How Peculiar! / David Jeremiah

 

How Peculiar! But ye are…a peculiar people. 1 Peter 2:9, KJV   Many of the older translations of the Bible used the word peculiar to describe the people of God. In the King James Version, for example, we learn that Israel is to be God’s “peculiar treasure” (Exodus 19:5) and that Christians are to be a “peculiar people, zealous for good works” (Titus 2:14). Newer versions update the language, telling us we are a special people. Peculiar now has a different connotation.

Recommended Reading: 1 Peter 2: 7 – 10

And yet… A. W. Tozer wrote, “A real Christian is an odd number anyway. He feels supreme love for One whom he has never seen, talks familiarly every day to Someone he cannot see, expects to go to heaven on the virtue of Another, empties himself in order to be full, admits he is wrong so he can be declared right, goes down in order to get up, is strongest when he is weakest, richest when he is poorest and happiest when he feels worst. He dies so he can live, forsakes in order to have, gives away so he can keep, sees the invisible, hears the inaudible and knows that which passes knowledge.” How special we are! Be not afraid to possess this peculiar character, for though it is misunderstood on earth, it is well understood in heaven. Charles Spurgeon