The Living Stone and Chosen People

Peter opens with a negative and positive command: believers must strip away malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander, and instead hunger like newborn infants for the nourishment that leads to growth in salvation. The call assumes that they have already tasted the goodness of the Lord and therefore should desire what deepens that life. The paragraph shows that spiritual growth is inseparable from both purified relationships and sustained dependence upon God's provision.

R¹id yourselves, therefore, of all malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander. ²Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, ³now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.

Peter next portrays Christ as the living stone, rejected by human beings but chosen and precious in God's sight. As believers come to Him, they themselves are built into a spiritual house and ordained as a holy priesthood offering acceptable spiritual sacrifices through Jesus Christ. Scripture then interprets the twofold response to this stone: for believers He is precious, but for unbelievers He becomes the stone rejected, the cornerstone, and the stone of stumbling. The paragraph emphasizes that Christ determines both the structure of God's people and the crisis of human response.

⁴As you come to Him, the living stone, rejected by men but chosen and precious in God’s sight, ⁵you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. ⁶For it stands in Scripture: ⁷To you who believe, then, this stone is precious. But to those who do not believe, ⁸and,

Peter then names the church in covenantal language as a chosen people, royal priesthood, holy nation, and people for God's possession, called out of darkness into marvelous light. Those who once were not a people have now become God's people and recipients of mercy. On that basis Peter urges them, as beloved foreigners and exiles, to abstain from fleshly desires and to maintain honorable conduct among the Gentiles. The paragraph closes the section by turning redeemed identity into public witness that leads others to glorify God.

⁹But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, to proclaim the virtues of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. ¹⁰Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. ¹¹Beloved, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from the desires of the flesh, which war against your soul. ¹²Conduct yourselves with such honor among the Gentiles that, though they slander you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day He visits us.