Like Living Stones -- 2 Peter 2:5

1 Peter 2:1–6
So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation—if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For it stands in Scripture:

“Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone,
a cornerstone chosen and precious,
and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.” (ESV)

There are five things to put away (or "put off" as Paul would say): mailice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy and slander. Let us look at the words in the Greek.

English	Greek	Definition
malice	κακίαν	It is antonym of the greek word for virtue
deceit	δόλον	It is derived from the verb, "to catch with bait."
hypocrisy	ὑποκρίσεις	pretense
envy	φθόνους	the envy which one man grudge another something which he himself desires, but does not possess
slander	καταλαλιάς	"to run"down," "to disparage"

Karen H. Jobes comments on the passage.

Karen H. Jobes
The vices listed in 2:1 that must be put off are those that destroy relationships and hence that destroy community. Peter is explaining in this letter how social alienation that the Christian experiences from society is to be remedied by genuine fellowship found within the community of believers, the nature of which he describes in 2:4-10. Peter's readers have been given a new birth as the people of God and therefore are to exhibit an ethical transformation in their relationships that is characteristics of the Father. (p. 131)

As Karen Jobes comments, these five vices destroy community. They are the evils one does to someone else. I read a lot of mysteries by British writers. A favorite plot device they use often is "poison pen letters." The letters indicate to the readers that some deeper, hidden, mischief is afoot. In these stories, the authors spell out, often in excruciating detail, the damage the letters do to the communal relationships. The letters disrupt trust, raise suspicions, and increase fear. They cause even more gossip to spread. Likewise in the local church, although these vices may not be expressed through poison pen letters, the evil will grow and if not opposed, it will eventually destroy a church.

The apostle Peter already addressed how to address these evils earlier in the letter.

1 Peter 1:22
Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart,

The answer is pursuing loving one another with a pure heart that has been transformed by the Gospel. Peter then writes about why pursuing love is so dear to God's heart. He is building us into His house: a holy temple. Christ is the cornestone and we are the building blocks. The building material of the cornerstone and the living stones has the same attributes: human nature. Again, Karen Jobes provides some insight.

Karen H. Jobes
The placement of the Living Stone with living stones in the temple implies the close relationship of Christ with believers and their common nature as human beings. The Cornerstone is called "living" by virtue of his resurrection; the same resurrection life enlivens the stones that come to him and take their place in the new temple. The image of the living stones of the new temple also has implications for the conception of the Christians relationship to other believers. Notably, these living stones are not lying about in idle isolation or disorder in Peter's description. They are not heaped in a pile or scattered across a field. Christians are not individually temples of God in the image Peter presents. They are each put in place in a spiritual house for the purpose of being a holy priesthood that offers acceptable sacrifices to God. (1 Peter, pp. 148, 149)

John Calvin agrees, but stresses even more the role love has in fitting believers together.

John Calvin from commentary on the Catholic Epistles
We must further observe, that he constructs one house from the whole number of the faithful. For though every one of us is said to be the temple of God, yet all are united together in one, and must be joined together by mutual love, so that one temple may be made of us all. Then, as it is true that each one is a temple in which God dwells by his Spirit, so all ought to be so fitted together, that they may form one universal temple. This is the case when every one, content with his own measure, keeps himself within the limits of his own duty; all have, however, something to do with regard to others.
(https://ccel.org/ccel/calvin/calcom45/calcom45.iv.iii.i.html)

The apostle Paul uses this analogy as well in Ephesians.

Ephesians 2:19–22
So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. (ESV)

Notice to "build up" (οικοδομεισθε) in 1st Peter and to "build together" (συνοικοδομεῖσθε) in Ephesians are both in the present/passive/indicative. This means the action is being done to the members of the church and is an ongoing process.

There is an interesting verse in the Old Testament about how Solomon had his temple built is 1 Kings 6:7.

1 Kings 6:7
When the house was built, it was with stone prepared at the quarry, so that neither hammer nor axe nor any tool of iron was heard in the house while it was being built. (ESV)

It is not easy to find out why Solomon prepared the materials to fit together before bringing them to the construction site. The following verses from the Exodus and Deuteronomy, gives us a hint, but not the full story.

Exodus 20:24–25
An altar of earth you shall make for me and sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your peace offerings, your sheep and your oxen. In every place where I cause my name to be remembered I will come to you and bless you. If you make me an altar of stone, you shall not build it of hewn stones, for if you wield your tool on it you profane it. (ESV)

Deuteronomy 27:5–6
And there you shall build an altar to the LORD your God, an altar of stones. You shall wield no iron tool on them; you shall build an altar to the LORD your God of uncut stones. And you shall offer burnt offerings on it to the LORD your God, (ESV)

I have two observations. The materials were pre-selected and pre-formed before they were brought to be placed in the building. This practice seems to point not just reverence to God, but the honoring God as the builder of the temple. Josephus, a historian born in A. D. 37 of a priestly Jewish a family, wrote the following about the ancient temple.

Now the whole structure of the temple was made, with great skill, of polished stones, and those laid together so very harmoniously and smoothly, that there appeared to the spectators no sign of any hammer, or other instrument of architecture, but as if, without any use of them, the entire materials had,naturally united themselves together, that the agreement of one part with another seemed rather to have been natural than to have arisen from the force of tools upon them.
The Works of Josephus: Complete and Unabridged in One Volume, The Antiquities of the Jews, Book 8 Chapter 3, p. 216) (Translated by William Whiston, New Updated Edition, Hendrickson Publishers, 1987)

The physical temple is a type of the "temple to come". The builders of the physical temple tried to minimize the role man has in creating the temple. Ultimately, God will build the final temple himself. God has selected believers to be the building stones and Christ is to be the cornerstone. He is shaping believers so they fit together seamlessly and beautifully when he is done. He uses believers to shape each other (Proverbs 27:17). The Holy Spirit has given each of us a unique set of gifts that we may serve one another in the body of Christ. Through Christ's example of his life and death, we learn how to serve one another sacrifically through love and humility.

Bibliography

Karen H. Jobes, Baker Exegetical Commentary in the New Testament (ECNT): 1 Peter , (2005)

Secret Codes in Jeremiah

I found this interesting. Jeremiah or Baruch (his scribe) disguised names of rival countries in the book of Jeremiah for various reasons. One obfuscation technique that Old Testament writers used is called, "atbash".

In his commentary, J. A. Thompson, defines what an "Atbash" is:

"Atbash" is a device in which the letters of a name counted from the beginning of the alphabet are exchanged for letters counted from the end: Zimki would be 'Elam in the Hebrew alphabet, and bbl (Babel) would be ssk (Shesak, in v.[25:]26). In these ciphers aleph is replaced by by taw (t), beth (b) by shin (s), etc. (p. 518)

Old Testament scholar, Walter Kaiser, calls "atbash" a cryptogram. The cryptogram technique is used in Jeremiah 51:1.

Jeremiah 51:1-4
Thus says the LORD: “Behold, I will stir up the spirit of a destroyer against Babylon, against the inhabitants of Leb-kamai, and I will send to Babylon winnowers, and they shall winnow her, and they shall empty her land, when they come against her from every side on the day of trouble. Let not the archer bend his bow, and let him not stand up in his armor. Spare not her young men; devote to destruction all her army. They shall fall down slain in the land of the Chaldeans, and wounded in her streets. (ESV)

Kaiser's commentary on Jeremiah 51:1

God calls Babylon “Leb Kamai” (…), which means “the heart of those who rise against me.” But this is also a cryptogram, known as an atbash (see 25:26 for an explanation), so that the Heb. consonants lbqmy are reversed to spell instead kysdm, a disguised form of Chaldea/Babylon. It is employed here not because the name of Babylon is a secret for Jeremiah has already revealed the name (v. 1b), but so that the citizens of that land might realize that they are those who were opposing Yahweh from their hearts. (Kaiser, p. 565)

Earlier in Jeremiah (Jer. 25:26), Kaiser comments on a different passage using this same technique. The following is Kaiser's translation.

"all the kings of the north, near and far, one after another-- all the kings of the earth. After all of them, the king of Shesach will drink it too."

Here is Kaiser's comment on the passage:

Babylon is finally mentioned in v. 26b; however, it appears in cryptic fashion in a figure of speech knows as an atbash cryptogram. The word used here is “Sheshach” (v. 26b; 51:41). In this cryptogram, the alphabet is divided in halves so that the letters corresponding to the word “Sheshach” are read from the opposite half of the alphabet in reverse order. “Sheshach yields “B(a)b(e)l.” (Kaiser, p. 302)

Conclusion

I have no idea of the spiritual significance of the encryption. In the passage in Jeremiah 51, Baruch referenced both the name "Babylon" and its atbash "Leb-kamai." Baruch was not just encrypting names to protect himself. The original readers must have known its significance. The care the writers used in writing Jeremiah is displayed in details like this. To plumb scripture's depths and beauties is a lifelong pursuit.

Bibliography

1. Walter C. Kaiser, JR., Tiberius Rata, Walking the Ancient Paths: A Commentary on Jeremiah, (2019)

2. J. A. Thompson, The New International Commentary on the Old Testament: The Book of Jeremiah, (2019)