Of Tea Rooms and Military Briefings

My Bible Study Reflection for Wednesday, April 28, 2021

1 Peter 5:6–8 (ESV) Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, 7 casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. 8 Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.

These verses, near the end of Peter’s letter, contain some of the most well-loved and frequently memorized verses in the Bible. We always face the danger of misreading scripture, but when we memorize verses out of context, that danger goes up. We can’t always take in the entire context, even in a short letter like 1 Peter, but it helps to stay aware of that context when focusing on a smaller segment of text. For instance, we must remember that 1 Peter was written to encourage believers who were suffering for their faith in Jesus.

A friend of ours from a previous church has a beautiful room in her house that is the opposite of a “man room”. I imagine women sitting in that room drinking tea and studying the Bible. Another friend had the role of briefing soldiers who were geared up, literally, ready to raid a location during the Iraq war. There’s nothing wrong with tea rooms and nothing morally superior about a group of soldiers going on maneuvers. However, Peter’s instruction might be more readily grasped by imagining the second scene rather than the former. Or, perhaps a tea room can be more dangerous than I know!

Following the phrase, “casting all your cares on him,” Peter shows again that he writes to people who are suffering persecution. Their anxieties likely were related to persecution. This helps us understand how being sober-minded and alert fits with the verse about anxiety. It’s not that there was nothing to be concerned about. There was. Even the challenge to “humble yourselves” takes on a different sense when we know that Peter’s readers were suffering, and that he wrote to help them in that circumstance.

Finally, remembering that these phrases are not isolated ideas, but that they fit together  thickens the sense of what the whole passage means. It’s not that some might be good at humbling themselves, and others good at trusting God with their anxieties, and others who face suffering with grace. No, it all goes together and it all applies to every believer.

From this passage the Holy Spirit calls me to apply the truth:

God calls me to keep faithfully pressing into these texts for the sake of my soul and those of others, so that I might live and effectively teach that these instructions are not in the service of supporting a comfortable American life. Rather, we understand that we hold more in common with suffering believers around the world and throughout the ages, even more than with many of our neighbors.

In response, this is my prayer of commitment for today

Father, as I seek to think deeply today about what it means to be faithful and to be effective and even successful in your eyes, may I remain grounded by these truths of the need to keep humbling myself before you. When I am tempted to anxiety by threats of failure or pressure from external sources, may I cast all these cares on you knowing that you care for me. Finally, may I think soberly, may I be fully alert to the realities around me, staying vigilant and wise to how Satan wants to destroy me and the people that I am charged to shepherd.

Doxology ( a concluding act of praise to God):

May I delight myself fully in you this day, for you are worthy of our hearts greatest affection and our mind’s sharpest attention.

Feedback question:

How in the past have you applied the verse to cast all your anxieties on God and how does thinking about it more in context change that application?