he's not; if anything, Peter is using quite restrained language here, compared to the vivid war scene John

The key to being able to follow Jesus' command comes in the verse that precedes this passage: Matthew 6:

Read / Listen Listen to passage & devotional: Heidelberg Catechism Q&A 60 Q.

1 Corinthians 12:1–6 (NIV) 1 Now about the gifts of the Spirit, brothers and sisters, I do not want you gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. 5 There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. 6  John Calvin put it well; he said that our minds are 'idol factories' that never cease production.

If you feel different than the world around you, realize it's because your head is wet. Read / Listen Listen to passage & devotional: Heidelberg Catechism Q&A 74 Q. Should infants, too, be baptized? A. Yes. Infants as well as adults are in God’s covenant and are his people. They, no less than adults, are promised the forgiveness of sin through Christ’s blood and the Holy Spirit who produces faith. Therefore, by baptism, the mark of the covenant, infants should be received into the Christian church and should be distinguished from the children of unbelievers. This was done in the Old Testament by circumcision, which was replaced in the New Testament by baptism. Summary The grand finale of God freeing His people from their slavery in Egypt was Israel passing through the Red Sea on dry ground. Centuries later, the Apostle Paul would come to understand that this tremendous miracle was a type of national baptism, that as God's people passed through the sea, they came to belong to Him (1 Corinthians 10:1-2). Indeed God understood it this way as well, telling Moses that He had carried His people on eagles' wings and brought them to Himself. Now, at the foot of Mt. Sinai, God once again establishes His covenant with His people: they will be his treasured possession and a holy nation (a people separate from all others). But remember, a covenant is a solemn agreement between two parties based on a contingency. There's a big 'ol if in God's words to Moses: He says they will be a holy nation if they "fully obey me and keep my covenant." In the next chapter, Exodus 20, God expresses these covenantal stipulations in 10 categories we often refer to as the ten commandments, and then much of what follows in the Torah (the first five books of the Bible) give laws and regulations that seem really strange to us. Well, they seemed really strange to the Israelites as well, and by design. One of the key purposes in all of those Old Testament laws was to make God's people look really different than the nations who lived around them. Dig Deeper Today we're focusing on one of the key reasons we baptize the children of believers in Reformed churches is to distinguish them from the children of unbelievers. We understand that these are covenant children, and that the same promises the God made to the Israelites in the desert thousands of years ago now apply to them - only now the contingency (the 'if' part) has been fulfilled by Christ. This means that we must raise our children differently than the world does, and that they from the moment they are received into God's covenant family must live holy lives - that is, lives that are separate from the world. Thankfully on this side of the cross, we no longer need to abide by strange dietary regulations or participate in all sorts of ritualistic ceremonies as we worship. Nor does being a holy nation mean that we ignore the rest of the world, and we must also realize the word nation here has nothing to do with a particular country or geographic borders. But we give our children the mark of the covenant, just as God has always commanded His covenant people to mark & distinguish their children. Just as the prince of England is treated as royalty from the moment he's born, so to must we treat our children as princes and princesses of the King, separated from the sinful world by His grace. AAA Prayer (About) ACKNOWLEDGE WHO GOD IS: Our Father, who carries His covenant children on eagles' wings; ALIGN YOUR LIFE WITH GOD'S WILL: Thank God for including you in His covenant promises, that Christ fulfilled your obligation, and pray that you would live as the holy person (saint) that you've been declared to be; ASK GOD FOR WHAT YOU NEED: Read the New Testament in a year, a chapter a day - Luke 8

table of the law: 5th Commandment: adultery forsakes our father's command and mother's teaching (v20) 6th

and righteous deeds, God our Savior, the hope of all the ends of the earth and of the farthest seas, 6   1:9-13 - The TRUE Light John 3:31-36 - Wrath Removed John 6:37-40 - Tensegral Theology John 12:42-50 - Before the Foundation Deuteronomy 7:1-10 - Set Apart John 17:1-5 - Sovereign Submission John 17:6-12 God’s Good Pleasure Luke 2:13-14 - Christmas in March Galatians 4:1-7 - From Slave to Son Isaiah 53:6 Malachi 3:6-7 - Keep It Simple Hebrews 6:13-20 - Unchanging Anchor Hebrews 13:1-8 - Keep On Loving Hebrews

Wouldn't it be awesome if all your relationships were modeled after the fifth commandment and Ephesians 6?

Then let go of your stuff. 1 Timothy 6:17–19 (NIV) 17 Command those who are rich in this present world Listen to passage & devotional: Belgic Confession of Faith, Article 6: The Difference Between Canonical The first verse makes a great elaboration of passages like we read in 1 Timothy 6, but the final two

Matthew 26:67 Then [members of the Sanhedrin] spit in his face and struck him with their fists.