Peculiar

I was chided today, and rightfully so, for not having updated my blog for a while.  Things have been busy with preparing for the trip and are moving along pretty well.  It’s also been a goal at my work to keep everything caught up so that when I’m gone I don’t leave my crew in a bind.

Even with all this going on, I’ve still been trying to prepare myself mentally and spiritually for the trip, reading, studying, and really thinking about scripture more  than I have for some time.  All in all, it’s simply something I should be doing all the time and hopefully a new habit that will stick with me after the trip.

I’m an habitual reader.  When I’m in my recliner, even with the TV on, there is always a book or magazine or my Kindle open and being read either at the same time I’m watching a program, or during the commercial breaks.  My lunches are generally solitary affairs and I’m beginning to think that I am unable to take a noon meal unless I have printed material in front of me.

Lunchtime isn’t really conducive to an in-depth study.  As such I’ve developed the habit of just opening up my bible to any random page and seeing what God has for me.  This has proved to be really serendipitous and often a great way to study parts of the bible that I haven’t explored before.

Today I flipped open my old King James, my favorite for at-the-table reading because it’s large, hangs open easily, and was given to me by a dear friend who has since gone to heaven.  It opened to 1 Peter 2:9.

But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness and into his marvelous light:

Of course the way my mind works, the first part that jumps out to me is the “peculiar” part.  I’ve got that nailed.  It bugged me a bit that with some cross checking I found out that the ESV and my favorite NASB left that word out.  Oh well.

The next thing that hit me was a flashback to when my wife and I were teaching the high school youth group at the Berean church we did a lesson on this section of 1 Peter.  That’s been over a decade ago and I don’t recall the main points of the lesson.  I do hope it was more memorable for our poor students.

I take a lot of comfort in the words “ye are a………royal priesthood” as I prepare for India.  I don’t have any formal training, a great wealth of biblical knowledge, or any other earthly skill that qualifies me to go to India and teach others about Christ.  But I can have faith that through my faith in Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit, God has declared me a priest, someone who can share God with others.