The New People of God - 1 Peter 2:7-10

Today's passage, 1 Peter 2:7-10, brings to a close the first major section of 1 Peter.  In this opening section, Peter has been seeking to ground these elect exiles’ identity in who they are in Christ and what he’s done for them, and then show them their responsibilities towards God and towards each other as God’s people, especially in the face of oppression and suffering on account of their faith.  

In these last verses of this first section, Peter again reminds us of our identity - our corporate identity - and he does so by setting up, in verses 7-8, the fact there are two kinds of people in the world. Our world loves to divide in a myriad of ways. And yet God’s Word tells us that people are ultimately divided in only two ways -  those who stand on the Word and those who stumble over it.