What is the Church?—VII

Extract

Some people think that what is called the First Epistle of St Peter is not a letter but an address given by the leader of the first Christian bishops to a group of men and women who had just been baptized. Certainly a good deal of it is devoted by St Peter to an explanation of what it means to have become a Christian:

You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, that you may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light. Once you were people but now you are God's people… (I Peter 2.9-10.)