Scripture with Light Commentary
1 Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ,
To the exiles—that is, strangers or foreigners—of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, 2 who have been chosen and destined by God the Father and sanctified by the Spirit to be obedient to Jesus Christ and to be sprinkled with his blood—sprinkling with blood is an Old Testament image for confirming a covenant, a special relationship, which is how the early Christ-followers understood the cross; it confirmed the depths of God’s love for us:
May grace and peace be yours in abundance.
The recipients of Peter’s circular letter were not exiles in any literal sense. They were mostly lifelong residents of what today is western Turkey, law-abiding inhabitants of the Roman empire. Yet Peter calls them “exiles,” or “strangers,” implying that their residence or citizenship is not Roman but otherwise.
Imagine receiving a letter today from our brothers and sisters in Christ in Europe, addressed to “the exiles of the Dispersion in Virginia, North and South Carolina, and Georgia.”
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! Our “Lord” Jesus Christ. It is a quietly revolutionary title. In the Roman empire, people were regularly invited to pledge their allegiance by proclaiming, “Caesar is lord.” But Peter proclaims otherwise.
By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 and into an inheritance—remember this word!—that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, 5 who are being protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 In this you rejoice, even if now for a little while you have had to suffer various trials, 7 so that the genuineness of your faith—being more precious than gold that, though perishable, is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. 8 Although you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, 9 for you are receiving the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
Peter opens his letter by celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ. In the Jewish tradition, resurrection refers to the inauguration of God’s new world order, when God’s love will reign and God’s justice will prevail. For Peter, the resurrection of Jesus Christ shows that he is indeed “lord.” For Peter’s audience, who seem to be in the midst of some persecution—quite likely finding themselves socially discriminated against, ostracized, and perhaps on more rare occasion imprisoned or even put to death—the resurrection is encouragement to stay faithful amid their trials. The resurrection is a reminder that, although the old world order has not yet disappeared, although it is violently hanging on and flailing about in its death throes, God’s kingdom is already arriving and followers of Christ are called to live as citizens in it.
13 Therefore prepare your minds for action; discipline yourselves; set all your hope on the grace that Jesus Christ will bring you when he is revealed. 14 Like obedient children, do not be conformed to the desires that you formerly had in ignorance. Remember how Peter said that Christ-followers are born into a new inheritance? Here, he hints at their old inheritance. “Desires you formerly had in ignorance.”
15 Instead, as he who called you is holy, be holy yourselves in all your conduct; 16 for it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” When God delivered the Israelites from slavery in Egypt and formed a special covenant relationship with them, God set them apart and instructed them: “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” This instruction comes in Leviticus amid a series of other instructions that call Israelites to live differently than their neighbors. Peter here is saying, “Be different as Christ is different.”
17 If you invoke as Father the one who judges all people impartially according to their deeds, live in reverent fear during the time of your exile. There’s that idea of “exile” again, the idea that we are strangers or foreigners in the world.
18 You know that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your ancestors—this is to say, our old “inheritance” is empty and did not actually bring us life…[you were ransomed] not with perishable things like silver or gold, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without defect or blemish. Here Peter compares Jesus to the Passover lamb, through which the ancient Israelites were delivered from death and slavery in Egypt. The implication is clear: our old inheritance, the futile ways we inherited from our ancestors, is like slavery. It leads to death, not to life.
20 He was destined before the foundation of the world, but was revealed at the end of the ages for your sake. 21 Through him you have come to trust in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are set on God.
“Outside it’s
America…”
I remember the first time I traveled overseas. I was visiting my brother, who was living in Cologne, Germany. My neighbor on the flight was a serviceman. He was quite loquacious, a chatty guy. I stayed quiet and listened. He spoke proudly, almost gleefully, of his travels all over the world. The common thread that tied his stories together were the various women he had met in each corner of the world. The rather crude impression that emerged from his storytelling was that the world was a buffet, and he had enjoyed it all. I did not receive the sense that he had ever felt like a true foreigner or stranger in the world. It seemed, on the contrary, that he saw the world as his for the taking.
Later, as I visited my brother, I quickly learned that my fears of not knowing a lick of German were unfounded. Everywhere I went, there was always someone who spoke English—quite often enthusiastically, happy to have found a native English speaker to practice with or impress. I felt increasingly comfortable as I walked the streets. I began to notice familiar landmarks all around, the golden arches of McDonalds, even Colonel Sanders.
My next trip overseas took me to Argentina, as part of a missions emersion experience in seminary. There I noticed the same thing. Everywhere, there was someone happy to speak English with me. The churches that we visited sometimes even included English worship songs in their service.
My last overseas adventure took me to England. Although English was the native language there, what I first noticed were all the differences: the distinct accents, cars on the left side of the road, a pub on every street corner. But over time I began to observe the fingerprints of America, particularly in the realms of business and entertainment. For example, there was a little grocery store across the street from where I lived, ASDA. (It was quite a convenience. If I woke up one morning without eggs or milk, I could walk there in my pajamas!) I’d never heard of ASDA before, but its advertisements seemed awfully familiar. Later I learned why. ASDA was owned by Walmart.
All of this to say, I have traveled several places across the world, and yet in a sense, I have never left America. Bono, the lead singer of the rock band U2, used to quip: “Outside it’s America…” Meaning, wherever you find yourself, just walk out the door and you’re in America. Its influence is everywhere. Businesses, Hollywood, the military…I’m not sure there’s a place on this globe that does not have its fingerprints on it.
I don’t say this as an indictment or a charge, but rather as an observation. Peter repeatedly refers to himself and other Christ-followers as “exiles” or strangers in the Roman empire. Yet I wonder if I haven’t felt the opposite. Wherever I go, I’m almost always at home. “Outside it’s America…”
Outside It’s Rome…
It was a similar situation in which Peter wrote, except back then, outside it was Rome. In the area of western Turkey, to whom he addresses the circular letter of 1 Peter, “[a]rcheological remains are extensively Roman: baths, theaters, stadia, and fora.”[1] As a thoroughfare in the Roman empire, this area would have been especially cosmopolitan and would have been subjected to “heightened pressure toward social integration into Roman ways."[2] For example, to enter the marketplace, one may well have been required first to offer a sacrifice and proclaim “Ceasar is lord.” To gain face and reputation in a community, one would have needed to sponsor Roman projects and give generously to civic development.
Make no mistake, much of what the Roman empire accomplished in its time was impressive and represents beneficial advancements in engineering, transportation, city planning, to name just a few areas. The problem for Peter—the reason he begs his audience not to be conformed to their old desires and not to return to the futile ways they had inherited from their ancestors, the reason he repeatedly identifies them as “exiles” or strangers—is that these Roman advancements are built through Satan’s means, whether through outright violence or through the subtler mechanics of an honor-shame system that segregated society into social classes and relegated the vast majority to a life of poverty. The old inheritance of Peter’s audience is a constellation of desires and assumptions founded on greed, competition, and violence, on fear, judgment, and hatred. (Or to put all those old ideas into a nutshell, most Roman inhabitants just wanted to be on the side that was going to win. It was safer that way.)
Jesus in Congress
To put this another way, we might ask ourselves, “Why was Jesus crucified?” It was not for preaching against the greed of tax collectors or the dissolute living of prostitutes and drunkards. (Remember, these are the folks he befriended!) If Jesus had simply proclaimed a conventional morality of civic responsibility, if he had just come preaching family values, no one would have batted an eye. Everyone, priests and governors alike, would have assented to that and said, “Amen!” The problem with Jesus was that he forgave these people and showed them grace, all the while preaching radical ideas like enemy-love and non-retaliation and a lifestyle of simplicity and sharing. The values he proclaimed would have upended society, from the temple to the governor’s palace. How could you possibly build or maintain an empire with principles like “Bless those who curse you” and “Do good to those who hate you” (Luke 6:27-28)?
Pastor Brian Zahnd proposes a provocative thought-experiment: “Imagine if Jesus went to Washington, DC. Imagine that he is invited to give a speech to a joint session of Congress. … Imagine that the speech Jesus gave was his most famous sermon—the Sermon on the Mount. Can you imagine that?
“Jesus is introduced. (Standing ovation.) He stands before Congress and begins to deliver his speech. ‘Blessed are the poor…the mourners…the meek.’ ‘Love your enemies.’ ‘Turn the other cheek.’ After a few perfunctory applauses early on,” Zahnd says, “I’m pretty sure there would be a lot of squirming senators and uncomfortable congressmen. The room would sink into a tense silence. And when Jesus concluded his speech with a prophecy of the inevitable fall of the house that would not act upon his words (Matt. 7:26–27), what would Congress do? Nothing. They would not act. They could not act. To act on Jesus’s words would undo their system. The Sermon on the Mount doesn’t work in Cain’s system—no matter how noble or sophisticated. In the end, the US Congress would no more adopt the policies Jesus set out in the Sermon on the Mount than they were adopted by the Jewish Sanhedrin or the Roman Senate.”[3]
“The Genuineness of Our Faith”
Peter knows this. If he had known about our time and place,
he could have prophesied what kind of reception Jesus would have received. It’s
the same kind of reception Jesus received in his own world, the same kind of
reception that Peter and his audience were receiving too. To be clear, they are
not being judged or persecuted because of what they’re trying to impose on
others. They’re not fighting a culture war with Rome. They’re not trying to
impose anything on anyone else. They’re just living their lives in Christ, as
odd as those lives may be in the world’s eyes. Peter and his audience are being judged and
persecuted not for trying to seize power or trying to change others, but for being
different and not propping up the system—for the ways their rich and poor
address each other with the intimate “brother” and “sister,” for their
abstaining from attendance at the local coliseum to see people ripped to
shreds, for their refusal to pledge allegiance and sacrifice to Caesar to gain
entrance to the local market, for their choice not to serve in the Roman army. They
are being judged and persecuted for their values and habits, things like
patience and forgiveness and hospitality, all of which indicated weakness in
the Roman empire. They are being judged and persecuted more for who they
worship, a God who was crucified rather than a god who conquers, a God who
rules over his kingdom not with a sword but with love. “What kind of weak god
rules like that?” they ask.
But what Peter emphasizes in the opening of his letter is not only that following Christ makes us “exiles” and strangers in our own land, but also that it means we are “chosen and destined by God” to be a part of God’s kingdom (1 Pet 1:2). In other words, he refocuses from the difficulties that are being endured to the reason they are being endured. We are ambassadors of God’s kingdom. If we are being tried and tested, he says, then let us hold firm and show the world “the genuineness of our faith” (1 Pet 1:7)—let us show the world what it is missing. Let us show the world the difference of God made known in Christ.
Prayer
Merciful God,Who has ransomed us through Jesus Christ
From the futile ways
That we have inherited from the world—
Grant us hope in your steadfast love
That endures forever,
That endures through all testing and trials
…
So that we might be different
As Christ was different
And live as ambassadors of your kingdom:
In Jesus Christ, crucified and risen: Amen.
[1] Joel Green, 1 Peter
(Two Horizons New Testament Commentary series; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007),
ebook loc. 2602.
[2] Green, 1 Peter, ebook
loc. 2603.
[3] Brian Zahnd, A Farewell to
Mars: An Evangelical Pastor’s Journey Toward the Biblical Gospel of Peace (Colorado
Springs: David Cook, 2014), ebook loc. 1035-1050.
No comments:
Post a Comment