Living Harmoniously
1 Peter 3:8-12 · Andrew Molloy · Oct 4, 2026
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/10426204474640

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

So today we are on 1 Peter Chapter 3. So in verse 8, to sum up,

Let all be harmonious, sympathetic, brotherly, kind-hearted, and humble in spirit, not returning evil for evil, or insult for insult, giving a blessing instead, for you were called for the very purpose that you might inherit a blessing.

Let him who means to love life and see good days refrain his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking guile, and let him turn away from evil and do good. Let him seek peace and pursue it. For the eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and his ears attend to their prayer. But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.

So that's verse 12. And verse 12, 8 through, I'm sorry, verse 10 through 12, of course, are a restatement of a psalm, and we'll see that later.

Okay, so verse 8, to sum up, all of you, be harmonious, sympathetic, brotherly, kind-hearted, and humble in spirit. We'll tackle that much so far. And so where are we in this text so far? The word to sum up tells us where we are. So the Greek word for that is telos, the terminal point in a succession of preceding points. So what are those preceding points that he's summing up?

To start with, we started in 2.13, he went into some doctrinal imperatives, right? He said, submit yourselves to every governing authority, and it runs through chapter 2.18 in the address of servants. Servants are to be submissive to their masters. and then he addresses wives wives are to be submissive to their own husbands in chapter three of verse one that was a few weeks ago and roger covered that then he addressed husbands likewise live with your wives in an understanding way that's in verse three of uh... i'm sorry verse seven of chapter three So he's summing up, I think, those things so far, and possibly all the things that he's covered up till this point in this epistle. And who are the all of you? We see that he starts out by addressing persons, one's under government, then he addresses servants and then wives and husbands, and then now he says all of you, to sum up, all of you be harmonious.

So Hamilton Smith says that's the Christian circle, I don't know if I love that kind of summation. We says it's the body of Christ, and I would say it's the local body up there in Galatia who he's addressing. And it's us, right? So we're the body of Christ. It could be this church. It's all of us, I think. So, that's who he is addressing now, instead of, he's not still addressing only husbands or only wives, is the point there. So the main point of this lesson is, it's pretty simple.

We're going to cover five adjectives that you see. You see those adjectives, harmonious, sympathetic, brotherly, kind-hearted and humble in spirit so those are five adjectives so you could put the adjective or the verb be in front of each of those be harmonious, be sympathetic be brotherly, be kind-hearted and be humble in spirit We could end there and you guys go out and do it and we'd be done with the lesson. But those things, and we'll look at this later, these are things that he's calling us to be that are very And we'll get to it, but we need the indwelling Christ within us to accomplish these things. So first we'll look at the adjective harmonious. And that adjective is homophron. Homophron. And the word Hama, the antecedent, antecedent, I think, would that be it? Miles is the first part of a word, I believe, antecedent. Prefix. Yes, thank you. Prefix.

Is hama, which is together, or people assembled together, or you could say it's same. Think of this, homophonic. Homophonic is same sound. So when the instruments, when the flute and the violin play the same note, that's homophonic. but then when, in the main service, when the flute plays the melody and the violin is dropping under and playing the alto part, the under part, that's polyphonic. So there you go. So this is homophren, or homophron. And phren is mind.

And it can also, this is interesting, it can mean the diaphragm. or the critical parts. And because they believed, as you remember in Greek, that the heart was in here, or the mind was in this area. Because, think of it, when you When you're nervous, that's your brain. Or when you're afraid, or when you're fearing, you feel in your stomach. Your stomach gets twisted up, right? You know that feeling. You feel in your stomach. You get an ulcer. So that's how that comes about, is homophron. And that's why it can be the diaphragm.

But here it means mind. So, Peter is saying to focus on the same things, mind the same things, not think the same, but you could say that, it does mean, it could mean to think the same, whatever minding or thinking is, or have the same attitude. In classical Greek, being of one mind is in connection with war, because war was written a lot about back then.

And we have this in this country as the consent of the governed. World War II was a one-minded war or a consent of Americans to go to war. And everyone jumped in and factories popped up overnight to build B-17s. America was one-minded in World War II. So that's homophron or homophren.

And I think it's best is Philippians 2.5, have this mind in you, which was also in Christ, is that passage. But the mind of Christ in all of you.

And mind is phreneo in Philippians 2.5. And you can see phreneo related to phron or phren. So that's, I think, what we are to do is have the mind of Christ.

The second adjective of our five is be sympathetic, and that's sympachko. You see the Greek there, s-y-m-p-a-s-h-h-c-h-o, sympachko. So, sun there, or sum, you could say, is together, together with, together with pachko, which is to feel or be affected, and doesn't that make sense? So, together be affected is sympathy or sympachko.

Having compassion for one another is how the King James renders it. Compassion at a distance so when I did this same lesson six years ago I had that down and then I looked at this this week and I said well what does that mean compassion at a distance but when you think of it if Jim is going through a difficult time.

He's suffering. For me to sympathize with him, he's at a distance. Physically, right now, you're at a distance. But if we're right together, it's still a distance because that suffering is within you and I'm outside of you. So that's the distance between us because we're two human beings. So I think that's what one of the commentators has in mind, compassion at a distance, one of the definitions. So, sympathy can be in joy or sorrow. Everyone agree with that? In joy or sorrow.

So, if, you know, we can, if someone's kid wins the the football championship, we can sympathize with them in that joy, or what have you, or in a marriage. Who got married recently? You did it. The Macaulay kids. So yeah, so we can sympathize in that. So sympathy, bearing a burden with one another, how's that? That's a good one. Weast is, I like this, it's an interchange of a fellow feeling with one another. So fellow feeling with each other. So sympathy or simpachko.

I had the You saw the picture on the title slide of the symphony orchestra. So I thought of this analogy, harmonious and sympathetic, those are two musical terms as well, and it describes An orchestra has to have those two adjectives, has to employ those two adjectives to be an orchestra or a symphony orchestra that you want to hear. Otherwise it's a mess, right? So they have to have this sun pachco, this sympathy with each other. They have to feel the same feelings when they're playing a passage of music.

They have to be affected by that passage of music in the same way. in order to bring, if you're listening to, boy, if you all would like to go with us to, when I come back, when we come back right after Halloween, I think it's the week after, November 3rd, 4th, 5th, the symphony's playing the Mozart Requiem, right? So, Big piece. Gorgeous. And so we're going to that.

So anyone who wants to go, we should kind of get together and get seats together. But those orchestra members need to feel that music in the same way is what I'm trying to get out in this analogy. And right music can be joyous or sorrowful too. If it's a joyous passage, they all have to have the same joy. Sorrowful, They all sort of have to be thinking the same thoughts with whatever they're playing in that symphony orchestra. They have to bear one another's burdens in that symphony orchestra. They have to have a fellow feeling with other orchestra members and work together in concert.

When the choir, when they sing, there might be two or four or eight or twelve different parts, and they're completely different, but they harmonize with each other, and harmonization is good sounds and not dissonant sounds. Dissonant sounds are ugly sounds or sounds that are close together that clash. So there's no clashing. That's what dissonance means.

And sometimes that's a popular way to orchestrate a piece. Composers use that. so harmonious, our harmony is a big thing in a symphony orchestra. There's something, and I thought a lot about this, and this is a scientific thing, there's something called sympathetic vibrations, also called sympathetic resonance, with if you put a big orchestra in a hall so and you leave the bass drum sitting there and the harp sitting there and the piano open what the orchestra is playing these big parts it's it's gonna hit the hall and start to create a resonance, and that bass drum, the head of that bass drum will sort of start to oscillate like that. And the keys on the piano, when it hits certain intervals, will kind of sound, might even hum with the orchestra. So that's sympathetic resonance. This sounds sort of New Age-y, doesn't it? But I don't mean to sound New Age-y about this. Sounds ghostly. Yeah, ghostly, but also new agey.

But I'm not saying that, I just see it as a good analogy, and for a church body. You know, Paul uses the analogy of a body, some of us are arms and some of us are knees and things like that, and how those come together. Well, in it, you could, orchestras weren't invented back then, but he could use that same, this analogy, to do the same thing. The Holy Spirit will, be in this body of Holly Hills and resonate through the whole body and we all sort of get each other, right?

And if anyone's dissonant, it stands out, right? You see what I'm saying there? We're all sort of playing the same tune in harmony with each other, I guess you'd say. Okay, so that was the second And as you can see, we're playing off the same sheet music. Yeah, or singing off the same hymn book. But yeah, in harmony, too. Because if, like my dad wasn't the best singer, so he would sing here, and I would. One body, many members. We all have different roles, but we're still all playing from the same book. Yeah, and think of this. Holly Hills.

If we were an orchestra, and you all played different instruments, we'd sound a certain way, we'd play certain pieces, we'd emphasize doctrines, the doctrine of identification truths. Well, you go to another church, you hear no identification truth uh... discussion of that doctrine it's big it's a different but they're harmonious within each other and they have different characters right so that yeah yeah that and i threw up that picture of the new york philharmonic on the title side the new york philharmonic orchestra they sound different than the philadelphia orchestra because their members uh... interact in a different way is what I'm saying. So you see how this is these five adjectives are are like that, they're musical in a way it's kinda cool so brotherly is the third one and that's philadelphos philadelphos so it's not agape love but it is having rapport with one another, rapport love and that makes sense, brotherly love, rapport love or love as a countryman would have a love for their country, that's Philadelphus. Kind-hearted is Eusplachnos, and you've got to get that Eusplachnos. You got to get that guttural sound in your throat to say that. But that has to do with what we were talking about before. It's the bowels, the diaphragm area. Having good bowels, good diaphragm.

So what does that mean? Because they thought all those emotions came from this area, of the body so they would think that compassion or being tender-hearted came from there or when you're pitiful and that means you're not that means something different in English today but that means the ability to have pity on someone the ability to take pity on one another is what it means to be pitiful So in ancient Greek, yeah, so we've covered that, in ancient Greek, that was thought to be the source or the center, or the seat of also violent passions, hate, right? That came from there as well. So that's that Greek word, and that's what Peter is telling them to be.

In Hebrew, the word meant the seat of tender-minded emotions, affection, benevolence, kindness, a heart in which mercy resides. Let me go back to that. So that's a nice phrase, a heart in which mercy resides. Number five in our list of five adjectives is humble in spirit.

And that's tapenephron, tapenephron, or tapenephron, I think is how you say it. So it's T-A-P in the Greek, I-N-O-P-H-R-O-N. And that's to have a low, a low heart or mind, a low, a low, lowly-minded or low-hearted. So, and that the first, the tepino, the first part of that is low. So that means being meek ones with one another.

Merriman said that Christianity is the great humiliator. And that's true, isn't it? Because that in Christianity being humble is in everything else in the world the world, let's see the world values, you think of Elon Musk, the world values pedestals with one another. Well, in Christianity, it's the opposite. Macaulay says it's having a correct opinion of oneself.

Verse 9, we go on to verse 9, it's And this is, he gives the negation of things we want to be. So the other way, either we're harmonious, sympathetic, brotherly, kind-hearted, and humble in spirit, while the other way is to operate from a ground of the flesh or the sin nature, or the indwelling Adamic nature, right? And when we do that, we're going to exhibit these characters. And one is returning evil for evil, and insult for insult. And would you say that that is the default setting on human nature? Right. A person without Christ will exhibit, that'll be their base of operations, they'll, and he says exactly this in verse 9, they'll return evil for evil and insult for insult. if you don't have the mind of Christ, or if you're not born again, that's the default setting.

Where Peter says to instead, we are to render a blessing. In other words, I think, is to have Christ's response in all these matters. And it's really doing the opposite of what we would want to do in our flesh, isn't it? In 1 Peter 2, 21-23, Peter said this, beginning with verse 21, For you all have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you as an example for you to follow in his steps.

He, who is Jesus Christ, committed no sin, nor was any deceit found in his mouth. And while being reviled, he did not revile in return. While suffering, he uttered no threats, but kept entrusting himself to one who judges righteously. Is that kind of like, oh, he's slaying me?

That is, yeah. And so Christ trusted in the Father's to he went through tremendous trial and all the while he was he was leaving it to god the father to to uh... guide him through his earthly sufferings and you see the parallelism of when peter says in verse nine don't return uh... evil for evil or insult for insult and you see in uh... first peter two twenty three while being reviled, he did not revile in return. You see that parallelism there? So these are things from Christ's heart that we are to aspire to. And you see up there in verse, where is it?

21. Christ left us as an example for us to follow in his steps in verse 21 and if you recall what Miles taught a couple weeks ago on this word hupogramos and that's example We are to have Christ as our hupogrammos. And that's not to follow in his footsteps, like the modern world has it, but hupogrammos means to underwrite. Grammos, grammar, which is writing. Hupo means, or hupo means under, so underwrite that. Or copy for imitation. write his life.

Do you all remember that lesson that Miles was giving? Just erasing off the board this morning. Oh, okay, yeah. Oh yeah, and so you had the lines and the kids would trace the, or copy the A in cursive and the small A, small B. That's how they would do it back in the day. And I think in the next slide, I have an example. So here's a copy book from like 1901 for children.

And so what they would do is copy little phrases. and good ones like a stitch in time saves nine they'd see that in cursive they'd write that below a stitch in time saves nine make sure they all match and you can see how they did it in that example i have up there see that beautiful writing that's how they used to write The typos, or the thing that they were to copy, was good nature, like a bee, collects honey from every herb.

And the thing about these is they also taught morals and things like that in these copy books. The second thing that they were to copy is, ill nature, like a spider, sucks poison from the flowers. So, what they were trying to instill in these children back then was be a bee and not a spider, you see that? So, because spiders suck poison from every good thing, flowers, whereas good natured bees, you know, they collect honey from every herb. So they were instructing them in morality too, and good civics and things like that.

And those kind of fit our lesson for today, right? Is being a bee and not a spider. Because verse 8 is being a bee. Verse 9 is being a spider. Yeah, I thought that was a kind of cool parallelism. Evil for evil and insult for insult. that's something that a spider would weave. And oh, what is that saying I just thought of? Oh, what a tangled web we weave when we first practice to deceive. Yeah, it's kind of cool.

So, verse 9, the grounding or the base of operations for these godly qualities, and If we do these, it says we inherit a blessing. Well, I think the best way to really summate or sum, verse 9, is to read Philippians chapter 2, beginning in verse 1. And Paul says, therefore, if there is any encouragement in Christ, if there is any consolation of love, if there is any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and compassion. You see that? That's related to these verses here as well. Paul's thinking with Peter's here.

He says in verse 2, make my joy complete by being of the same mind. maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose. Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind, same thoughts there, regard one another as more important than yourselves.

That's being humble in spirit, from verse 8 in Peter 3.8. He goes on with verse five, or verse four, I'm sorry, do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. Have this attitude, phreneo, or fron, in yourselves, which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although he existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped. but emptied himself, taking the form of a bondservant, and being made in the likeness of men."

That's Philippians chapter 2, 1 through 7. And that, I thought that was a wonderful way that Paul expands or compliments, or I could say they're harmonious with each other. What Paul says in Philippians chapter 2, same thing that Peter's saying in the passage we're looking at today. So it's kind of cool that that illustrates the harmoniousness of scripture. So in grace, God dealt with us with divine mercy, and mercy is kind-heartedness.

Why we were yet sinners in Romans 5.8. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. So we could, or should, mirror this grace that we've received by not returning evil for evil and railing for railing or insult for insult. Because we have been treated with mercy and grace from God the Father, right?

But on the contrary, the verse says, verse 9, we are to give a blessing, and a blessing can be a good word, or praise, or commendation. I think it's best to say that blessing is to give a cause to prosper, that's a good way, or to hope for one's contentment or their protection, that's all wrapped up in that eulogia, blessing. So we might inherit a blessing. Because we, and it goes to, He goes back to the Old Testament. He goes back to Psalm 34 here, 10 through 12. So I'll read 10 through 12.

He says, for he that will love life and seek good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil and his lips that they may speak no guile. Let him eschew evil and do good. Let him seek peace and ensue it. for the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous and his ears are open unto their prayers but the face of the Lord is against them that do evil."

So this quote is from Psalm 34 and the first few points I have here is what some of the commentators said is and you might have an opinion on this is he is he using the this old testament passage in psalm in order uh... the quotation to support what he just said in verses eight or nine or was psalm thirty four primarily on his mind and then he's he's doing an exposition uh... of the psalm passage so either way I think it's correct but you just wonder what Peter did I say Paul? I meant Peter what he had on his mind when he was writing these verses so it's a quote from Psalm 34 and Merriman says that literally it's one who desires or wishes to keep on loving life and see good days or one who is loving life and wishes to continue to do so Weiss says Yeah, that's Wiest there. One who is loving life and wishes to continue to do so.

So grammatically it's a present infinitive. And so what Merriman and Wiest did there is they're giving you how the present infinitive would read. So it's loving life and to keep on loving life and to keep on seeing good days is what an infinitive does there. Verse 11. Verse 11 is interesting. You see that word estu? Well, that's from the King James.

But the new American standard has turn away. So turn away from evil. But the Greek is eklino. It means not only to turn away, but to lean out and away from evil. So to lean out and away from evil. Verse 12 is the eyes of the Lord are upon and into the prayers of the ones who are turning away from evil or eschewing evil, doing good and pursuing peace and not returning railing for railing. So you see how these, it's really cool how Ecclino is leaning out and away from, and the eyes of the Lord are upon, looking upon and into the prayers of ones doing good. Which is really cool, it doesn't come out in the English so much, but it does come out in the, in the underlying tense, tenses of, and that would be Hebrew. So it's an interesting principle to note, if you lean out and away from evil, God comes upon you and leans into your prayers, because God shuns and turns away from evil himself as well.

And isn't that comforting to know that God is leaning, coming upon you and leaning into your prayers? And so if you lean out in a way he'll lean upon and into you, sort of apprehend you and you're apprehending him. It's a really comforting thought there to end the lesson.

Thoughts or comments from anyone? Pretty easy stuff to go out and do, huh? Right? Yeah. Well, and hopefully it'll come out in the lesson that we can't do these things on our own. We are totally helpless, right? We just have to... lean into our position, right? That we've been, we're heavenly people, and our life is up there, and draw that life from up there to us down here. And he'll do this doing, won't he? The indwelling Lord Jesus Christ, and I'm glad that we have that life within us to do this thing.

Oh, ditto for you there, Mike. Thank you. But, you know, it's the Word of God that makes us harmonious and sympathetic with each other, isn't it? Because that's why I love coming here and seeing you all, because we have this harmony, this sympathetic vibration between us, that I don't get up there where I live. You know what I mean? So it's kind of nice. So, same thought to you too, Mike. So, thanks. It's hard. Yes, it is. Yeah. Great. Well, I'll close in prayer.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word and we thank you for all. the doctrine you've given us, and that we can learn who you are and what your essential essence is, that you're loving, that you're love and you're grace and you're mercy, and you are the one who's kind-hearted and compassionate and tender-hearted and the Lord Jesus Christ as we saw in his suffering on earth was humble in spirit and we just pray that you'll work that into our lives as well as we behold him his person and we are changed into his very image and we thank you for these things and in Jesus' name we pray, amen.