b8_8 | Spiritual Food

1 PETER 2
III. Growth in Life and Its Results
A. Growing by Feeding on
the Milk of the Word unto Full Salvation

Therefore putting away all malice and all guile and hypocrisies and envyings and all evil speakings,
As newborn babes, long for the guileless milk of the word in order that by it you may grow unto salvation,
If you have tasted that the Lord is good.

B. Transformed unto the Building Up
of a Spiritual House for God’s Dwelling,
a Holy Priesthood for God’s Service

Coming to Him, a living stone, rejected by men but with God chosen and precious,
You yourselves also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house into a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
For it is contained in Scripture: Behold, I lay in Zion a cornerstone, chosen and precious; and he who believes on Him shall by no means be put to shame.
To you therefore who believe is the preciousness; but to the unbelieving, The stone which the builders rejected, this has become the head of the corner,
And, A stone of stumbling and a rock of offense; who stumble at the word, being disobedient, to which also they were appointed.

C. To Tell Out the Virtues
of the Calling One

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people acquired for a possession, so that you may tell out the virtues of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light;
Who once were not a people but now are the people of God; who had not previously been shown mercy but have now been shown mercy.

IV. The Christian Life and Its Sufferings
A. A Life in an Excellent Manner
toward All Men in All Concerns

Beloved, I entreat you as strangers and sojourners to abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul,
Having your manner of life excellent among the Gentiles, so that in the matter concerning which they speak against you as evildoers they may, by your good works, as they see them with their own eyes, glorify God in the day of His visitation.