{"id":7200,"date":"2015-11-10T05:05:20","date_gmt":"2015-11-10T05:05:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/?p=7200"},"modified":"2015-11-13T01:48:52","modified_gmt":"2015-11-13T01:48:52","slug":"1-peter-27-8-rejecters-of-the-stone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/?p=7200","title":{"rendered":"1 Peter 2:7-8\u2014Rejecters of the Stone"},"content":{"rendered":"

This precious value, then, is for you who believe; but for those who disbelieve, \u201cThe stone which the builders rejected, This became the very corner stone,\u201d and, \u201cA stone of stumbling and a rock of offense\u201d; for they stumble because they are disobedient to the word, and to this doom they were also appointed.<\/em> 1 Peter 2:7-8<\/p>\n

This precious value, then, is for you who believe<\/em>\u2026<\/p>\n

You who believe have received an enormously precious value. Because of your faith in Christ, you will not be disappointed\u2014the living Stone is your personal Rock of refuge.<\/p>\n

\u2026 but for those who disbelieve<\/em>\u2026<\/p>\n

In stark contrast to men and women of faith are those who disbelieve<\/em>. Disbelievers are not merely those who struggle with unbelief; they are a category of their own. Disbelievers are those who are religiously dogmatic about their disbelief; they pride themselves on their intellectual rejection of the claims of Christ.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe stone which the builders rejected, This became the very corner stone,\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Chief among the disbelievers were builders<\/em>: Leaders of men. Rulers over others. Those in authority. False shepherds.<\/p>\n

And those who were entrusted with stewardship over the lives and well-being of hundreds of thousands of souls rejected<\/em> the living Stone from God. They wanted nothing to do with that Man but to discredit Him, to silence Him, and to snuff Him out.<\/p>\n

It seems as if many of those builders are still alive in our day.<\/p>\n

Yet this Stone, this Rock of great value, could not be diminished by the deception and ruthlessness of disbelievers. Indeed, the rejected Stone\u2014cast aside as abhorrent\u00a0by the builders themselves\u2014was chosen before the foundation of the world to be set as Cornerstone of God\u2019s new Construction, the Church.<\/p>\n

\u201cA stone of stumbling and a rock of offense\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

The builders were\u00a0entrusted with\u00a0this Stone of precious value to cleanse themselves and to empower them to shepherd the sheep with wisdom and humble integrity. Instead, they stumbled over Him in their\u00a0vehement rejection and were offended by Him due to their unwavering disbelief.<\/p>\n

\u2026 for they stumble because they are disobedient to the word<\/em>\u2026<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t their intellectual acuity or their highly-evolved spirituality that led them to reject the living Stone. No, the bottom line was this: they refused to obey the Word.<\/p>\n

\u2026 and to this doom they were also appointed.<\/em><\/p>\n

It is no small thing to \u201cdo your own thing\u201d in regard to the Truth, figuring that embracing the Word of God belongs to narrow souls, not to open-minded individuals such as yourself. However, Jesus, the Stone rejected by those who should have known better, noted long ago, \u201cThe gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it<\/em>\u201d (Matthew 7:14).<\/p>\n

So they chose their own path, you may suggest. What could that possibly<\/em> hurt?\u00a0 And what is this doom<\/em>? Why are they appointed to it?<\/p>\n

The doom<\/em> that awaits disbelievers and Stone-rejecters is simply this: They will\u00a0receive<\/em> their preference\u2014an eternity without Christ, separated from all that is His\u2014and could have been theirs<\/em> for the asking.<\/p>\n

Why are they appointed<\/em> to doom? They<\/em> made the appointment via their disbelief; they secured<\/em> their appointment by choosing to be offended by the only One who could save them.<\/p>\n

Matthew Henry\u2019s Commentary<\/em> refers to such souls this way: \u201cAll those who are disobedient take offense at the Word of God; they are offended with Christ Himself, and with His doctrine and the purity of His precepts\u2026at the meanness [unimpressiveness] of His appearance and the proposal of trusting only to Him for their justification before God\u201d [Note: Mr. Henry passed away in 1714 before he finished his commentary on the epistles and Revelation. The commentary on 1 Peter was written from Mr. Henry\u2019s notes by Mr. Zechariah Merrill.]<\/p>\n

What does it profit a man to gain the world\u00a0only to forfeit his soul? And what precious value awaits the one who forfeits the ways of the world to gain Christ?<\/p>\n

Dorothy<\/p>\n

But we are not of those who shrink back to destruction, but of those who have faith to the preserving of the soul.<\/em> Hebrews 10:39<\/p>\n

\u00a9 2015, Dorothy Frick<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This precious value, then, is for you who believe; but for those who disbelieve, \u201cThe stone which the builders rejected, This became the very corner stone,\u201d and, \u201cA stone of stumbling and a rock of offense\u201d; for they stumble because they are disobedient to the word, and to this doom they were also appointed. 1 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[350],"tags":[158,361,363,362,360,356,364,365],"class_list":["post-7200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1-peter-2","tag-chief-cornerstone","tag-cornerstone","tag-rock-of-offense","tag-stone-of-stumbling","tag-stone-rejected-by-builders","tag-stone-rejected-of-men","tag-stumble-because-disobedience-to-word","tag-to-doom-they-were-appoointed"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7200"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7200\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7215,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7200\/revisions\/7215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}