1 Peter

Dennis R. Edwards, Tremper Longman III, Scot McKnight

• Publisher: Zondervan Academic
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9780310599197
• Topic: Theologie & Religion
• Subtopic: Christlicher Dienst

A new commentary for today's world, The Story of God Bible Commentary explains and illuminates each passage of Scripture in light of the Bible's grand story.

The first commentary series to do so, SGBC offers a clear and compelling exposition of biblical texts, guiding everyday readers in how to creatively and faithfully live out the Bible in their own contexts. Its story-centric approach is ideal for pastors, students, Sunday school teachers, and laypeople alike.

Each volume employs three main, easy-to-use sections designed to help readers live out God's story:

• LISTEN to the Story: Includes complete NIV text with references to other texts at work in each passage, encouraging the reader to hear it within the Bible's grand story.
• EXPLAIN the Story: Explores and illuminates each text as embedded in its canonical and historical setting.
• LIVE the Story: Reflects on how each text can be lived today and includes contemporary stories and illustrations to aid preachers, teachers, and students.

—1 Peter—

Peter shows a strong dependance upon the Old Testament to connect his readers to the story of God in which God draws people into a community. Peter demonstrates that the Christian community is to be a united people of God, not merely a group of individuals who happen to possess similar beliefs.

Edited by Scot McKnight and Tremper Longman III, and written by a number of top-notch theologians, The Story of God Bible Commentary series will bring relevant, balanced, and clear-minded theological insight to any biblical education or ministry.

CHAPTER 1

1 Peter 1:1–2

LISTEN to the Story

¹Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ,

To God’s elect, exiles scattered throughout the provinces of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, ²who 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.

Listening to the Text in the Story: Genesis 23:4; Exod 24:3–8; Psalm 39:12; Isaiah 53:1–12.

“I would not encourage any person to come here that could live middling well at home as they might meet with many dificulties [sic] by coming here. But any Boy or Girl that has to labour for their living this is The Country for them.”¹ Those sentences allude to the reality of how tough life can be for immigrants to the USA. In this case it was a man from Ireland in 1852, but there are legions of stories—and letters—of people who arrived to a distant land to discover that opportunities often came at a hefty price. Immigrants often endure alienation because they stand out from the host culture, struggling with a new language and slowly becoming familiar with local customs and rituals. Immigrants may become victims of xenophobia on the part of new neighbors who resist change in their communities and fail to offer a sympathetic ear. Immigrants are often aliens in the starkest sense of that term in that they do not fit into the established patterns of the host culture.

The recipients of Peter’s first letter experienced a similar reality. They were different from their non-Christian neighbors—some perhaps because of immigrant status, but all because of their allegiance to Jesus Christ as opposed to anything or anyone else, up to and including the emperor. People on the margins have little power and influence in society. Yet they may still make a profound impact on the world when they are able to persevere and live according to the ways of the Lord Jesus. Even though such believers are called upon to suffer, they may still “live such good lives among the pagans” that, even if accused of wrongdoing, they will cause those unbelievers to witness genuine goodness and “glorify God on the day he visits us” (2:12). Christians today, even in the USA, could benefit from Peter’s words to people on the margins. We do well to hear that suffering for our faith in Jesus not only puts us in solidarity with our Lord but also serves to refine us, making us more effective witnesses in the world.

EXPLAIN the Story

As noted in the introduction, 1 Peter is a typical Greco-Roman letter and thus similar to the Pauline letters. Peter’s introduction, however, is not a simple one. Peter here demonstrates his familiarity with OT ideas, especially evident in the images he uses to address and describe his readers.

The Writer of the Letter (1:1a)

For most readers of the NT, Peter needs little introduction.² We know him as the outspoken and even brash disciple of Jesus who, along with James and John, was part of the Lord’s inner circle. Although his given name was Simon, Jesus called him “rock” (Petros). He is famous for his bold declaration of Jesus’s identity (Matt 16:16), for being called into the leadership of God’s people (Matt 16:17–19), but then also for rebuking Jesus directly afterwards (Matt 16:22). Peter is notorious for having three times denied knowing Jesus on the night the Lord was betrayed (Matt 26:75). However, the Lord reaffirmed Peter’s call to serve God’s people with another incident involving three responses: he invited Peter to declare his love three times and followed up each response with a command that Peter care for the Lord’s sheep (John 21:15–17).

Acts 2:14–40 demonstrates Peter’s leadership as he preaches on the Day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit was poured out upon some 120 disciples of Jesus who were gathered in prayer after the Lord’s ascension.

The first several chapters of the book of Acts depict Peter as a leader of the church in Jerusalem. For example, after his powerful Pentecost sermon, Peter performs wonders in Jerusalem (Acts 3:1–10), continues to preach (Acts 3:11–26), faces persecution (e.g., Acts 4:1–22; 5:17–42; 12:1–19), and exercises discipline within the budding Christian community (Acts 5:1–11). Furthermore, after a vision in Joppa he meets with a Gentile named Cornelius (Acts 10:1–48) and then returns to Jerusalem to convey the importance of mission to the Gentiles (Acts 11:1–18). However, Peter disappears after Acts 15:7 (although see v. 14) as the ministry of Saul of Tarsus takes center stage.

Church history and legend offer answers to some questions concerning the ongoing ministry and fate of the apostles. One such source, The Acts of Peter, claims that Peter encountered the risen Lord Jesus on a road outside of Rome. In this meeting Peter asks the Lord, “Where are you going?” (in Latin: Quo vadis?). Jesus indicates that he is going to Rome to be crucified again, a reference to the martyrdom of his followers there. Peter then finds the courage to return to Rome. Upon his return Peter is arrested and crucified—opting to hang upside down on the cross because he deemed himself unworthy to die in the same manner as his Lord. This is why, in some ancient art, Peter is depicted along with an upside-down cross. Peter’s martyrdom (as well as the apostle Paul’s) is thought to have occurred under Emperor Nero.³ First Peter 5:13 may support the tradition that Peter ended his days in Rome, since it mentions that he is in “Babylon,” which is likely a reference to Rome.

Peter, like Paul, refers to himself as an apostle, which means that his authority proceeds directly from the Lord Jesus. Indeed, in a vision that also involves another set of three interactions with Jesus, the Lord invites Peter into mission to the Gentiles. Acts 10:1–11:18 recounts Peter’s evangelistic encounter with Cornelius and his household, followed by Peter’s response to the criticism by Jewish believers who had been made aware of his table fellowship with Gentiles. Jesus called Peter as apostle to minister to both Jews and Gentiles, as he does with this letter, in which he depends heavily upon the Jewish Scriptures.

The Recipients of the Letter (1:1b–2)

In the introduction I spell out some details concerning the geographic location of the letter’s addressees. They resided among a diverse population with various expressions of polytheism, within five regions of Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey) that covered a large geographic area, some 129,000 square miles. The Christians would have come from both Jewish and Gentile backgrounds.

Alongside those geographic references, Peter speaks of the social status of his readers with a series of three Greek words: eklektos (“chosen” or “elect”), parepidēmos (“exile” or “sojourner”), and diaspora (“scattered,” or “dispersed”). All three words conjure up images of the OT people of God. The OT refers to Israel as “chosen” or “elect” on numerous occasions (e.g., Deut 7:6–8; Isa 41:8–9), and Christians came to be similarly identified (e.g., Rom 8:33; Col 3:12; 2 Tim 2:10). God is the one who elects (as the NIV makes explicit with the addition of “God’s” in v. 1). Election in this context refers to God’s invitation, or calling, to be part of a people who will live distinctly from the rest of the world (see 1 Pet 2:9). That way of life is characterized by holiness, where believers adopt the character of the one who does the choosing (see 1:13–21).

God’s chosen people are at the same time strangers. Parepidēmos is a rare term in biblical literature (in the LXX: Gen 23:4; Ps 38:13; in the NT: Heb 11:13; 1 Pet 1:1; 2:11) and points to one living in a foreign land (willingly or by force). Perhaps because of their rarity, there is some scholarly debate regarding parepidēmos and the next term, diaspora. The issue is whether these words are used literally, or metaphorically, or perhaps both ways at once. In a purely metaphorical understanding, Peter’s readers would be said to be members of a heavenly home, and of necessity they must withdraw from their temporal earthly home. Peter does not make a sharp contrast between heavenly and earthly homes (as Phil 3:20 does), but earlier commentators adopted such a view of this text. However, through the work of more recent scholarship, closer attention has been given to the socio-political reality of Peter’s readers.⁴ Since Peter mentions real geographic regions, a literal sense of diaspora is not out of the question.

Even so, a strictly literal understanding of diaspora would make it a technical term referring to the forced expulsion of Jews, a sad event that has happened at various times throughout history (see Acts 18:2). Consequently, with a solely literal, nonmetaphorical view of parepidēmos and diaspora, we would perceive Peter’s readers to be largely Jewish Christians displaced from Palestine and its environs.⁵ This is problematic since there is some evidence that Peter’s audience consisted predominately of Gentile Christians.⁶ Paul Achtemeier thus voices the opinion of many commentators when he writes that “the whole tenor of 1 Peter … argues for this [diaspora] to be metaphorical, and hence to refer to all Christians.”⁷

There is perhaps a third way, if one affirms the socio-rhetorical realities as well as the metaphorical language on Peter’s part. Thus, Joel B. Green claims that “the dichotomy, metaphorical versus nonmetaphorical, is itself wrongheaded.”⁸ Karen Jobes, in discussing the Roman policy of urbanization through colonization, points out that Emperor Claudius (AD 41–54) established Roman cities—“colonies” of people transplanted from Rome—in all five of the regions named here in 1 Peter 1:1.⁹ She hypothesizes that “if the theory of Roman colonization is correct, Peter uses the sociohistorical situation of his readers to explain their sociospiritual situation.”¹⁰

Peter’s closing, 5:12–14, reinforces this same status of his readers. In 5:13 the word syneklektē (“co-elect” or the NIV’s “chosen together”) echoes eklektos; the mention of Babylon (5:13) is meant to evoke images of exile and dispersion. Consequently, the entire letter is framed with the concept that believers are an alienated community and simultaneously members of God’s chosen people. What has bec...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• The Story of God Bible Commentary Series
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1. 1 Peter 1:1–2
• 2. 1 Peter 1:3–12
• 3. 1 Peter 1:13–21
• 4. 1 Peter 1:22–2:3
• 5. 1 Peter 2:4–10
• 6. 1 Peter 2:11–17
• 7. 1 Peter 2:18–25
• 8. 1 Peter 3:1–7
• 9. 1 Peter 3:8–12
• 10. 1 Peter 3:13–17
• 11. 1 Peter 3:18–22
• 12. 1 Peter 4:1–6
• 13. 1 Peter 4:7–11
• 14. 1 Peter 4:12–19
• 15. 1 Peter 5:1–11
• 16. 1 Peter 5:12–14
• Scripture Index
• Subject Index
• Author Index