives Christians reason for pride.
Peter ends where everything must end:
“Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”
We are God's people because God has been merciful.
QUESTIONS TO THINK ABOUT
Why does Peter connect spiritual growth with craving God's word?
What does it mean for Jesus to be the living Stone?
If Christians are the stones in God's spiritual house, what does that tell us about the importance of other Christians?
What does Peter mean by calling Christians a holy priesthood?
Why can the same Jesus be precious to one person and a “stone of stumbling” to another?
Why does Peter use language originally spoken to Israel in Exodus 19 to describe believers in Christ?
Does Peter describe God's people primarily by their ethnicity—or by their relationship to Christ?
What is the purpose of being God's “chosen” people according to verse 9?
If the people are God's spiritual house, how should that affect the way we think about church buildings?
What keeps Peter's description of Christians from becoming a reason for religious pride?
NEXT STUDY
1 PETER 2:11–25 — HOW SHOULD CHRISTIANS LIVE AS EXILES?
Peter has told Christians who they are.
Now he turns outward.
How should God's people live among people who do not share their faith?
What does Peter mean by submitting to human authorities?
How should Christians respond when they are treated unjustly?
And then Peter takes us directly to Jesus:
“Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps.”
That will be our next section.
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