As we saw in the previous Note, Ephesians is one of the three New Testament letters that begin, after a brief introduction, with the phrase,

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

First Peter is another one of the three. But whereas Ephesians speaks from a heavenly perspective of the blessings we have received in Christ, 1 Peter shows us the blessings our heavenly Father has bestowed upon us as those who are following Christ here on the earth.

So it speaks of how we have been blessed, through our new birth in Christ, “unto a living hope”:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has caused us to be born again unto a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from among the dead.
— 1 Peter 1:3

Whereas Ephesians tells us that, spiritually speaking, we have already been seated with Christ in the heavens (Eph. 2:5-6), 1 Peter tells us our inheritance is being kept in the heavens for us (1 Pet. 1:4), as we are being guarded by God here on the earth until the salvation we have in Christ is revealed at the last time (1:5). We need this living hope of our inheritance and this guarding, because today as we follow Christ we will pass through many trials (1:6). These trials, however, serve the purpose of testing our faith, so that it may be approved “unto praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1:7). And we rejoice in all of this, because while we are being tried in this way, we love the Lord, and we also know we are receiving the end of our faith, “the salvation of our souls” (1:9).

So first, in Ephesians, we see how God has blessed us in eternity past, in Christ, with so many heavenly blessings, then in 1 Peter we see how we experience God’s blessings in our Christian life as the Lord’s followers on the earth today.

And in the next Note in this series we shall consider the third of these three letters, 2 Corinthians, where we see how God blesses us as we labor together with Him for the building up of the church.

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—  27 September 2025 —