1 Peter Intro

1 Peter – A Letter of Hope

Introduction

Thank you for taking the time to read this! My prayer is that God will use this exploration of His Word to encourage and challenge us. I promise to work in as many stories and make this discussion as personal as possible. Some days will lend themselves to that, others won’t. I image some days will be “better reads” than others – but every verse is God’s Divine Word to us – so we’ll hit them all. Without further ado, here's an introduction to 1 Peter.

Author and Date: 1 Peter was most likely written by Peter the Apostle during the early 60’s AD. Scholars always debate the authorship of the books of the Bible because, come on, what else do they have to do. But most scholars agree that Peter was the author of 1 Peter with Silvanus, aka Silas, doing the actual writing. (One of the reasons some think Peter isn’t the author is that it is written in high quality Greek. Peter, an uneducated, Jewish fisherman, wouldn’t be able to write in such a manner…but Silas, who Peter tells us assisted in him (1 Peter 5:12) could. So the common belief is Peter dictated the letter and Silas wrote it down it Greek.)

Location: 1 Peter was most likely written in Rome. Peter says “your sister church in Babylon sends you greetings”; Babylon is typically a code name for Rome. The great Christian persecution by Nero – he who fiddled while Rome burned – was only a couple of years away, so Peter was prudent to not mention that he was in Rome.

Readers: The dispersed church – Jews and Gentiles alike. The locations listed: Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia are provinces in Asia Minor. More than likely, this letter was a circular letter; Ephesians was also circular. A circular letter was the email forward of the day. A carrier would deliver the letter to the leaders of one particular church, then take it to another church, and so on. If you look at the map in the back of your Bible, you will notice that the provinces listed by Peter would make a very logical order for delivery – a nice circular route.

Purpose: Allow me to give you the purpose of 1 Peter in a simple outline:

1. Blessings of God’s redeemed: 1 Peter 1:1 – 2:10.
2. Duties as Christians in the world: 1 Peter 2:11 – 4:11
3. The trials of Christians in the world: 1 Peter 4:12 – 5:11

Peter knew that persecution was coming. So he wrote this book to remind the readers that any earthly suffering was temporary while their blessings in Christ were eternal. That is why this has often been called the Epistle of Hope. No matter how bad things get, we have an inheritance that is eternal and secure in Christ.

Do you feel hopeful today? Regardless of how life treats you today – you have hope because the everlasting God sent His Son to die for you so that you might live eternally. The first few verses of 1 Peter will focus on this truth...

Hopefully you feel properly introduced, we’ll tackle verse 1 in a couple of days!