Peculiar Treasure
Usually refers
It's spelled like this, "segullah"
12:07 and it's not a very common word.
12:09 It only occurs eight times in the whole Hebrew Bible,
12:12 but you'll soon see why it's my favorite.
12:15 Six of those eight times, it refers to Israel
12:18 as God's treasured possession.
12:20 But there's two times where we get a very concrete use of it
12:24 as the personal treasury of a king.
12:27 So 1 Chronicles 29:3 and Ecclesiastes 2:8,
12:31 both talk about a personal treasury as a segullah.
12:35 And this is what it was, not just in Hebrew,
12:38 but in Acadian and Ugaritic.
12:40 These other ancient Near Eastern languages,
12:42 they had cognate words, related words, sister words,
12:45 that meant the same thing.
12:46 And they could use them concretely like this to talk about
12:49 a savings account.
12:50 Like the king's got his the coffers of the nation
12:54 where the taxes go.
12:55 But then he also has his own personal treasure
12:58 off on the side of things that were given to him personally,
13:01 that he's saving for something special.
13:03 That's what a segullah is.
13:06 The metaphorical uses in Hebrew and outside the Bible
13:10 in Acadian and Ugaritic
13:12 are always talking about a covenant partner
13:17 who has a special responsibility to represent the sovereign.
18:08 So the context of this is there's been a breach
18:12 of the covenant because the people are acting in ways
18:15 that are unjust.
18:16 They've been withholding tithes.
18:18 They've been speaking arrogantly against God.
18:20 If you just work your way through the section titles.
18:24 But there's, in the midst of a time when many Israelites
18:29 are being unfaithful to the covenant,
18:31 Malachi says this, 3:16.
18:36 "Then
18:36 "Then those who feared Yahweh talked with each other
18:40 and Yahweh listened and heard.
18:42 A scroll of remembrance was written in his presence
18:45 concerning those who feared Yahweh and honored his name."
18:49 Which is not everybody because most of the Israelite
18:52 community has completely neglected the covenant
18:55 and they're living unfaithfully.
18:57 But there are a few, a righteous remnant who are like,
19:00 we wanna honor God.
19:02 And this is what God says about them in verse 17.
19:05 "On the day when I act," is a future day.
19:09 "Says Yahweh Almighty.
19:10 They will be my segullah.
19:13 I will spare them just as a father has compassion
19:16 and spares his son who serves him.
19:18 And you will again see the distinction between the righteous
19:22 and the wicked between those who serve God
19:25 and those who do not."
19:28 So this seems to envision a future day in which the segullah
19:32 is not all of Israel, but a subset of Israel
19:37 where the membership and the covenant
19:40 will no longer be defined ethnically,
19:43 but will be defined on who's actually keeping the covenant.
19:46 There's a sort of narrowing in
19:48 on those who are honoring God.
19:51 So here's what's especially interesting about that.
19:57 The Hebrew is the same here.
19:58 Malachi 3:17 uses segullah,
20:01 but in the Greek, there's a different ...
20:03 In the Greek translation of Malachi,
20:06 they use a different word.
20:07 "Periousios" is normally the word used
20:10 to translate segullah, but here it's "peripoiesis,"
20:15 which is a related word, but a little different
20:17 that seems to emphasize
20:19 not just that you are the treasured possession
20:22 but the acquisition of the treasured possession.
20:25 So in a future day, I will acquire a treasured possession.
20:29 That seems to be the idea.
20:30 So if we flip over a few pages
20:33 to the book of 1 Peter 2:9 and 10.
20:38 Peter is writing to, I would argue,
20:40 a mixed audience of Jews and Gentiles.
20:43 He's writing to believers who are scattered
20:45 throughout Asia Minor.
20:48 And they are trying to figure out what it looks like
20:50 to follow Jesus as a minority
20:52 in a majority culture that is pagan
20:56 and does not appreciate them following Jesus.
21:00 And this would be again, a mixed group.
21:01 They're scattered throughout a wide region
21:03 and Peter says this, "But you are a chosen people,
21:08 a royal priesthood, a holy nation,
21:11 God's special possession."
21:14 And there we have it peripoiesis,
21:16 the same word that occurred in Malachi 3:17.
21:21 Now, what's super fascinating about this to me
21:24 is that Peter is clearly thinking of Sinai.
21:29 He is using the Sinai titles, royal priesthood, holy nation.
21:33 These are covenant terms.
21:35 These belong only to Israel,
21:37 but Peter has the audacity to apply them to the church,
21:41 a church that's a mixed audience of Jews and Gentiles.
21:45 The Gentiles are the segullah.
21:46 Or the Gentiles of the royal priesthood, this is a big deal.
21:49 But he doesn't use the word
21:51 we would expect him to use here, "periousios."
21:54 The one that occurs in Exodus 19 and everywhere else,
21:58 that the Greek translates segullah.
22:00 I think Peter thinks that this is the moment Malachi
22:04 was talking about.
22:06 "On the day when I act, I will choose for myself
22:10 a new segullah," and Peter's looking at the church,
22:14 these followers of Jesus, Jew and Gentile.
22:16 And he's saying, the moment has come.
22:19 Now God has selected a new segullah
22:22 and it looks a little different than the last one
22:24 because it's not defined ethnically.
22:26 It's defined by who is righteous,
22:29 who is living according to covenant principles.
22:32 And then the rest of his letter fleshes out
22:35 what would it look like to be a faithful follower of Jesus
22:38 in a pagan context.
22:40 You're going to live in such a way that people see
22:42 the difference about you.
22:44 And if you're reviled for being a Christian,
22:46 praise God that you bear that name.
22:50 He's seeing this different identity as it works its way out
22:53 in a pagan context.
22:55 And this just little, I feel like he's got left this little
23:00 Easter egg in here for us by quoting Malachi
23:03 rather than Exodus.
23:05 He's showing this is the fulfillment
23:06 of that prophetic moment.
23:09 And the purpose of course is that you may declare
23:11 the praises of him who called you out of darkness
23:14 into his wonderful light.
23:15 The purpose is worship, just like it was in Exodus.
23:18 God brings you out so that you can worship.
23:21 And then he has, I mean,
23:22 he just mashes in like every couple words
23:26 is another illusion to another Old Testament text.
23:29 There's like a dozen in these two verses.
23:31 Once you were not a people, now you are the people of God.
23:35 That's from Hosea.
23:36 Once you had not received mercy,
23:38 but now you have received mercy.
23:39 So remember when Hosea named his children,
23:42 one of them was Not a People, Lo-ammi.
23:45 And then God changes the name to Ammi.
23:49 Here's Peter's point.
23:51 If God can take unfaithful Israel,
23:55 who is apostate to the covenant and becomes not a people
24:00 and re-adopt them, how much more could he take Gentiles
24:04 who never were part of it?
24:05 So they never were unfaithful and adopt them
24:08 to be part of the covenant.
24:09 So he is taking all this Israel language,
24:12 this like proprietary language,
24:14 and he's opening it up for the church.
24:17 So we are around this table because
24:21 we're incorporated into this covenant
24:23 like we're the segullah.
24:25 And we're the segullah
24:26 because Peter helped us see that we are.
24:29 This is why Sinai matters to us.
24:32 This is why we have to pay attention to Sinai
24:35 and what happens at Sinai.
24:36 Because it's not just like, oh, that covenant is old
24:39 and over, and God's doing something new.
24:41 When the New Testament authors express what happened
24:44 in Christ, they're expressing it in Old Testament terms.
24:47 They're taking the titles of Sinai,
24:50 they're applying them to believers in Jesus.
24:53 It's not like, eh, that didn't work.
24:55 Let's try plan B.
24:57 No, we're now invited into this identity
25:02 and vocation of the people who represent God
25:06 among the nations.
25:07 The other, the nations around Israel were supposed to be
25:10 able to watch them to see what Yahweh was like.
25:15 Similarly, people here in northeast Portland
25:18 should be able to watch us and see what Jesus is like.
25:21 We are the segullah.
25:23 We're God's PR plan.
25:26 He doesn't have another way of doing it.
25:29 We're his ambassadors in the world.
25:32 So this is why we just can't