44 Words

My high school English teacher often marked our run-on sentences with her red pen.  She was trying to teach us that good writing does not require unending sentences, but simple ones.  Anyone who reads much of what I write knows that I sometimes stray from her directive to write simple sentences.  The Apostle Peter must have slept though class the day the warning went out about run-on sentences.  Sometimes the Biblical writers seem to have a hard time knowing where to put a period.  One of the rewarding moments in reading the Word is unlayering some of those unwieldy sentences.    

Verses 8 and 9 of the first chapter of I Peter is composed of one sentence of 44 words.  While he may not have broken my personal record, he certainly has a powerful word to offer the believers in the church.  "Although you have not seen Him, you love Him; and even though you do not see Him now, you believe in Him, and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, for you are receiving the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls." Wow!  It is like he started praising God for a blessing he was seeing in the church and became so caught up in it, he could not find a way to stop!   Peter was writing to Christians who were being persecuted.  Their faith was noteworthy.

They were not in danger of losing their right to worship, but their lives.  Peter was doing several things with this long sentence.  He was encouraging them to hang in there as faithful disciples of Jesus.  He was applauding them for the spirit in which they were standing in their faith.  And, he was reminding them that the important outcome of their faith was not a life empty of difficulty and danger, but one which was securing the salvation of their souls.  A modern rendering of Matthew10:28 reads, “Don’t be afraid of those who want to kill your body; they cannot touch your soul.“ What an assurance: "in Christ we are safe...nothing can keep us from going Home to Him."