I'm anticipating a connecting theme between born anew/again/from above, in 1Peter 1:23, with the pre-resurrection conversation Nicodemus had in John's Gospel 3:1-17.
What great love is shown to use, by the great price that is given to ransom us from all that binds us. But like most of us who spend our lives on a beer budget, when someone gives us caviar, we really don't know the value, and we don't take care of what we have been given.
the image of the imperishable seed (v.23) reminds us of the parable of the sower. yesterday i came across this poem written by the contemporary poet, Stephen Mitchell:
A sower went forth to sow. Some of his seeds fell upon stony places. Centuries passes; millennia. And the seeds remained. And the stones crumbled and became good soil, and the seeds brought forth fruit. "Wait a minute," said one listener, "You can't play fast and loose that way with the natural facts. The seeds would die long before the soil could receive them." "Why would they die?" "Because they can't hold out in stony places, for thousands of years." "But, my dear, what kind of seeds do you think we're talking about?"
from "The Gospels in Our Image,"ed. by David Curzon, Harcourt Brace.