<p>1:18- see on Lk. 24:21.</p><p><i>Knowing you were redeemed, not with corruptible things, with silver or gold</i>- Gold only corrupts at infinity, and that is where we are. The connection is with the reference in :4 to the transitory nature of wealth (see notes there); and how our relation to the Lord's blood, which has <i>eternal</i> effects, ought to make us not materialistic. All wealth can buy is temporary; but we stand related to the eternal wealth.</p><p><i>From your vain manner of life handed down from your fathers- </i>The Orthodox Jewish life of legal obedience was in fact &quot;vain&quot;. And they were redeemed from it. And the Lord's death redeems us likewise from whatever was our spiritual and psychological inheritance. Do we feel that life is just pointless, an endless round of childcare, working all day doing in essence the same job for 30 years, a trudging through an endless tunnel until our mortality catches up on us? We were redeemed by the precious blood of Christ from the &ldquo;vain way of life handed down from the fathers&quot; (1 Pet. 1:18), from the frustration of this present life. The word used for &ldquo;vain&quot; is that used by the LXX for the &lsquo;vanity&rsquo; of life as described in Ecclesiastes, and for idol worship in Lev. 17:7 and Jer. 8:19. We have been redeemed from it all Not for us the life of endlessly chasing the rainbow&rsquo;s end, slavishly worshipping the idols of ever bigger homes, smarter technology... we were redeemed from the vanity of life &ldquo;under the sun&quot; by the precious blood of Christ. We were bought out of this slavery, even if in the flesh we go through its motions. Knowing this, we the redeemed, the bought out from vanity, shouldn&rsquo;t spend our hours in front of the television or doing endless crosswords, or frittering away the time of life as the world does. James foresaw that a man could appear to be religious, and yet have a religion that was &ldquo;vain&quot; (James 1:26)- because he didn&rsquo;t appreciate that the cross has bought him out of vanity.</p><p>New life is always needed. This is why in our daily reading and fellowship with our Lord, as we enter ever more deeply into His character, we are challenged afresh daily. We aren&rsquo;t professionals, committee members, in this drive for spirituality. We are amateurs at heart, children, wide eyed with wonder at what we are being shown, ever moving on to some fresh endeavour. Our spiritual new life need never become a mere routine, a burden, a duty to be performed, a habit. For &ldquo;in the heart where the spirit of the Lord Jesus is, there the heart is free&rdquo; (2 Cor. 3:17); we were brought out from the pointless, repetitive bondage of Egypt by the blood of Christ. What this means is not that red liquid somehow did something for us; His example of death, how He was there, inspires us to break out from the vain way of life we received by tradition from our fathers. We alone, as true believers in the representative nature of His sacrifice, are thereby empowered to break out of the routine of our lives.</p>