1 Peter 2:7
7 Unto you [humin] therefore [oun] which [ho] believe [pisteuo] he is precious [time]: but [de] unto them which be disobedient [apeitheo], the stone [lithos] which [hos] the builders [oikodomeo]
disallowed [apodokimazo], the same [houtos] is made [ginomai] [eis] the head [kephale] of the
corner [gonia], KJV-Interlinear
7 This precious value, then, is
for you who believe. But for those who disbelieve, The stone which the
builders rejected, This became the very corner stone, NASB
Belief is contrasted
with unbelief, and again Peter quotes from Isaiah.
Isa. 8:14-15
14 Then He shall
become a sanctuary; But to both the houses of Israel, a stone to strike and a
rock to stumble over, And a snare and a trap for the inhabitants of Jerusalem. 15 And many will stumble over them, Then they
will fall and be broken; They will even be snared and caught. NASB
This time the contrast
is not between believers who may or may not be embarrassed when they get to
heaven, but between believers and unbelievers, who will have entirely different
destinies after their life here on earth is completed.
Those who believe in
Christ are typically called Christians in our current day.
Those who do not
believe in Christ, especially back in the days of Isaiah and so forth, were
called the builders.
Look back even to the Tower
of Babel which occurred just a few generations following the Flood of Noah. Noah was still alive, the flood was still
fresh in the minds of folks from the stories they heard from Noah, and his
three sons.
And yet there grew up a
huge population that rejected God, the savior, and everything that was
legitimate spiritually.They began
construction of a tower.A tower that
was to help them to get to God, to heaven, and all on their own terms.
People, who reject
truth, will build their own truth, and that is where all religions,
philosophies, cults, etc., come from.
Christ is rejected and therefore truth, and so people have to use
something else (other than truth) to build up their own beliefs. Lies are all that is left to build with, and
to build on.
Believers look to
Christ and find Him precious.Precious
means esteem, honor, respect, reverence, value, price. All of these terms describe the attributes of
Christ as God and as man.No other
religion has a focal point that possesses integrity, honor, or value.
All other religions
focus instead on their sin nature, their desires, their lusts for what they
want, and how they want it.Whether
seeking seventy virgins, multiple wives, indifference, or a calm and serene
setting in ones afterlife, the sin nature is at work cultivating the desires of
the sin nature.And they all reject
Christ, doctrine, and the principles taught in the scriptures.
So, all unbelievers are
builders, of their own destiny, and all of humanity combined, cannot build a
tower taller than a very high hill, let alone into the next life. And yet they try.
Rejected, apodokimazo, means unbelief, disobedient, unwilling to be persuaded,
obstinate, stubborn, stiff necked.People
who refuse to believe in Christ are described as unbelievers. They rejected Christ as their foundation of
truth and life.
And as a result, God
Himself, made Christ the cornerstone of truth, and the basis of a relationship
with God.And therein lays the
difference between Christianity and all other forms of belief. Christ, or the rejection of Christ, is the
single thread that runs through all religions, cults, philosophies, etc. that
are not legitimate.This makes it very
easy to determine which is the true faith and which is not.
And since Christ is
truth, and doctrine is truth, then all of the principles taught in the Bible (legitimately
taught), determine the path you can take in life in order to figure out what is
right and what is not right in life.Doctrine
is the source of discernment between the principles of life as taught by God,
and the principles of life taught by this world.
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