In these two portions of 1 Peter, including 5:10, we have the central focus of this book. We need to be fully captured by this focus. Then we shall not be in danger of being distracted from this focus as we pay attention to the other matters in this book.
We may compare the central focus of 1 Peter to the heart in the human body. We should not take care of the other members of the body at the cost of damaging our heart. We may lose a toe, an arm, or a leg and still live. But we cannot live without a heart. In a similar way, we need to care for the “heart,” the central focus, of 1 Peter.
The heart of this book is the operation of the Triune God to carry out His threefold salvation, which includes regeneration, redemption, and application. We have become God’s children through regeneration, and now we need to feed on His word in order to grow unto full salvation. Then we shall be transformed in order to be built together to provide God a dwelling place and to be His expression. For this purpose, the God of all grace will perfect, establish, strengthen, and ground us. Furthermore, according to 2 Peter 3:18, we need to grow in God’s grace and in the knowledge of Him. This is the focus of 1 and 2 Peter and the focus of the book of Jude.
This central focus is also the basic structure of these Epistles. In the books of 1 and 2 Peter and Jude there are many matters, but not all of these matters are part of the basic structure. We may use a physical building as an illustration. The basic structure of the meeting hall in Anaheim consists of steel beams and columns. Many things can be removed from this building without affecting its basic structure. However, the beams and columns cannot be taken out of the building without destroying the basic structure. Just as the meeting hall in Anaheim has a basic structure, so there is a basic structure to the Epistles of 1 and 2 Peter and Jude.
My concern is that the saints may be distracted from this basic structure by the various matters covered in these books. I am not saying that we should not pay attention to these matters. We need to pay attention to them and even emphasize them, but in doing so we must be certain that we have not been distracted from the basic structure of these writings. This basic structure is the Triune God operating to accomplish a threefold salvation so that we may be regenerated, that we may feed on His word, and that we may grow, be transformed, and be built up in order that He may have a dwelling place and that we may express Him.
This basic thought can also be seen in the Epistles of Paul. For this reason, Peter says, “Even as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, wrote to you, as also in all his letters, speaking in them concerning these things” (2 Pet. 3:15-16). Paul also reveals that we may feed on the Lord and grow in order to be built up into a spiritual house so that God may have a corporate expression. Therefore, these two apostles ministered the same thing, but with somewhat different terminology. Both Peter and Paul had the same focus. I hope that none of us in the Lord’s recovery will be distracted from the central focus and the basic structure of the apostles’ ministry revealed in the New Testament.