1 Peter--Hope in a Hopeless World

 Ruins near Peter's House in Capernaum

AUTHOR

 

The author of this letter identifies himself as “Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ”. This letter was universally accepted in the early church as written by Peter, one of the twelve disciples of Jesus.

 

However, Peter’s authorship of this letter has been questioned by modern scholars. One point at issue is the fact that this letter appears to contain a quality of Greek writing that would seem to be beyond the capacity of a Galilean fisherman. This may be explained by what Peter says in 1 Peter 5:12, namely that he wrote this letter “with the help of Silas”.

 

Some scholars claim that this letter reflects the persecution under the reign of Domitian, long after Peter’s death. However, what Peter says about persecution in this letter could just as easily be a description of the suffering of Christians under Nero. 

 

DATE

 

If the Apostle Peter is indeed the author of this letter, then the most likely date of writing would seem to be after 60 CE. It cannot be earlier because Peter’s first letter shows familiarity with Paul’s prison letters. On the other hand, this letter is probably written before 64-67 CE, the likely period of Peter’s martyrdom under Nero.

 

THEMES

 

In 1 Peter 5:13, Peter indicates that he is in “Babylon” while writing this letter. “Babylon” is most likely a code-word for Rome just as it is in the book of Revelation. Peter writes this letter to give hope to fellow Christians who are suffering persecution. Other themes include courage, glory, grace, holiness, and pilgrimage.

 

 

STRUCTURE

 

I have preached through 1 Peter numerous times. Here is my own preaching outline of the letter…

1. Your Identity in Christ (1:1-2)
2. Ten Reasons to Praise God (1:3-12)
3. Become a Holy Copy-Cat (1:13-16)
4. Live in Holy Reverence (1:17-21)
5. Live Out a Life of Love (1:22-2:3)
6. Coming to the Rock (1 Peter 2:4-10)
7. Living as Christian Extraterrestrials (2:11-12)
8. Submitting to the Government (2:13-17)
9. Submitting to Your Boss (2:18-25)
10. A Word to Wives and Husbands (3:1-7)
11. A Summary of Christian Duty (3:8-12)
12. How to Handle Suffering (3:13-17)
13. Christ: Our Hope in Suffering (3:18-22)
14. Our Response to Christ’s Suffering (4:1-6)
15. How to Prepare for the Second Coming (4:7-11)
16. How to Handle Suffering, Part 2 (4:12-19)
17. How to Be an Effective Church Leader (5:1-4)
18. Three Guidelines for Christian Followers (5:5-7)
19. How to Deal with the Devil (5:8-11)
20. Five Encouragements as You Face the Future (5:12-14)

 

KEY CONCEPT: HOPE

 

2020 was one of the most challenging years in the recent history of the world due to the coronavirus pandemic. There were many times when life may have seemed hopeless. Hope is a perennial need. 

 

As I have already suggested above, I believe Peter writes to give us hope. He uses the word five times in this brief letter. The first time is in the opening of this letter where he gives us at least three reasons for hope…

 

Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ,

To God’s elect, exiles scattered throughout the provinces of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to be obedient to Jesus Christ and sprinkled with his blood:

Grace and peace be yours in abundance.

 

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil, or fade.

 

It is possible to pass over these opening verses of Peter’s letter and think of them as just a standard greeting at the beginning of a first century epistle. However, this opening greeting is anything but standard. It contains a theological wallop that can invest our lives with hope in Christ if we pause to understand what Peter is saying to his first century readers and to us. I believe Peter is telling us how God sees us as believers in Jesus.

 

First, we are sent. Peter says that he is an apostle of Jesus Christ. That word “apostle” means “one who is sent”.

 

Peter was sent directly by Jesus Christ. The apostles of the New Testament were those who were eyewitnesses of Jesus’ resurrection (Acts 1:22; 1 Corinthians 15:8). They were appointed directly by Jesus (Matthew 10:1-7). They were given the job of governing the new Church (1 Thessalonians 4:8; 2 Thessalonians 3:6,14), teaching and writing down God’s message (1 Corinthians 14:37; 1 Thessalonians 2:13; 2 Peter 3:15,16). Peter was an apostle in this sense.

 

However, there is a broader sense in which the term “apostle” can be used. The term is also used in the New Testament of a “messenger” sent out by the church (2 Corinthians 8:23; Philippians 2:25). This is where you and I come in.

 

As believers in Jesus Christ, we too are “sent ones”. We have been commissioned by Jesus Christ to go and tell the good news about him to others. This gives us hope because it gives us purpose in life.

 

I became a Christian around age twelve or thirteen, but in my early teen years, I often wrestled with the question: What is my purpose? Why am I here on earth? This is one of the most basic questions of all human existence. We have probably each had this question lingering in the back of our minds at some time.

 

I love the answer that the Westminster Shorter Catechism gives to the question: What is the chief end of man? The Catechism answers: to glorify God and enjoy him forever.

 

The more I grow as a Christian the more that answer makes sense and is meaningful to me. We are sent into this world to glorify our creator and to enjoy him forever. One way we do that is by communicating his love to others in word and deed.

 

Many years ago, there was a young woman in California who got a perfect score on the SAT as well as the standard entrance exam for the University of California. When she was interviewed about her accomplishment she was asked, “What do you think is the purpose of life?” Her answer was: “I don’t know.” Here was a young woman who had great intellect, but—I imagine—very little hope, because she didn’t know anything about the purpose of her life. In Jesus Christ, we can find purpose and hope because he has sent us. He has a mission for us.

 

The second reason Peter gives us for hope in a hopeless world is because we are chosen. Peter calls the believers in Jesus to whom he is writing the chosen ones, the elect.

 

This was a term used in the Hebrew Scriptures to refer exclusively to Israel. In Deuteronomy 7:6 Moses says to Israel, “For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession.”

 

In the New Testament this term is applied to the Church, both Jews and Gentiles who are believers in Jesus. In Ephesians 1:4 Paul says, “For he [that is God the Father] chose us in him [that is Christ] before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.”

 

Furthermore, Peter tells us that we have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father. The source of our election is God’s foreknowledge. His choice of us is based upon his foreknowledge. 

 

What does God foreknow about us? Everything. He foreknows all our choices, both for good and evil. He knows whether we will choose to follow him or not. His choice of us is based upon his foreknowledge of everything.

 

The Greek word used here is prognosis. We are familiar with a doctor giving a prognosis about the course of a disease, a virus, or an infection. In a sense, the doctor has knowledge beforehand about how the disease is going to run its course because he has studied disease and how to treat it.

 

This word is used again in 1 Peter 1:20 where Peter says of Jesus, “He was chosen before the creation of the world but was revealed in these last times for your sake.” The word translated “chosen” is that same word “prognosis”. Jesus was foreknown by God the Father from the foundation of the world.

 

This word is also used in Acts 2:23 where Peter says that Jesus “was handed over to you by God’s deliberate plan and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross.”

The word appears yet again in two places in Paul’s letter to the Church at Rome. In Romans 8:29 Paul says, “For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.” In addition, Paul says this about Israel in Romans 11:2, “God did not reject his people, whom he foreknew.”

It is important to understand that the terminology of “foreknowledge” is adapted to our understanding as human beings living in time. However, God is not in time. So, God’s knowledge of what we are doing in no way limits our free acts. As Peter puts it in his sermon in Acts, the death of Christ on the cross was both the result of God’s foreknowledge and the result of the wicked acts of human beings. God chooses and we choose. Both are true.

So, if God chooses to make us his children, do we have a choice about it? Absolutely. We can choose to accept God’s choice of us, or not. God has chosen to adopt us as his sons and daughters in Christ. We can accept that adoption or not. However, if we reject God’s choice of us then we are missing the wonderful truth Peter wants us to see here. That truth is that God loves us so much he chooses to save us out of our sin and make us his children. The fact that we are chosen by God ought to give us great hope and encouragement. He is our heavenly Father who loves us, chooses us in love, and never goes back on that love.

Peter tells us not only the source of our election (God’s foreknowledge) but also the manner of our election. The Father’s choice of us was made effective by the application of the work of Christ to our lives. This was done through the Holy Spirit. We have been chosen through the sanctifying work of the Spirit.

In other words, it is not by our own hard work that we come to Christ. Martin Luther once wrote, “I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to him.” We are born again by the power of the Holy Spirit. As Peter says in verse 3: “In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope.”

Peter also tells us about the goal of our election: obedience to Christ. We have been chosen for the purpose of obedience to Christ and sprinkling by his blood. God chose to save us in order that we might become like his son Jesus. 

Peter stresses throughout this letter that we are called to live holy lives. Living a holy life involves innumerable choices on our part, day in and day out. As Peter says in his second letter: We must strive to make our calling and election sure (2 Peter 1:10). 

The sprinkling of blood is how we are set apart for obedience to Christ. But how are we sprinkled with the blood of Christ shed on the cross? That happens when we trust in Christ alone to save us from our sin. Paul says in Romans 3:25, “God presented him [that is Christ] as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.” Through trusting in the saving effect of Christ’s blood, we are sprinkled, and we receive God’s forgiveness of sin.

Now, I can almost hear your brain about to explode. You might feel like saying, “Enough theology already! How does all this theology give us hope?”

If we know that God the Father has chosen us to be his children, then we also know that no matter what we go through in life, he will never let go of us. We are his beloved children… always.

In her book, The Whisper Test, Mary Ann Bird writes… 

I grew up knowing I was different, and I hated it. I was born with a cleft palate, and when I started school, my classmates made it clear to me how I looked to others: a little girl with a misshapen lip, crooked nose, lopsided teeth, and garbled speech.

When schoolmates asked, ‘What happened to your lip?’ I’d tell them I’d fallen and cut it on a piece of glass. Somehow, it seemed more acceptable to have suffered an accident than to have been born different. I was convinced that no one outside my family could love me.

There was, however, a teacher in the second grade whom we all adored…Mrs. Leonard. She was short, round, happy, a sparkling lady.

Annually we had a hearing test … Mrs. Leonard gave the test to everyone in the class, and finally it was my turn. I knew from past years that as we stood against the door and covered one ear, the teacher sitting at her desk would whisper something, and we would have to repeat it back—things like ‘The sky is blue’ or ‘Do you have new shoes?’ I waited there for those words that God must have put into her mouth, those seven words that changed my life. Mrs. Leonard said, in her whisper, ‘I wish you were my little girl.’

God the Father, in his incredible love, does more than whisper to us: “I wish you were my little girl or my little boy.” He knew everything about us before the foundation of the world and he chose to save us from our sin. Then he adopted us as his children by sending the Holy Spirit into our hearts. What love! I hope you hear him whispering to you today: “I’ve chosen you. I love you. You’re mine!”

The final reason Peter gives us for hope is the fact that we are strangers. Peter writes to Christians who are suffering for their faith, and he calls them, and us, “strangers in the world”.

How is this a reason for hope? If we are strangers in this world, then that means this world is not our real home. When we suffer in this life, and we all suffer in some way, then we have the hope of a better future.

In ancient times, wherever an exiled Jew settled, his or her eyes were always set toward Jerusalem. In a similar way, wherever we are as Christians in this world, our eyes should be set toward the New Jerusalem, our real home. As someone once said, “The world is a bridge. The wise man will pass over it, but he will not build his house upon it.”

Joni Earekson Tada recalls the comment of one boy at the end of a retreat for the handicapped. Participants were asked to tell what the week had meant to them.

Joni writes, “Little freckle-faced, red-haired Jeff raised his hand. We were so excited to see what Jeff would say, because Jeff had won the hearts of us all at family retreat. Jeff has Down’s syndrome. He took the microphone, put it right up to his mouth, and said, ‘Let’s go home.’

“Later, his mother told me, ‘Jeff really missed his dad back home. His dad couldn’t come to family retreat because he had to work.’ Even though Jeff had had a great time, a fun-filled week, he was ready to go home because he missed his daddy.

Joni concludes, “This world is pleasant enough. But would we really want it to go on forever as a family retreat? I don’t think so. I’m with Jeff. I miss my Daddy, my Abba Father. My heart is longing to go home.”

We who are believers in Jesus are strangers in this world and that is good news. It means we have a better home waiting for us.