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Copyright © L. L. Griffith, 1996. ISBN 0-929554-15-9. This document may be reproduced in whole or in part provided that this copyright notice is reproduced on each copy made.
Email: <lelgee@voicenet.com>It is evident from careful attention particularly to the writings of the New Testament letters that the apostles were in agreement as to how "the church" ought to be managed. This custom of management seems generally to have followed the ritual pattern of conduct in the Jewish synagogues. Only when the Gentile Christians were brought into the church were certain modifications made in the time and manner of the physical services, and those allowances too seem to have been made following the sound principles based in the Law of Moses.
Peter is concerned with these things also, but before all, he is concerned about the spiritual elements which are the foundations of the true building in Jesus Christ. Love for God and for one's neighbor is commended above all things. His approach is to begin with the elders, to have them firmly established as teachers to the younger, and for all members of the body to promote the faith as a true example of their Lord's work.
Peter's plea as an elder of the church begins with the call for willing "obedience, and the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ." It ends with Peter's testimony that what he has written "is the true grace of God wherein ye stand." In the written material in his letters - between beginnings and ends - is contained all the information that is needed in order to provide for the orderly conduct of an ecclesia --- an assembly --- a church --- a temple --- if only the elder and the younger brethren willingly adopt, and adapt themselves to the "conversations" which Peter supplies for the teaching, reproof, correction and nurturing instruction of all the members who continue to meet together in love.
Therefore, by the offering of this little commentary on Peter's Epistles, it is devoutly hoped that the empty works and impediments which have crept back into every ecclesia, every assembly, every temple, every church of Christendom may be swept away by the practical application of a good understanding of these; Peter's two writings.
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