We’re looking at Peter’s first letter to the church. He’s been talking about us as the living temple of the Holy Spirit. Now he continues to describe us as the people of God.
But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
1 Peter 2:9-10 NIV
In this section of Scripture, he’s talking about who we are in Christ. He compares who we are now to who we were before.
In the past we were not one people group. We all come from different backgrounds. We are from multiple ethnicities, social, economic, and educational backgrounds.
However, right now, we are one new group – we are God’s people.
In the past, we could not expect any rewards from God. But now, in Christ, we have obtained rewards from God. The fact is that because of the Lord’s work on the cross, you and I now qualify.
That’s what I want to talk about in the next couple of posts. Who we are now and what this means to us. Let’s look at how Peter describes us.
The first thing he says is that we’re a chosen people. A better translation would be that we are a chosen generation. It’s talking about a generation in the sense of a newly generated – newly created – group of people.
Think of it like how in our society we have different generations. There are the Baby Boomers, Baby Busters, Gen X, etc. Each of these groups share like experiences and form many of the same opinions. Sometimes their ways are foreign to the other generations. We call that a Generation Gap.
According to Scripture, we are a chosen, selected, newly formed group. I’m no longer a Boomer, I’m now a member of the select, the chosen people of God. So, theoretically, there should be no “gap” in Christian homes.
That’s because we’re all a part of the same new group. We’ve been born again under the same conditions.
The next thing that we’re called is a royal priesthood. The word royal means kingly. In Christ, we have the authority of kings in this world – under Jesus the King of kings.
We’re also a part of the priesthood of believers. That means we represent Christ to the world, but we also stand before God on behalf of others.
We are a kingly priesthood. What does it mean to be kingly? A king walks differently, acts differently, talks differently.
That’s because they know that everything they do comes under scrutiny. Do you understand that we’re being watched closely?
I’m not just talking about the Lord watching over us. The world is watching all that we do. I know that there’s some believers who say, “They shouldn’t be watching me. I’m human, just like them.”
Get over it. They inherently know that as believers we have a higher calling. They are going to watch us more closely. They want to see if what we have is the real thing.
There have been times when the most unlikely people have come to me asking for prayer either for themselves or a loved one. That’s where our priesthood comes into play. They’re looking for truth. Will they find it in us?
That’s why we need to be in the Word and in prayer. We must be ready for the Spirit’s leading.
Question: How prepared are you to respond as a part of the royal priesthood?
© 2025 Nick Zaccardi
The Spirit and the Word 