young Christians were struggling with the at-times painful distinction being made between their identity in Christ and others around them. Peter’s language of a temple, constituted by the living stones of Christian lives with Christ himself as cornerstone (1 Pet 2:4–6), reminded these discouraged Christians that they are the people of God, the product of God’s gracious work of transforming them into an integrated reality—a single people. The people of God are based on him and his act, deriving their
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