1 Peter 1:3–9
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, 5 who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, 7 so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 8 Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, 9 obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
As we saw yesterday, if that diagram made any sense at all, ascribing praise and blessing to God is the governing idea of this section—specifically praise and blessing for his causing us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus. Because of this we should rejoice. Peter also applauds his readers for loving Jesus as well. Those are the main ideas that Peter is attempting to get across. The rest of the details he presents here are intended to buffer those ideas.
The "Blessed be" (also translated "Praise be..." in the NIV) is what's known as a doxology. A doxology is defined as a liturgical expression of praise to God. It is based on the Greek word doxa meaning "glory". Many of the epistles begin with a doxology similar to this one. Despite being so common throughout Scripture, it has been my experience that Christians largely struggle to express praise to God in their own language. Note the uniqueness to the the situation of Peter's readers. He is clearly writing this to give them hope. He couples that with great depth of theology. Our lack of ability to praise is due in part, I think, to our often shallow theology. If you struggle to express your heart of praise to God I encourage you to read this and other doxologies in Scripture and practice this in your private prayer time. Good worship music should also help give you the language to express your heart of praise to God.
I was planning on getting through v. 3 with today's devotional but I'm writing too much so I've split it up into 2. Tomorrow we will discuss the born again language and the living hope we have because of Christ's resurrection.
<aside> 🏋 Pray a doxology of your own. It might be a little awkward if you're not used to doing this but power through it. This is a practice that will not only force you to deepen your theology but is simply good for the soul. You can start by borrowing words from Scripture or worship songs but I encourage you to use those as a model to express your individual praise to God. As I tell my kids, simply tell God he is awesome and why you think he is so awesome.
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