From Ignorance to Bliss

Audio Transcript

First Peter 1:14 is key to understanding the book of 1 Peter. “As obedient children do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance.” That’s the opposite of knowledge. He tells the husbands, “live with her according to knowledge,” and the flip side of that would be “live according to the passions of your former ignorance.”

“What marks a Christian is that we once dwelt in dark ignorance, but now we live in blissful light.”

What marks a Christian is that we once lived in ignorance. We were in darkness. We didn’t know what side was up in the universe. We were oblivious to God, and salvation, and the cross, and the Holy Spirit, and obedience, and the word of God, and true kinds of love and sanctification. The whole world of Christianity was ignorance to us.

Then we get born again. Our eyes open, and knowledge starts to flood our minds about these things. This ignorance is former. Former. You don't have that anymore. It changes passions. This is how I understand the Christian life. The mind is dark — there’s no God. The Holy Spirit moves and the new birth happens. Spiritual eyes open. We see God as glorious and that awakens passions we never could have known before.


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