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Presence Weekly: Valuing Time Differently than Others

1 Peter 4:1-6 "Living Differently with Yourself" (Part 1 of 3)

Welcome to another edition of our weekly and locally-famous: devotional, prayer guide, curated reading and podcast links, events calendar, and of course, the Two Thumbs Up! recommendation of the week.

The Apple Watch not only keeps track of time, but also how much time you spend sleeping and on social media.

[First Things]

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[The Devo] Valuing Time Differently than Others

4 Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, 2 so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for human passions but for the will of God. 3 For the time that is past suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry.  4 With respect to this they are surprised when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery, and they malign you; 5 but they will give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. 6 For this is why the gospel was preached even to those who are dead, that though judged in the flesh the way people are, they might live in the spirit the way God does. 1 Peter 4:1-6

Here, Peter returns to application-focused instruction for his readers on the implications of identification with Jesus for the lives of Christians. He is also about to get very personal. His words are well-informed from personal experience. In John 18:10, we read the story of Peter’s hyper-identification with Jesus as he brandished his sword and cut off the ear of one of the temple guards who had come to arrest His Lord, the Son of God, during a nighttime raid. But just hours later, before the rooster had even crowed three times, Peter was swearing up and down to a lowly servant girl that he did not know, had never met, and was not associated with Jesus. 

How does Peter, the rock on which Jesus was going to build the church, move so quickly and so far “with respect to” his identification with Jesus? Simple. Peter failed to understand how the example of Jesus should have informed his identification with Jesus. This, in turn, provides important guidance on living differently with yourself. 

Matters of identity are both personal and practical, and Peter intends to make just that point in the next eleven verses. Failure to take this instruction seriously often leads to Christians acting no differently, if not worse, than the non-Christians around them. But because we identify with Jesus, we must live differently, not just with others, but also with ourselves, as we embrace a posture of faithful presence.  To do that requires valuing our time, our relationships, and our mission differently than those around us. First, we will look at what it means to value time differently. 

Wasting Time 

Sleep is a restorative part of God’s design for our health and flourishing. Social media, of course, is not.  The average American gets 8 hours of sleep a night, while teenagers are often, wildly, on both sides of that number. Additionally, the average American spends 2.5 hours on social media a day, while teenagers spend around 4.5 hours. Over a year, that is 912 hours for the average American (nearly 23 40-hour work weeks) and 1642 hours for teenagers (roughly 40 40-hour work weeks or enough study time to raise their GPA to over 4.0) on social media. It is interesting that sleep, which involves us seemingly doing nothing, is profoundly beneficial to our well-being, while unsocial media, which dominates our thoughts and attention, is disproportionately unhelpful. 

Another important restorative gift of God for us is the study of Scripture.  Jesus refers to the Word of God as bread, and 2 Timothy says that, 

“All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” 2 Timothy 3:16-17

Yet, a recent Lifeway study found,

“A third of Americans who attend a Protestant church regularly (32%) say they read the Bible personally every day. Around a quarter (27%) say they read it a few times a week. Fewer say they only read it once a week (12%), a few times a month (11%), or once a month (5%). Close to 1 in 8 (12%) admit they rarely or never read the Bible.” (Lifeway, 2021)

Those who do read their Bibles say they rarely spend over 30 minutes doing so. While there is likely some mathematical relationship, it would be unfair and inaccurate to propose that all Christians have diverted their Bible study time to social media. We have also found other things to take up our time. Once the Bible becomes unimportant, its freefall past everything else, including things that have no value, is to be expected. The impact, of course, is readily apparent, even in the public square. 

When time is not properly valued, we not only waste it, but we also misuse it.  

Misusing Time

Consider the Amish practice of the “Rumspringa,” in which teenagers are given an opportunity to embrace the idea of “running around” and pursuing practices and pleasures that are not a part of the traditional Amish way of life. This practice arose as a way of allowing Amish youth to hopefully recognize the futility of spending time living for oneself rather than as a part of a community. While extreme, the practice of Rumspringa highlights the reality that we misuse time when we use it to pursue our own, autonomous goals and pleasures, separate from the plan of God, and often at the expense of other people. 

The idea that Peter is trying to impress upon the first-century elect exiles of Asia Minor is that “the time that is past suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry.” 

Valuing Time Differently

In chapter 1, Peter said, “As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance.” This is the point he wants to press home. While our souls are eternal, we are finite creatures on this earth, with limited time to live, not for the “human passions, but for the will of God” and “proclaiming the excellencies of the one who called you out of darkness and into his marvelous light” 1 Peter 2:10.

Elected officials serve two, four, or six-year terms, while appointees typically serve at the “pleasure of the President” and leave office whenever the administrations change. From the second they take the oath of office, elected officials hear the ticking of the clock and the pressure to show their constituents they can deliver on their promises. Anyone who has served or led in government also knows the painfully slow nature of negotiation required to get anything done. Raising money also requires time. Traveling back and forth between Washington and their home district requires time as well. Then, there is the draw to make a name for yourself and use your office to benefit your financial position, like everyone else is said to be doing. That takes time as well. 

In this passage. Peter is simply amplifying and applying what he has already said regarding focus and time allocation as it relates to their participation in Chris’s mission of making all things new.

2 So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. 2 Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation— 3 if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. 

4 As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, 5 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.

1 Peter 2:1-5

Suffering and Time

For Peter, valuing time differently is directly linked to a proper understanding of suffering and Christ, two themes he has been developing throughout the letter, because suffering is what the elect exiles were experiencing, and Christ was what they needed.

Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin,  so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for human passions but for the will of God. 1 Peter 4:1–2

Sometimes suffering comes from physical pain, but other times it comes from relational, vocational, and cultural pressure and isolation. Living differently, by the will of God and through obedience to Christ, was likely to result in some form of suffering for people who were already feeling the dissonance of living as exiles. As such, investing time that would lead to suffering was not an easy sell. But Peter is not selling an easy life; he is offering the blessed life.

Application Questions

Question: Considering the restorative, productive, and wasteful things competing for our time, how does Peter’s exhortation on time allocation challenge your own valuation of time? 

 

Question: What specific challenges does the public square present to how you allocate your time?

[Faithful Prayer] 

  • Cabinet Agency: The servants and leaders at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, in their efforts to understand and predict changes in climate, weather, ocean, and coasts, to share that knowledge and information with others, and to conserve and manage coastal and marine ecosystems and resources.

  • Think Tank, Lobby group, NGO: Servants and leaders with the American Camp Association, which advocates for quality camp experiences, and to increase the understanding of and support for the value of the camp experience for all children and families.

  • Weekly delegation: For the congressional delegation of Texas, and especially U.S. Rep. August Pfluger, whose two daughters were at Camp Mystic during the deadly flooding over the weekend.

  • Agency News: NOAA unveils powerful convergence of AI and science with revolutionary Next-Generation Fire System technology. “The first of two key features of the revolutionary system is the Advanced Baseline Imager, the primary instrument on NOAA’s two GOES geostationary satellites orbiting 22,000 miles above the equator. The second is a set of NGFS algorithms that continuously comb through enormous volumes of data generated by the imager and automatically identify heat anomalies or hot spots, even through clouds and smoke. Any new sources of heat are overlaid on surface imagery and geolocated. Then, an alert is sent instantly to an online dashboard off-site link so users can easily visualize the location. Once a fire is detected, the system tracks and records the fire’s spread and intensity. The information is simultaneously available to weather forecasters, fire dispatchers, and first responders. Getting firefighters on a fire before it becomes big increases the chances for a successful initial attack.” 

  • Personal requests: For a couple headed to Peru for a medical mission trip. For a high-ranking Cabinet official whose position is being eliminated shortly after their promotion. For a senior agency official wearing many hats while awaiting their Senate-confirmed leader. For a former administration official who recently secured a position in the private sector to continue their work in pursuing flourishing for many. For three different individuals taking much-needed vacations.

[The Page, The Pod & The Stack]

  • LISTEN to this FIRST → The Feedback Loop Podcast has an important and deeply disturbing episode with transhumanism advocate, David Pearce, on “Engineering Happiness and the End of Suffering.”

  • Read this FIRST → Christianity Today has an early edition of Miroslav Volf’s excellent Christian critique of the pursuit of transhumanism based on the Imago Dei, “The Transhumanist Question.”

  • Listen to this Next →  Christianity Today has an “insiders' insights” episode with long-time musician and music producer Steve Taylor, on the unfolding Michael Tait / Newsboys scandal and what it says about how important Christian virtue is to the marketplace. 

  • The American Survey Center released the culturally and pastorally relevant findings from their study of over 6,000 American’s thoughts on America which shows that “At a time of widespread political apathy and distrust, American attitudes are evolving in certain cultural debates — sometimes returning to where they were a few years ago — but the implications of these changes are unclear, and the country’s political trajectory is uncertain. 

  • The Rabbit Room has reposted an essay from O. Alan Noble detailing how our increasingly deficient social skills are making us more lonely: “The Prufrock Problem: We Are Alone Because We Can't Speak.”

[What’s Happening?]

This Week 

Next Week

[Two Thumbs Up!] F1 (Apple Films)

If you want to spend two-and-a-half hours watching a live-action film that does not take place in an alternate universe, feature characters with superpowers, or involve a high body count, then you will love F1 starring Brad Pitt, Javier Bardem, Kerry Condon, and the perfectly cast Damson Idris as Pitt’s self-promoting rival. 


While the film is heavy on supremely well-shot extended racing scenes, it does not sacrifice storyline or character development and relatability. Directed by Iowa native, Joseph Kosinski (Tron: Legacy, Top Gun: Maverick) who knows how to deliver an action film, and produced by Apple Films and perennial blockbuster generator, Jerry Bruckheimer (Days of Thunder, Armageddon, Pearl Harbor, Black Hawk Down, Beverly Hills Cop, Top Gun, Bad Boys, Pirates of the Caribbean and National Treasure) F1 is a great way to spend an afternoon or an evening.

https://youtu.be/CT2_P2DZBR0

[Last Things]

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