Holy Communion Worship Celebration

Scripture Reading: 1 Peter 2:1-10

“A Spiritual House”

2 Rid yourselves, therefore, of all malice, and all guile, insincerity, envy, and all slander. ² Like newborn infants, long for the pure, spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation— ³ if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.  Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God’s sight, and ⁵ like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. ⁶ For it stands in scripture:

            ‘See, I am laying in Zion a stone,

            a cornerstone chosen and precious;

            and whoever believes in him^[b] will not be put to shame.’

 ⁷ To you then who believe, he is precious; but for those who do not believe,

            ‘The stone that the builders rejected 

            has become the very head of the corner’,

⁸ and

            ‘A stone that makes them stumble,

            and a rock that makes them fall.’

They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.  ⁹ But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people,in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

¹⁰            Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people;

            once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.