Remembering that we serve Christ as our Master will help us make the right choices and choose the right words when we find ourselves in the war zone. In 1 Peter 4:12–19, Peter focuses on the trials that Christians might face, urging his readers to “not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you” (1 Peter 4:12). Sounding a little like Paul in the opening section of Romans 5, Peter wants Christians to “rejoice” in tribulations (1 Peter 4:13; Rom. 5:3).

Peter’s first epistle is important for Christians to study. Here are three things you should know about 1 Peter:
1. Its Author, Peter, Who Was Singled Out by Jesus and Called the “Rock” (Matt. 16:18), Uses Similar Imagery in This Epistle
True, there has been some discussion about this verse and what exactly Jesus meant by it, but it seems clear that Jesus is addressing Peter, who had just confessed that Jesus was “the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matt. 16:16). One imagines that Peter was fascinated by rocks and stones after that. Interesting, then, that Peter should make a great deal of it in his first epistle by referencing rocks or stones in 1 Peter 2:4–8. He cites three passages, from Isaiah and the final Hallel psalms (Psalms 113–118, recited at Passover), that specifically mention stones or rocks.
One citation references a “cornerstone” that God “will lay in Zion”—a reference to Jesus, a stone that the builders will reject (Isa. 28:16; Ps. 118:22). Think of how the Jews in Jesus’ day rejected Him. The last reference speaks of a stone, or a rock, over which men will stumble (Isa. 8:14–15). This rock “rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him” is, of course, Jesus (1 Peter 2:4).
Peter wants his readers to understand that Christians are “living stones,” carefully and securely placed into the church that Jesus is now building, and in which Christ is the cornerstone. This building (the church) is supported by a promise: “The gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matt. 16:18).
2. First Peter Is Chiefly Concerned about the Shape of the Christian Life
Peter opens the letter by saying that Christians are chosen “according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood” (1 Peter 1:2). Peter spends over half of the epistle talking about what sanctification looks like, citing in chapter 1 what is sometimes called the “Holiness Code” from the book of Leviticus: “You shall be holy, for I am holy” (1 Peter 1:16; Lev. 11:44, 45; 19:2; 20:7).
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The disciples recognized again that this man from Nazareth, the son of Mary and Joseph, was also God. For everything else about which the disciples are confused, there is no doubt about the divinity of Jesus in the Gospels on the part of the disciples. The early disciples accepted as fact that Jesus is God. This truth about Jesus is as simple as it is astonishing and beautiful all at the same time. More importantly, without this fact, there is no Christianity. In the boat on the Sea of Galilee that morning was God Himself.

Perhaps no miracle was more spectacular than the one that finds Jesus and Peter walking on the surface of the Sea of Galilee. And the fact that Matthew’s account (Matt. 14:22–33) unusually employs the word “immediately” three times (Matt. 14:22, 27, 31)—a stylistic choice more typical of Mark—suggests that Matthew is recording an eyewitness account given to him by Peter himself. Peter is saying to Matthew, “I want you to tell this story as I saw it!”
And what a story it is! A storm at sea. Stunning miracles involving both Jesus and Peter. And an embarrassing collapse of faith followed by a rescuing hand of the Master.
Faith Will Be Tested
The disciples are in a boat on the Sea of Galilee because Jesus told them to “go before him to the other side” (Matt. 14:22). Crowds had gathered to hear Jesus. They wanted to see miracles too. But it was now time to dismiss them because evening was approaching.
The disciples are “a long way from the land” (Matt. 14:24) when a storm arises. This is not the first storm that Peter has witnessed. He had seen Jesus’ power in stilling a storm on the Sea of Galilee before (Matt. 8:23–27).
The Sea of Galilee is 680 feet above sea level, and 30 miles to the north, Mount Hermon rises to an impressive 9,000 feet. Topography dictates that sudden downdrafts of cold air from the north can quickly cause windy gusts and choppy waves on the Sea of Galilee. No doubt the disciples had experienced these many times. Yet on this occasion, they were in trouble at sea because they had obeyed their Master’s command to sail to the other side. Obedience can sometimes get you into trouble.
Faith will always be tested. It was one of the very first lessons that the Apostle Paul learned following his first missionary journey: “Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22). Peter would reflect on this idea many times afterward: “Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed” (1 Peter 4:12–13). “And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you” (1 Peter 5:10).
Peter came to understand all too well that there are “various trials” (1 Peter 1:6). The word translated “various” (Greek, poikilos) suggests multivariate, an entire rainbow of tribulations: physical, spiritual, mental, or even a combination of all three. They may appear to be strange, and God may orchestrate them for a season, but He is always in control. Still, we need never think that He will abandon us.
God moves in a mysterious wayhis wonders to perform;he plants his footsteps in the sea,and rides upon the storm.
Deep in unfathomable minesof never-failing skillhe treasures up his bright designs,and works his sov’reign will.1
Terrified
The disciples are suddenly “terrified” (Matt. 14:26). It isn’t only the ferocity of the storm that makes them afraid; it is the sight of Jesus walking through the storm “on the sea” at around 4 a.m. (Matt. 14:25).
It is “the fourth watch of the night” (between 3 and 6 a.m.; Matt. 14:25). This means that the disciples have been at sea for more than nine hours. Jesus has made them wait. He could have come to them at the very beginning of the storm, but He did not. For reasons known only to Him, He wanted them to experience the trial for a certain amount of time. It was a test. Trials always test our faith.
What was Jesus doing all this time? Praying! He had ascended a mountain near the shore “to pray” (Matt. 14:23).
Why should the Son of God need to pray? After all, He holds the universe in the palm of His hand. He dictates the course of history. Are not the forces of the universe, including the powers of darkness, subject to His will? Why, then, does He pray?
Before answering that question, it’s worth noting that Jesus’ praying on this occasion was not an anomaly. He prayed after His baptism, in the morning before heading to Galilee, after healing people, before choosing the twelve disciples, before feeding the five thousand, while healing a deaf and mute man, before feeding the four thousand, at Caesarea Philippi when He asked the disciples who people thought He was, at the transfiguration, at the return of the seventy-two, before giving the disciples the Lord’s Prayer, before raising Lazarus from the dead, when He blessed little children and laid His hands on them, at the Last Supper, for Peter when Satan asked that he might sift him as wheat, in the upper room the night before His death, in Gethsemane, when nailed to the cross, in His dying breath, and before eating bread with His disciples in His resurrection body.2 In short, it’s probably not an exaggeration to suggest that Jesus was always praying. It formed an essential pattern of His daily life.
But to go back to the original question: Why? The answer lies in the reality of His incarnation. In the words of the Nicene Creed, Jesus is “God of God, . . . very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made.” But He is also human. He has a human body and a human soul. He has a human mind and a human will. In His earthly life, He experienced pain, hunger, and thirst. More profoundly, He experienced death, the separation of body and soul.
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Peter had been brought to see Jesus by his brother Andrew, and both brothers were invited to spend the day at the place where Jesus was lodging that week. Intrigue drew them to Bethsaida, but they did not yet know that in God’s providence, greater things were planned for them. Roughly contemporaries, Jesus and Peter had been raised less than twenty miles apart, but they had apparently never met. In those silent years of preparation, Jesus kept His identity a close secret. But on this day, His identity was a matter of public record. Peter came face-to-face with Jesus and became a disciple. 

Do you ever wonder what it would be like to meet Jesus in person? Every Christian does. All kinds of questions run through your head:
What does He look like?How tall is He?What does His voice sound like?
Peter knew the answers to these questions. Meeting Jesus was a life-changing moment for him.
Paintings of Peter show him as an older man, full-figured and slightly balding. There exists to this day, in the catacombs in Rome, a graffito with the name PETRUS in bold red. Rome is where Peter was crucified at the hands of Emperor Nero in AD 64. But Peter first encountered Jesus more than thirty years earlier. As we meet him for the first time in John’s gospel (John 1:35–42), he was probably around thirty years old, roughly the same age as Jesus.
Peter and his brother Andrew, along with the two brothers James and John (elsewhere known as Boanerges, or Sons of Thunder, a nickname given to them by Jesus because of their committed preaching; Mark 3:17), had an established fishing business in Bethsaida, Galilee (John 1:44). Bethsaida had been raised to the status of a city by the infamous Philip the Tetrarch, who later married the equally infamous Salome, the one who asked for the head of John the Baptist on a plate.
Peter was a fisherman. Scholars often doubt that Peter could write the complex Greek of the epistle known as 2 Peter. But Bethsaida was a thoroughly Hellenistic city. Peter would have been taught Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, as well as possibly some Latin, in the established synagogue education system. Even today, lack of a formal education doesn’t mean that someone is uneducated. I have known many who never went to college whose language skills and knowledge of Scripture were profound. My late mother left school at sixteen to care for her ailing father, but she could hold her own on literature and music. Just because Peter and some of the other disciples earned their living fishing the Sea of Galilee does not mean that they were poorly educated.
Peter’s Aramaic name was Simōn and denoted the idea of “obedient.” Transliterated into Greek, it became Symeon. Jesus called him “Peter” (initially at the time of his calling as a disciple [John 1:42] and later reaffirmed at Caesarea Philippi [Matt. 16:18]) because He either saw something in him or desired something from him. The name means “rock” or “stone.” Its Aramaic equivalent was Kephas (its English cognate is Cephas). “Andrew,” the name of Peter’s brother, is an entirely Greek name, indicating some degree of Hellenization (Greek cultural influence) on the part of their parents.
But something had happened that had taken Andrew and Peter down south to Bethany, on the eastern side of the river Jordan. An extraordinary preacher had emerged by the name of John the Baptist. Huge crowds were going into the countryside to hear him preach and receive the baptism of repentance he offered.
Priests and Levites were sent from Jerusalem to inquire about his identity (John 1:19). Some wondered whether he might be the long-awaited Messiah, the One prophesied in the Scriptures who would deliver the people of Israel from their sins. But he was not (v. 20). Neither was he Elijah. Since the prophet Elijah had not died but instead been taken into heaven alive, a belief emerged among Second Temple Jews that he might return one day. An empty seat was kept for him in Jewish homes at the celebration of Passover.
John was none of these. Instead, he identified himself as the one depicted by the prophet Isaiah as “the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord’” (John 1:23, quoting Isa. 40:3). Furthermore, John the Baptist pointed to another, One who stood among them, “the strap of whose sandal [he was] not worthy to untie” (John 1:27). He was referring to Jesus, who had also come down from Galilee to hear His cousin preaching in the wilderness.
John the Baptist was the forerunner, the one who prepared the way for Jesus’ ministry. He preached a message of repentance, calling Israel to turn from its sins, and offered a baptism of repentance in the Jordan River. On this occasion, Jesus was there and asking for baptism. After John identified Him as “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29), something extraordinary happened: the Spirit descended on Jesus in the form of a dove (John 1:32). “And I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God,” John declared (John 1:34). And elsewhere, we read that a voice was heard from heaven: “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased” (Mark 1:11).
Why was it necessary for Jesus, the sinless Lamb of God, to receive a baptism of repentance? Why should He undergo this water ordeal of judgment? The answer is substitution. He was identifying Himself with our sin. Even the Baptist balked, protesting, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” (Matt. 3:14). But it was for this reason that Jesus had come: to provide a way back from the wilderness to Eden. “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21).
The long-awaited Messiah had come!
An Eyewitness of Jesus
Peter came to Bethsaida to see and hear John the Baptist. But he did not know that God had other plans for him, plans that would change his life completely.
It was the day after Jesus’ baptism. Andrew and an unnamed disciple, probably John (John 1:35, 40), overheard the Baptist refer to Jesus as “the Lamb of God” (John 1:36).
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Let us be the sort of people who prayerfully and carefully immerse ourselves day and night in God’s Word (Josh. 1:8; Ps. 1:2). Let us also be the sort of Berean-like people who receive good teaching about God’s Word “with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so” (Acts 17:11).

Only one book is absolutely essential to save us, to equip us to obey God’s will, and to glorify Him in whatever we do. Only one book gives us undiluted truth —the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Only one book serves as our ultimate and final authority in all that it affirms. That book, of course, is the Bible, God’s Holy Word. No wonder John Wesley once exclaimed, “Let me be homo unius libri”—a man of one book!
And yet the irony is that if we use only this book, we may in fact be in disobedience to it. We should count good teaching about the Bible—whether through commentaries, books, sermons, study Bibles, and so on—to be a gift from God for the good of His church (see Eph. 4:11; James 1:17). So what may look pious on the outside (“Just me and my Bible!”) can actually mask pride on the inside.
Acts 8 describes a story that might help us think through this. An Ethiopian eunuch—a God-fearing Gentile who served as treasurer to the Ethiopian queen—had made a five-month journey by chariot to Jerusalem in order to worship God. During his return trip he was puzzling out loud over the Isaiah scroll that he held in his hands. And the Holy Spirit appointed Philip to help him understand the meaning of the Bible.
Philip first asked this man if he understood the passage that he was reading (chap. 53). The Ethiopian responded, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” (v. 31). After inviting Philip to sit in his chariot, he asked him about whom this passage spoke. ‘Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning with this Scripture he told him the good news about Jesus’ (v. 35). Soon after, the eunuch insisted they stop the chariot in order to be baptized by Philip in obedience to his new savior and king, Jesus Christ. To be sure, this is a historical narrative recounting an event. The purpose is not necessarily to guide believers today in how to read their Bibles or how to think about the teaching of God’s Word.
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Without the regulative principle, we are at the mercy of “worship leaders” and bullying pastors who charge noncompliant worshipers with displeasing God unless they participate according to a certain pattern and manner. To obey when it is a matter of God’s express prescription is true liberty; anything else is bondage and legalism.

What is the regulative principle of worship? Put simply, the regulative principle states that the corporate worship of God is to be founded on specific directives of Scripture. Put another way, it states that nothing ought to be introduced into gathered worship unless there is a specific warrant of Scripture.
Let us be clear: we worship God in “all of life”—when fishing, playing golf, eating breakfast, or driving a car. Paul makes this very clear: “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect” (Rom. 12:1–2).
Because of this, some have argued that there is no special set of rules for gathered worship. There’s just worship. But this ignores some very important issues. True, there is a regulative principle (a set of general rules) for what we might call “all of life” worship. Everything we do must have in view the glory of God. “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10:31). We might call this a general regulative principle. But is there a more specific application of this principle for gathered worship? The Reformers (John Calvin especially) and the Puritans answered yes. God is especially concerned as to the question of how we worship in public gatherings.
Typical by way of formulation are the words of Calvin: “God disapproves of all modes of worship not expressly sanctioned by his Word,” and the Second London Baptist Confession of 1689: “The acceptable way of worshiping the true God, is instituted by himself, and so limited by his own revealed will, that he may not be worshiped according to the imagination and devices of men, nor the suggestions of Satan, under any visible representations, or any other way not prescribed in the Holy Scriptures.”
The Westminster Assembly
When the Westminster Assembly gathered, its primary directive was to answer this very question. It soon began to address other issues, but it was the issue of worship that dominated its initial agenda. It would later publish a Directory for the Public Worship of God. The term directory is itself important; it is not a Book of Common Prayer as the Anglicans had. They were very clear that the directory functioned in a very different way.
The very first chapter of the Westminster Confession of Faith is about Scripture. It was a way of saying that before we can say anything about God or humanity or sin or the church, or worship, we need some basis of authority. And that sole authority is the Word of God. All of Scripture is a product of God’s outbreathing (2 Tim. 3:16–17). Men spoke as they were driven along by the Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:21). For the Westminster tradition, then, we begin with Scripture.
It is in this opening chapter on Scripture as the foundation of all knowledge that the regulative principle appears:
The whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man’s salvation, faith and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture: unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelations of the Spirit, or traditions of men. Nevertheless, we acknowledge the inward illumination of the Spirit of God to be necessary for the saving understanding of such things as are revealed in the Word: and that there are some circumstances concerning the worship of God, and government of the Church, common to human actions and societies, which are to be ordered by the light of nature, and Christian prudence, according to the general rules of the Word, which are always to be observed. (WCF 1.6)
The point being made is that Scripture lays down certain principles about two particular issues (there are others): the form of church government and public worship. The same principle appears again in the chapter on worship:
The light of nature shows that there is a God, who has lordship and sovereignty over all, is good, and does good unto all, and is therefore to be feared, loved, praised, called upon, trusted in, and served, with all the heart, and with all the soul, and with all the might. But the acceptable way of worshipping the true God is instituted by Himself, and so limited by His own revealed will, that He may not be worshipped according to the imaginations and devices of men, or the suggestions of Satan, under any visible representation, or any other way not prescribed in the holy Scripture. (WCF 21.1)
The point is that Scripture (that is, God Himself, since Scripture is God’s Word) prescribes how we worship God. The word prescribe carries the idea of authority. When you go to the drugstore and you need some medicine that isn’t an “over the counter” drug, you need a prescription—it used to be a piece of paper signed by the doctor (these days it is usually done electronically).
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The Holy Spirit of God, who first hovered over the waters of creation, spoke through prophets and Apostles, and was poured out at Pentecost as a witness to Christ’s promise of another Paraclete (comforter, sustainer, equipper, counselor). Jesus continues His ministry to His disciples by means of the Spirit as His personal, representative agent. The Spirit’s work, at all times, is to draw attention to Christ.

Creation
The ancient hymn Veni Creator Spiritus, composed in the eighth century and part of the Roman breviary of Vespers, is a hymn extolling the Holy Spirit. John Dryden’s magnificent translation renders the opening lines this way: “Creator Spirit, by whose aid the world’s foundations first were laid.”
The activity of the Holy Spirit as Creator finds expression in the second verse of the Bible! Describing the undeveloped creation as “without form and void” and in “darkness,” the author describes the Spirit of God as “hovering over the face of the waters” (Gen. 1:2). Forming a bookend at the close of this opening chapter of Scripture comes the pronouncement of the creation of man: “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” (Gen. 1:26). The use of the pronoun “our” is a reference to the triune Godhead, which includes the Holy Spirit. From the very beginning, the Holy Spirit has been the executive of the creative activity of God. In the creation of the world, as well as the creation of man in particular, the Holy Spirit was the divine agent.
Pentecost
At the dawning of the new covenant era, Pentecost would be demonstrative of a similar work of creation, or, better, re-creation. Fallen humanity is to be transformed by the Spirit to a degree unknown under the old covenant.
In an action that was meant to be symbolic of Pentecost, Jesus, in an incident that followed His resurrection, illustrated Pentecost’s significance by breathing on His disciples and saying, “Receive the Holy Spirit” (John 20:22). The action is a reminder of the opening sequence of Genesis: the Holy Spirit, the “breath of God,” is the agent of the “breath of life” (Gen 2:7; John 20:22). As God breathed life into Adam, so Jesus, “the last Adam,” breathes new life into His people. Jesus becomes, in Paul’s language, “a life-giving spirit” (1 Cor. 15:45). Pentecost was an epochal event, signifying the dawning of a new era.
Midway between creation and re-creation, Pentecost is the point after which it can be said, “the end of the ages has dawned” (1 Cor. 10:11). Historically, at nine o’clock in the morning, the Spirit gave the disciples a clear understanding of Jesus’ role in redemption and consummation, equipping them with extraordinary boldness in making Jesus known. The gift of tongues that accompanied the outpouring of the Spirit enabled folk from different countries to hear the gospel in their own languages. In an instant, the curse of Babel was arrested (Gen. 11:7–9). Spirit empowered disciples were thus motivated and enabled to take the message of reconciliation to the nations of the world in the certainty that God would accomplish that which He promised (Luke 24:48; Acts 1:4). What appears to be a blessing for the gentiles proves to be a judgment upon Israel. The very sound of the gospel in languages other than their own confirmed the covenantal threat of God issued in Isaiah: “For by people of strange lips and with a foreign tongue the Lord will speak to this people” (Isa. 28:11).
What was to be a blessing for the nations proved to be the very instrument of hardening to Israel, until the “fullness” of the gentiles is brought in (Rom. 11:25).
With this interpretation of Pentecost, repetition cannot be envisioned. Though history records many “outpourings” of the Spirit in extraordinary displays of revival, none of these, strictly speaking, is a repetition of Pentecost. Pentecost marked the major turning point from old to new covenantal administrations. The days of type and shadow were replaced by days of fulfillment and reality.
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Authentic prayer, God-centered prayer, realizes that the promise of prayer is God Himself. Being in the presence of God is the greatest reward of prayer. Godly folk have always relished this.

It is easy to be critical of prayer, particularly the prayers of others. Robert Murray McCheyne’s words are often cited because they remain painfully true: “You wish to humble a man? Ask him about his prayer life.”
Our prayers reveal much about us. Prayers with little or no worship and focusing on our needs (usually health) reveal a distorted, Adamic bent. What they reveal is self-centeredness, what Martin Luther labeled homo in se incurvatus: “man curved in on himself.” Listen to prayers at the church prayer meeting (if one still exists). You will discover that the majority of prayers are “organ recitals”—prayers for someone’s liver, kidney, or heart. Not that we shouldn’t pray for medical issues, but a preoccupation with health is itself a reflection of how little we understand why it is we desire good health. We desire it so that the person we are praying for lives for Jesus Christ.
Prayer is “talking to God” (Graeme Prayer and the Knowledge of God, p. 15.). Sometimes, perhaps too often, the “talk” is all about us. We’ve all had those annoying conversations that have been entirely one-sided, showing little or no interest in us. It’s all about them—their interests, desires, needs, and complaints. Prayer can get like that: we pour out our woes, become totally self-absorbed, and show no interest in dialogue that involves “listening” to what God has to say. God is patient and, in His grace, He responds. But it shouldn’t be like that. When Jesus taught us to pray, He showed us that prayer begins (and continues) with God: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name” (Matt. 6:9). Take a look at the structure of the Lord’s Prayer, and it will show you that at least half of our praying should be addressed to the praise and worship of God.
Person
Many factors influenced Tertullian when he coined the term personae to represent the threeness of God, but he employed this term primarily because the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit “talk” to each other. They relate personally—to each other and to us. In other words, God communicates with Himself and with His people. It stands to reason, therefore, that prayer should consist of personal communion—talking to God with inquisitiveness as to His nature and His desires, and eagerness to learn about the things that please and displease Him.
The first petition of the Lord’s Prayer, among other things, reminds us that there must be a clearheaded focus on our part on who God is and what God is like. Theologians have reflected on how we come to know God and what it is that we know about Him. The answer has often come in this form: we know very little in answer to the question “What is God?” What we do know (because God has revealed it to us) is in answer to the question “What is God like?” God shows us what He is like by revealing to us His name.
Our minds, whether consciously or subliminally, are (to use John Calvin’s phrase) “idol factories,” constantly succumbing to “I like to think of God as . . .” formulas, all of which are seriously wrong, conceived by a persistent anti-God bias in our mental, moral, and spiritual systems. To avoid idolatry in prayer, we must begin by reminding ourselves of His name—whether that be God’s covenant name “I AM WHO I AM” or Yahweh (that is, self-existent, self-sustaining, self-determining, everywhere present, and always in control); or, as the Lord’s Prayer wonderfully encapsulates, “Father” (expressive of the newness of the new covenant and the access and status to which the work of our Redeemer has introduced us); or, “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” (as Jesus Himself disclosed in the Great Commission of Matthew 28:19). When Jesus commissioned His disciples to baptize in the “name” (singular) of “the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,” He revealed the impenetrable truth that there is more than one in the one God.
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God is the “first cause” of all things, but evil is a product of “second causes.” In the words of John Calvin, “First, it must be observed that the will of God is the cause of all things that happen in the world: and yet God is not the author of evil,” adding, “for the proximate cause is one thing, and the remote cause another.” In other words, God Himself cannot do evil and cannot be blamed for evil even though it is part of His sovereign decree.

God is sovereign in creation, providence, redemption, and judgment. That is a central assertion of Christian belief and especially in Reformed theology. God is King and Lord of all. To put this another way: nothing happens without God’s willing it to happen, willing it to happen before it happens, and willing it to happen in the way that it happens. Put this way, it seems to say something that is expressly Reformed in doctrine. But at its heart, it is saying nothing different from the assertion of the Nicene Creed: “I believe in God, the Father Almighty.” To say that God is sovereign is to express His almightiness in every area.
God is sovereign in creation. “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1). Apart from God, there was nothing. And then there was something: matter, space, time, energy. And these came into being ex nihilo—out of nothing. The will to create was entirely God’s. The execution was entirely His. There was no metaphysical “necessity” to create; it was a free action of God.
God is sovereign in providence. Traditional theism insists that God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent—all powerful, all knowing, and everywhere present. Each assertion is a variant of divine sovereignty. His power, knowledge, and presence ensure that His goals are met, that His designs are fulfilled, and that His superintendence of all events is (to God, at least) essentially “risk free.”
God’s power is not absolute in the sense that God can do anything (potestas absoluta); rather, God’s power ensures that He can do all that is logically possible for Him to will to do. “He cannot deny himself,” for example (2 Tim. 2:13).
Some people object to the idea that God knows all events in advance of their happening. Such a view, some insist, deprives mankind of its essential freedom. Open theists or free-will theists, for example, insist that the future (at least in its specific details) is in some fashion “open.” Even God does not know all that is to come. He may make predictions like some cosmic poker player, but He cannot know absolutely. This explains, open theists suggest, why God appears to change His mind: God is adjusting His plan based on the new information of unforeseeable events (see Gen. 6:6–7; 1 Sam. 15:11). Reformed theology, on the other hand, insists that no event happens that is a surprise to God. To us it is luck or chance, but to God it is part of His decree. “The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord” (Prov. 16:33). Language of God changing His mind in Scripture is an accommodation to us and our way of speaking, not a description of a true change in God’s mind.
God is sovereign in redemption, a fact that explains why we thank God for our salvation and pray to Him for the salvation of our spiritually lost friends. If the power to save lies in man’s free will, if it truly lies in their unaided ability to save themselves, why would we implore God to “quicken,” “save,” or “regenerate” them?
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Particular elements of worship are highlighted: reading the Bible (1 Tim. 4:13); preaching the Bible (2 Tim. 4:2); singing the Bible (Eph. 5:19; Col. 3:16) — the Psalms as well as Scripture songs that reflect the development of redemptive history in the birth-life-death-resurrection- ascension of Jesus; praying the Bible — the Father’s house is “a house of prayer” (Matt. 21:13); and seeing the Bible in the two sacraments of the church, baptism and the Lord’s Supper (Matt. 28:19; Acts 2:38–39; 1 Cor. 11:23–26; Col. 2:11–12). In addition, occasional elements such as oaths, vows, solemn fasts and thanksgivings have also been recognized and highlighted (see Westminster Confession of Faith 21:5).

Put simply, the regulative principle of worship states that the corporate worship of God is to be founded upon specific directions of Scripture. On the surface, it is difficult to see why anyone who values the authority of Scripture would find such a principle objectionable. Is not the whole of life itself to be lived according to the rule of Scripture? This is a principle dear to the hearts of all who call themselves biblical Christians. To suggest otherwise is to open the door to antinomianism and license.
But things are rarely so simple. After all, the Bible does not tell me whether I may or may not listen with profit to a Mahler symphony, find stamp-collecting rewarding, or enjoy ferretbreeding as a useful occupation even though there are well-meaning but misguided Bible-believing Christians who assert with dogmatic confidence that any or all of these violate God’s will. Knowing God’s will in any circumstance is an important function of every Christian’s life, and fundamental to knowing it is a willingness to submit to Scripture as God’s authoritative Word for all ages and circumstances. But what exactly does biblical authority mean in such circumstances?
Well, Scripture lays down certain specific requirements: for example, we are to worship with God’s people on the Lord’s Day, and we should engage in useful work and earn our daily bread. In addition, covering every possible circumstance, Scripture lays down a general principle: “present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect” (Rom. 12:1–2). Clearly, all of life is to be regulated by Scripture, whether by express commandment or prohibition or by general principle. There is therefore, in one sense, a regulative principle for all of life. In everything we do, and in some form or another, we are to be obedient to Scripture.
However, the Reformers (John Calvin especially) and the Westminster Divines (as representative of seventeenth-century puritanism) viewed the matter of corporate worship differently. In this instance, a general principle of obedience to Scripture is insufficient; there must be (and is) a specific prescription governing how God is to be worshiped corporately. In the public worship of God, specific requirements are made, and we are not free either to ignore them or to add to them. Typical by way of formulation are the words of Calvin: “God disapproves of all modes of worship not expressly sanctioned by his Word” (“The Necessity of Reforming the Church”); and the Second London Baptist Confession of 1689: “The acceptable way of worshiping the true God, is instituted by himself, and so limited by his own revealed will, that he may not be worshiped according to the imagination and devices of men, nor the suggestions of Satan, under any visible representations, or any other way not prescribed in the Holy Scriptures” (22.1).
Where does the Bible teach this? In more places than is commonly imagined, including the constant stipulation of the book of Exodus with respect to the building of the tabernacle that everything be done “after the pattern . . . shown you” (Ex. 25:40); the judgment pronounced upon Cain’s offering, suggestive as it is that his offering (or his heart) was deficient according to God’s requirement (Gen. 4:3–8).
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The reason why we can be wrong is that God’s ways are not our ways. His thoughts are not our thoughts. Does Job have an answer to the question “Why?” No, he does not. But he can lay his troubles at the feet of Almighty God. This is whom we need to direct people to when they are suffering inexplicably.

Perhaps Job wished his friends had remained silent. Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar initially didn’t speak a word to Job. His suffering was too great. They remained silent for a week. But Job 4 marks the beginning of their speeches, where they begin to tell Job what they really think.
Eliphaz is the first of Job’s friends to speak. He speaks first probably because he’s the oldest. We pick up in Job 15:9–10 that he’s a gray-headed man, older than Job’s father. Bildad is the second of Job’s friends to speak, beginning in Job 8. He is brasher than Eliphaz. Zophar is the third of Job’s friends to speak, and he is even brasher than Bildad. Job’s friends all share something in common, however: their understanding of Job’s suffering. It can be summarized in a few questions from their speeches:
Eliphaz:_ “Remember: who that was innocent ever perished? Or where were the upright cut off?” (Job 4:7)_
Bildad: “Does God pervert justice? Or does the Almighty pervert the right?” (Job 8:3)
Zophar: “Do you not know this from of old, since man was placed on earth, that the exulting of the wicked is short, and the joy of the godless but for a moment? (Job 20:4–5)
Job’s friends each understand the universe as operating according to a certain law. The reason for suffering, in their minds, is very simple. You reap what you sow. You get out of life what you put into it. You are responsible for your actions, and suffering is a consequence of your actions. The implication is that Job has sinned. It may have been a little sin, it may have been a medium-sized sin, or it may have been a big sin. It may be a present sin or some past sin that Job has forgotten about. One way or another, their answer to this predicament—from a philosophical, theological point of view—is that Job is reaping what he has sown. It’s karma. You get whatever’s owed to you.
What do we make of that as a principle, as a philosophy, as a theological way of understanding Job’s predicament?
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