Longing For the Pure Milk of God’s Word (1 Peter 2:1-12)

Summary

Grace in Focus Podcast Summary

Episode Title: Longing For the Pure Milk of God’s Word (1 Peter 2:1-12)
Hosts: Bob Wilkin and David Renfro
Date: January 8, 2026
Duration: ~13 minutes

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Episode Overview

This episode centers on the transformative exhortations in 1 Peter 2:1-12, specifically encouraging believers and churches to deeply desire the Word of God, live out their identity in Christ, and function as a spiritual community. Bob Wilkin and David Renfro dig into how these verses distinguish between justification and sanctification, explore the church as a spiritual house, and discuss the practical and theological implications for both Jewish and Gentile believers.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Desiring the Pure Milk of God’s Word (1 Peter 2:1-3)

• Corporate Setting:
  The passage is addressed corporately—urging the local church to lay aside malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and evil speaking. This clears the way for the body to receive biblical teaching without impediment.
  • Wilkin: “We, as a local church, need to lay aside all malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy and evil speaking...when we come together to hear the Word of God taught, we are going to be hindered in our ability to take it in.” [01:53]
• Preparation for Worship:
  Entering church shouldn’t be approached casually or with reluctance; it requires intentional spiritual readiness, akin to a newborn longing for milk.
  • Wilkin: “We should be anticipating...prepare ourselves to eat this spiritual feast. Part of the way we do that is laying aside anything that's going to hinder us.” [02:48]
• Greek Wordplay:
  There’s a subtle Greek play on the words “Christos” (Christ) and “chrestos” (gracious)—highlighting that the Lord Jesus is the very embodiment of grace.
  • Wilkin: “...there's a play on words in the Greek...Christos is very similar to Chrestos. How is Chrestos translated? Gracious.” [03:17]

2. Corporate Worship and Scriptural Growth

• Historical Context:
  In the first century, only local churches had copies of the Scriptures. Hearing the Word together was vital for communal spiritual growth.
  • Wilkin: “The local churches had the scrolls and the local churches had copies of books of the New Testament. That's where you would go to hear the word of God taught.” [04:22]
• Modern Application:
  Even with easy Bible access today, regular, corporate exposure to preaching remains crucial for ongoing maturation.
  • Wilkin: “This verse is calling us to corporate worship and to hear the Word of God taught. And this is...where we grow is week in and week out.” [04:43]
  • Renfro: “There's no such thing as knowing too much...You can have a surface knowledge...if you have a good understanding...it's time for you to dig into some of the details. That's a lifelong process.” [05:02]

3. Living Stones and Spiritual Sacrifices (1 Peter 2:4-8)

• Believers as Living Stones:
  Drawing from OT imagery, believers are depicted as living stones being built into a spiritual house, with Christ as the foundational, chosen, and precious stone.
  • Wilkin: “We're a spiritual house. The foundation is Christ. We're part of that. We're living stones.” [05:17]
• Contrast to Old Covenant:
  The emphasis shifts from physical to spiritual sacrifices, underlining the change from Mosaic Law to Christ-based faith.
  • Renfro: “Notice it's not physical sacrifices. ...Things have changed.” [06:03]
• Progressive Growth:
  The text’s trajectory: First, listen to Christ; second, grow in Him; third, build your life on Him.
  • Renfro: “First of all, listen to him. Secondly, on the basis of what we hear, let's grow in our knowledge.” [07:25]

4. Royal Priesthood and the “Holy Nation” (1 Peter 2:9-10)

• Identity in Christ:
  Peter’s audience is called “a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special people”—summarizing their spiritual privileges and responsibilities.
  • Wilkin: “He talks about the readers...a royal priesthood and holy nation...God's own special people.” [09:36]
• Clarification on Replacement Theology:
  The phrase “holy nation” is not an assertion that the church replaces Israel.
  • Wilkin: “This expression, a holy nation, has been used...to teach replacement theology. The church is now the new Israel. And that's not what Peter is saying here, right?” [10:04]
  • Renfro: “You belong to a group of people that are way beyond the boundaries of where you were born…Our relationship in the church is patterned after what Israel did, but it didn't replace it.” [11:21]

5. Mission and Witness in the World (1 Peter 2:11-12)

• Pilgrims and Testimony:
  Believers are described as sojourners, called to abstain from fleshly lusts and maintain a powerful testimony through their conduct, glorifying God before unbelievers.
  • Renfro: “We are…sojourners and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts. In other words, we have a testimony to the outside world.” [12:08]
• Looking to Christ’s Return:
  The “day of visitation” likely refers to Christ’s return, urging believers to live in a way that shines before others until that day.
  • Wilkin: “The day of visitation probably refers to Christ's soon return.” [12:39]
  • Renfro: “Because he could come back at any time.” [12:43]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On spiritual hunger:
  “We should be anticipating...prepare ourselves to eat this spiritual feast.” — Bob Wilkin [02:48]

• On spiritual growth:
  “There's no such thing as knowing too much...That's a lifelong process.” — David Renfro [05:02]

• On church identity:
  “We are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood…called out of darkness.” — David Renfro [10:45]

• On spiritual heritage:
  “Our relationship in the church is patterned after what Israel did, but it didn't replace it.” — David Renfro [11:21]

• On witness to the world:
  “We have a testimony to the outside world. And that's an important aspect of this.” — David Renfro [12:08]

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Key Timestamps

• 01:04 – Introduction to 1 Peter 2:1-12; laying aside hindrances
• 02:21 – Longing for the Word; church as a feasting ground
• 03:17 – Greek wordplay: Christos and chrestos (gracious)
• 04:22 – Historical setting: early church’s approach to Scripture
• 05:17 – Spiritual house: living stones and spiritual sacrifices
• 06:03 – Shift from Old Testament to New Covenant sacrifices
• 07:25 – Growth and responsibility in Christ
• 09:36 – The “holy nation”: church and Israel
• 10:45 – Believer identity: chosen and called
• 12:08 – Sojourners: testimony in an unbelieving world
• 12:39 – Day of visitation and anticipation of Christ's return

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Conclusion

This concise, insightful conversation between Bob Wilkin and David Renfro highlights the importance of a corporate, eager approach to Scripture, our collective identity as God’s people, and our call to spiritual maturity and vibrant testimony as we await Christ’s return. Listeners are encouraged to engage deeply with the Word and with their local church, both for personal growth and for the good of the faith community.

Transcript

[A]

The following is a listener supported ministry from the Grace Evangelical Society. How much do you love and long for God's word? Are you growing in the Lord? Are you set apart for Him? Have you tasted his grace lately? This would be a great daily habitus for us all in 2026. Stay with us and be encouraged today on Grace in Focus. This is a ministry of the Grace Evangelical Society and our website is faithalone.org there you can get details about our free online seminary and about our upcoming national annual conference held at Camp Kopass in Denton, Texas. A lovely place and you'll meet a lot of lovely people there too. Plan to come and join us. Our theme is Believe in Jesus for Life. We'll also focus on discipleship and you can get all the details for this [e-mail] events. Come join us now with today's discussion. Here's Bob Wilkin along with David Renfro.

[B]

We're making our way through First Peter and we're in First Peter chapter two. And we're going to look at verses one, maybe all the way to verse 12 today. And as I mentioned at the last show, I particularly love 2:1,3 because it's talking notice. Would you read that 2:1,3?

[C]

Sure. It says in verse one, therefore, laying aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy and all evil, speaking as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the Word that you may grow thereby if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious.

[B]

Yeah. Now there's a lot going on here and we won't have time to hit every little aspect of it.

[C]

You could spend five shows on these verses here.

[B]

Oh, absolutely. Notice, I think, and a lot of commentators point this out, that 2:1 through 3 is corporate. In other words, we as a local church need to lay aside all malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy and evil speaking. Because if we don't do that, when we come together to hear the Word of God taught, we, we are going to be hindered in our ability to take it in.

[C]

Absolutely.

[B]

In order to take it in as newborn babes. You know newborn babes long for mother's milk, Right. They're longing for this. And he's using this illustration saying we should long for God's word. So it seems to me when we go to church on Sunday morning, we shouldn't just be going like, wow, I can't believe I've got to do this. I could be fishing, I could be golfing.

[C]

This is going to be so boring.

[B]

It's Boring, you know, blah, blah, blah. No, we should be anticipating. In other words, we're to prepare ourselves to eat this spiritual feast. Right. And part of the way we do that is laying aside anything that's going to hinder us. If I've got some issue with a brother or sister, I need to deal with that before Sunday morning.

[C]

Exactly.

[B]

So that it's not festering and causing me problems. I'm like a newborn baby. I'm longing for the pure milk of the Word.

[C]

Right.

[B]

So God's Word should be precious to us. And then he says, if you indeed have tasted that the Lord is gracious. And what's interesting here is there's a play on words in the Greek because this word is similar in sound to the word Christ. Christos is very similar to Christos. How is Christos translated? Gracious.

[C]

Gracious, yeah.

[B]

That the Lord is gracious. So you've got basically the Christ is.

[C]

The Lord is grace personified, or something like that.

[B]

So this is a powerful beginning of this section. And it's all within the section dealing with working out the salvation of our psuke. Our souls in light of loving the brethren. So loving the brethren is. Includes coming together corporately and hearing the Word of God taught. And of course, in the first century, the people didn't have scrolls of the Old Testament.

[C]

No.

[B]

Nor did they have all of the New Testament epistles in their homes. The local churches had the scrolls and the local churches had copies of books of the New Testament. That's where you would go to hear the word of God taught. And even though today we have the Bible in our own language and we can read it, and we should read it.

[C]

Absolutely.

[B]

The truth is this verse is calling us to corporate worship and to hear the Word of God taught. And this is, in my view, where we grow is week in and week out hearing the Word of God taught.

[C]

Yeah. What I told my students, there's no such thing as knowing too much.

[B]

Right.

[C]

And that's true about the Word. You can have a surface knowledge of the Word, which is great. But then if you have a good understanding of the Word on the surface level, it's time for you to dig into some of the details. That's a lifelong process.

[B]

Let's look at 4 through the end of this section, which is 12. We're coming to Jesus, him as the living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God. There's an example of where chosen is used in Scripture. The Lord Jesus Christ was chosen by God. That's a reference to God the Father, right? Yeah, and precious. You also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house. Paul talked about this in First Corinthians 3, 5, 15, right, that we're a spiritual house. The foundation is Christ. We're part of that. We're living stones. And we are to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

[C]

Notice, I think it is important to contrast that, especially in the Jewish time. Notice it's not physical sacrifices. They are not required, like the Old Testament in Mosaic Law. No, Things have changed.

[B]

Yes.

[C]

I think it is interesting that these verses that we are going over, verses one through three, the brethren are to listen to Christ like newborn babes. And now the emphasis is grow in Christ. First. Listen to him now, grow in him. And that's what he's saying. As a living stone rejected by men, you're being built up. Grow, grow up in Christ.

[B]

Amen.

[C]

And the idea is that we are part of that spiritual tabernacle, if you will.

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

You are invited to subscribe to the Grace Evangelical Society's YouTube chann. Find our Monday, Wednesday and Friday videos there. Enlightening and encouraging and even probably humorous at times. If you like Bob Wilkins humor, indeed, you will get biblical truth about free grace themes like faith alone for eternal salvation and why the Grace evangelical society is zero point Calvinistic. We come your way three times a week at the Grace Evangelical YouTube channel. Check it out and tell a friend about the Grace Evangelical Society.

[C]

I love how he says this. It's a very, very clever way to say that's another responsibility we have to our brothers and sisters. We need to continue to grow in Christ. First of all, listen to him. Secondly, on the basis of what we hear, let's grow in our knowledge.

[B]

That's very good. And by the way, we're having our annual conference coming up, 5-18-21, and this year it's on the message of life and discipleship. And so we'll be talking about these important years. And by the way, David, did you know this is the 40th anniversary of the founding of Grace Evangelical Society? 40th anniversary in 1986. In June of 1986, I sent out the first newsletter to 30 people. Let's see, I think I was 34, but don't tell anybody. But in any regard, we welcome you to come. In fact, registration is now [e-mail] and we have a discount, a steep discount, if you register before the end of January. So come and register if you're interested. But notice how he talks about in verses six through eight. He's talking about this stone which is laid in Zion, which is the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the elect stone. He's the chosen stone. And this is the stone which the builders rejected. But to those of us who continue to believe on him, he is precious. And we won't be put to shame as long as we continue to walk in faith toward Him.

[C]

Right, right. I think it's interesting too, verse six, notice the word therefore. What's the therefore, therefore kind of thing.

[B]

That's what you learn when you go to seminary.

[C]

There you go. He's concluding after listening to Christ in verses 1 through 3, growing in Christ in verses 4 and 5, 6 and 8. He's saying, Build your life on Christ. And that's what he's saying here. I think it's interesting that verse 6 has a quote from Isaiah 28:16. And Paul uses this in Romans 9:33 to emphasize how important this concept is that we're talking about here in Peter. I love that.

[B]

Yes, that is terrific. And by the way, in verses 9 through 10, he talks about the readers and as being, among other things, a royal priesthood and holy nation, God's own special people. Now this expression, a holy nation, has been used by some people to teach replacement theology. The church is now the new Israel. And that's not what Peter is saying here, right?

[C]

Well, I would eloquently respond to that as going.

[B]

The holy nation, I would suggest, refers to believing Jews. And these believing Jews are a remnant of the nation itself. In other words, as you said before, there could be Gentiles that are reading these epistles, but this dispersion is primarily among Jewish.

[C]

I agree.

[B]

And he's writing primarily to them. And when he calls them a holy nation, I believe he's talking to them as this remnant. So how would you summarize verses 9 and 10?

[C]

Well, it summarizes what is said earlier too. Listen to Christ, build on Christ and so on. And now in verses 9 and 10, he's kind of doing a summary of who we are as believers. We are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood. We're supposed to be that we were called out of darkness, that kind of thing.

[B]

And even though we're not Jewish believers, at least not all of us, yet we understand when he calls them a holy nation, that they were a set apart people and we're to also be a set apart people.

[C]

It could be, and I'm a big believer in this, that that term can be both literal and figurative at the same time. If you're talking Jews, they're talking a holy nation of Israel, the remnant. Yeah, but you're talking Gentiles. It's more figurative. But you belong to a group of people that are way beyond the boundaries of where you were born, so to speak. So it says, like I say, verse 10, you're now the people of God. You're not a certain ethnic group or you're not a certain citizen of a certain nation. Our relationship in the church is patterned after what Israel did, but it didn't replace it.

[B]

Yes. Now verses 11 and 12 ends with the day of glorifying God in the day of visitation. What's that all about?

[C]

Well, I think it deals with starting the section on our mission as believers in this unbelieving world. And so he says we are notice he calls us sojourners and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts. In other words, we have a testimony to the outside world. And that's an important aspect of this.

[B]

And by the good works which they observe, we are glorifying God.

[C]

Yes.

[B]

And the day of visitation probably refers to Christ's soon return.

[C]

I think so too. Yeah.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Because he could come back at any time.

[B]

Yeah. Amen. Well, thanks so much. And let's all keep grace.

[C]

Keep grace in focus.

[A]

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