Ch 3

We often wonder what God is doing in the world as our society appears to become more and more godless. Psalm 80 asks the same sort of question and asks for God's mercy. Then in 1 Peter 1 we see that the answer to these Old Testament longings are found in the sufferings and glories of Christ. We also learn the news of Christ's sufferings and glories come to us by the Holy Spirit working through human evangelists. So God's current priority is Spirit-backed preaching of the gospel leading to people being saved. When we look at the growth of the early church in Acts, this is exactly what we see. So we should make God's priority our priority, put our focus on people rather than structures and more specifically spend time speaking God's word to others so the Spirit can apply it to people's hearts.

Ch4

While most Christians would agree with the need speak God's word and pray for his Spirit's activity in people's lives, not all would agree about who should be responsible for doing it. In Acts 2 and 4 we see that all the disciples were involved in speaking the word of God with boldness, not just the leaders. The priority of everyone speaking God's word comes through in Ephesians 4-6, Colossians 3, Romans 15-16, Heb 3, 10 and especially 1Corinthians where the speaking gifts are to be valued above the other gifts, so everyone can be built up. But what about speaking to non-Christians? 1Peter 3:13-16 tells us we should all be ready to give a reason for our hope. In 1Thessalonians 1:5-10 the gospel had come to them through human words along with power and conviction and they had become imitators of Paul so that the word of God went out from them throughout the region. Then in 1Corinthians 10:31-11:1 Paul calls on them to structure their whole lives to bring God glory, minimise offence to others and try to please everyone not for their own advantage but so that many may be saved. 1 Cor 8 and 9 shows similar priorities. Mt 5:13-16, Col 4:2-6, Tit 2:1-10, 1Pet 2:9-12, 3:1-2,15 all show the priority of bringing the gospel to the world for ordinary Christians. So we should all be creatively looking for ways to speak God's word at home, in our congregations and to our community around us. The chapter finishes with lots of helpful examples of the sorts of things we can be doing.