Imperishable inheritance

With this issue of WORLD Magazine comes an anniversary of sorts: For the past seven years, I’ve been sharing notes about WORLD in this ­column—our history, our people, our projects, our plans, and our challenges. I hope these small ­interactions have been helpful to you.

Along the way, I’ve also occasionally used this space to encourage readers with Scripture. The cover date of this issue falls on the Saturday between Good Friday and Easter, so it seems appropriate to include Biblical encouragement today. Consider these verses from 1 Peter:

“May grace and peace be multiplied to you. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the ­resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials” (1 Peter 1:2b-6).

Peter’s comment that “now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials” may seem like classic understatement. It isn’t. Paul does the same thing in 1 Corinthians when he refers to the wasting away of our bodies as “momentary light affliction.” In both instances, the two apostles aren’t downplaying our difficulties. Rather, they are magnifying our inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading—or as Paul puts it, “an eternal weight of glory.”

The key here, then, is that while we can all relate to suffering, we also should relate to rejoicing—in our new birth to a living hope.

There’s a reason that living hope is something we talk about quite a bit here at WORLD. Because we’ve been called to the news business, feeling grieved by “various trials” is an occupational hazard. Some of the trials are the stuff of our news and opinion coverage. Some of them are inherent in day-to-day management of a news-media enterprise.

These trials are more than enough to fill our days. I hope to encourage not only our readers, but our own staff, by comparing these momentary light afflictions with the gift God has given us through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

He is risen, indeed!