Michigan Camp Meeting 2023: The Boldness of the Cross

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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Lessons for Today’s Christians from 1 Peter

Tom Shepherd

1 Peter, Part 1

1 Peter, Chapter 2

1 Peter Ch. 3, Part 1

You are about to enjoy a presentation recorded at the 2023 Michigan Conference Camp Meeting held at Cedar Lake, Michigan.

We pray that the Lord will bless you as you listen.

Father in heaven, we thank you for the opportunity to study this beautiful book of 1 Peter.

We pray for your blessing as we open it, as we study together, and we think about how this applies to our life today.

How in the world did I end up teaching First Peter?

30 years of my career have been in teaching.

In fact right now I'm the pastor of the Alclair and Dwojek Adventist churches here in Michigan.

And that's kind of another story how that happened.

But I've taught for like 15 years at the Andrews University Seminary.

Before that I was at Union College in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Anybody, oh yes, we got some Unionites here, Slinger the Ink and all that good stuff.

Before that we were missionaries in Brazil.

And they speak Portuguese in Brazil, by the way.

And before that, was doing the PhD thing, and before that we were missionaries in Malawi in Africa and before that was a pastor in Chicago area.

So yeah kind of a interesting life a blessed life very thankful for you know the Lord's mercy for us.

When I came to the seminary my New Testament chair, Dr.

Richard Che, said, we want you to be happy here.

He said, so we want you to teach what you want to teach.

So we want you to give an opportunity to start teach something new.

And so I asked about I was always interested in the book of James.

I'm actually a scholar in the Gospel of Mark.

And so he said well why don't you do something in Mark?

I said, well, I've done that for a long time.

Well, somebody else was already teaching James.

And so I sort of like, okay, well, I guess I'll try first and second Peter.

You know, it was almost like a lark, you know, to go in these book.

And then, my goodness, I was just so struck with the profundity particularly of the theology of the book of First Peter and I just was amazed with what was there I mean Peter's books I mean 2 little books at the end of the New Testament, you know, most people think of Peter's writing as Paul-lite, you know, I mean, He's not quite as powerful as the Apostle Paul.

The theology of First Peter in particular is every bit as profound as the theology of the Apostle Paul and he says it in a little bit different way.

And that's wonderful because now you get a bit different perspective on things.

We have 6 hours together during this week.

I mean maybe you just want to stay just today and don't want to come back after that.

If you want to come for the whole time it's 6 hours.

There's no way we can talk about all this stuff, even in a little short book of 1 Peter in 6 hours time.

And they're supposed to have it in the ABC.

Now I contacted them in advance saying I'll be teaching that class you might want to have some copies there and I as part of Camp Pitch believe it or not they said they need some people down there at the ABC to carry some boxes.

I do lift weights, you know, even though I'm old.

And I had some younger fellas with me, and I said, well, let's go down there and help carry those boxes.

My goodness, do they have a lot of different things down there, it was really interesting to see.

I cataloged probably 475 different items for them.

Maybe they say they can get some more in.

But this is a book on the theology of 1st and 2nd Peter.

It's not real thick and it's not written for scholars, it's written for regular folk, and it's got stories and explanation of the text.

Anyways, so I'll pass it around, you can take a look at it.

If you're interested, you go down and pass it to those people at the ABC.

You can go see if you want to get more of the same.

All right, so we're talking about first Peter.

Who in the world was this guy Peter anyways?

Okay, well, we all know the stories from the Gospels.

I say sometimes like, it's like getting a PhD.

I'll say when I got my PhD, it changed the way I think.

So when people come and ask me a question, a Bible question, I think of it in a different way than I did before I got that degree.

Well that's what it was like, only maybe on steroids, to meet Jesus and to be a disciple of Jesus.

And they were with him for 3 and a half years, So that's a good course, you see.

Somebody says, what in the world is a theophany?

Okay, so let's write this down on the board here.

A theophany is something that happens, it means the appearance of God, when God appears, or an angel appears, something like that, okay?

A theophany happens so often in the Bible, there are 5 characteristics that almost always occur.

First is the appearance of the divine being occurs, okay?

Could be a miracle, something like that, divine appearance occurs.

Then the divine being or the heavenly being says, you know what it is, do not fear, don't be afraid.

Then we get to the reason why the Divine Being appeared and that was the revelation.

You want the classic Theophany is in Luke chapter 2, the birth of Jesus.

So the angel appears, the shepherds are there, the angel appears and it says, if you know the King James, what does it say?

Series

Lessons for Today’s Christians from 1 Peter

1 Peter, Part 1

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

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Preach the Word

05 Delivering the Message

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Reasons to Believe

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02 Mastering Your Anxiety

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02 Reconciliation, Unity, and Latter Rain Power

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04 Where to Preach Powerful Biblical Appeals

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Becoming a Visitor-Friendly Church

04 Guest-Friendly Worship Services

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04 Which Variant is Original?

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