Peter explains the virtue of submission in the wife-husband role responsibilities.

As I have studied the Gospels over the years, I have been struck by how many times the text speaks of Jesus being “moved with compassion.” Jesus manifested compassion when He saw the crowds, responding with acts of healing (Matt. 14:14; 20:34; Mark 1:41), provision of food (Matt. 15:32), and teaching the word of God (Mark 6:34). Jesus not only modeled compassion; He also taught on the virtue of compassion, including the parable of the unforgiving servant (Matt. 18:23–35), the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:29–37), and the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11–32).

The virtue of submission is applied to the primary economic institution of the ancient world and to the family.

In February 2024, John MacArthur, pastor of Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California, declared that Civil Rights leader, Dr. Martin Luther King, “was not a Christian at all.” Furthermore, he added, King was “a nonbeliever who misrepresented everything about Christ and the gospel.” MacArthur’s comments were made during a question-and-answer session at Grace Community Church.

Peter challenges us to see ourselves as sojourners and exiles conducting ourselves honorably, highlighting the virtue of submission to the authorities in our lives.

Deuteronomy 6:4-9 stipulates the vital importance of parents in educating their children: There is to be a formal structure where parents teach their children facts, ethical standards and doctrinal truth. Parents are also to model these virtues, values and standards before their children. Parents are thus central in the moral and spiritual formation of their children. Ideally today, parents, the church and the school should network together to accomplish this goal of moral and spiritual formation. However, in 2024 moral and spiritual formation has been replaced by indoctrination and the pursuit of personal autonomy in much of public education.

To receive Christ makes us “living stones,” part of the new building God is constructing with Jesus as our cornerstone and peak-stone serving as priests offering daily sacrifices to our God.

Christian author, Ericka Andersen, has recently written of her struggles with infertility and her resolution of this struggle through in vitro fertilization (IVF). Her piece offers an important perspective on IVF and how to think about this controversial procedure as a Christian: “At 33, after experiencing infertility for several years, I reluctantly turned to in vitro fertilization (IVF). A fertility specialist advised my husband and me to pursue the usual course of IVF, which involves using drugs to stimulate the growth of multiple egg follicles.

Peter summarizes the position of believers and their relationship with the heavenly Father, one characterized by reverence, faith, hope and love.

It was nearly 25 years ago that my son Jonathan and I watched the movie The Matrix. (I actually needed to watch it several times to grasp the complexities and underlying messages of the movie.) Meir Soloveichik, Director of the Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought at Yeshiva University and rabbi of Congregation Shearith Israel in New York, zeroes in on the key scene of the movie: “A man named Morpheus sits across from another man named Neo and informs him that his entire notion of reality is a lie. If Neo wishes to know the truth of human existence, Morpheus says, all he has to do is choose one of two pills. ‘You take the blue pill—the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill . . . and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes’ . . . Of course, Neo chooses the red pill and learns the terrible truth that the advent of artificial intelligence allowed machines to take over the Earth. He believes it is 1999, but in fact it is 2199, and all human beings are perpetually asleep in vats, exploited by their AI masters as a source of energy. The world they think they experience is actually a virtual reality known as The Matrix.”