ニューイングランドの母校からアドヴェントメッセージの便り　その8

2015 Gordon-Conwell Advent Devotional
Day 9

1 Peter 3:11-18
In 1871, Maria Hale Gordon wrote to her brother Wendall that she wanted to “do something to hasten the coming of the Kingdom.” Her own life was wrapped up in the exciting ministry God had given both she and her husband, A.J. Gordon, at Clarendon Street Baptist Church in Boston. They, like us, wanted to live lives that honor God—and to make their lives count.

Peter urged his readers to be holy—to be different from the surrounding culture and dedicated to God. The text suggests that somehow, by the way we live, we participate in bringing about the Second Coming of Christ.

As we prepare to celebrate the reality of Christ’s First Coming, we long to be used by God in the lives of men and women who have yet to embrace his First Coming. We do this by the way we live, a life that makes a difference, which shows others who Christ is. In so doing, we prepare for His Second Coming. Like Maria Hale Gordon and the myriad of believers before us, we want to “do something to hasten the coming of the Kingdom.”
Dr. Scott Gibson
The Haddon W. Robinson Professor of Preaching