Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

We live in difficult times here today in America.

In other parts of the world, persecution is far greater for the sake of Jesus Christ.

The future shows that persecution is likely to increase.

We do take a moment to rejoice that along with the persecution, God is at work.

The church in Iran, for example, lives under constant threat.

Occasionally, Christians are arrested and sent to jail or even executed.

Yet the church there is the fastest growing church in the world.

In this, we rejoice in the faithfulness of the believers there and in other dangerous parts of the world.

This proves that the Christian message can thrive even in the most difficult conditions.

We are going to begin a study of the Book of 1 Peter because the early churches which Peter addresses in the epistle were going through similar times.

It is hoped that this might inform us how we should live in this world.

So let us now begin our study.

Authorship: The Apostle Peter

Although there are many scholars today who claim that it is unlikely that Peter wrote the epistle, One of the main arguments put forth is that the quality of the Greek it is written would be above the ability of a Galilean fisherman who was of limited formal education.

These scholars would entertain that Peter might have known some Greek as it was the language of commerce in the eastern part of the Roman Empire.

If Peter sold fish to Gentiles as well as Jews, he would at least have to speak some Greek.

These scholars would expect a much more rustic Greek such as we find in the second epistle of Peter.

However, this argument is less than persuasive if Peter used Silvanus (Silas) (See 1 Peter 5:12).

We don’t know anything about Silas’ ability in Greek, but scribes were often employed to polish the grammar of the author.

The Holy Spirit is, of course, capable of using perfect Greek.

Since we believe that all Scripture is God-breathed by the Holy Spirit as Paul tells Timothy, then the style of the Greek is no obstacle.

There are other arguments put forth as well, but I don’t want to bog down this study trying to answer these at this time.

I don’t want to get bogged down in speculations as it gets away from the clear message of the text.

Peter and his brother, Andrew, we called from the business of fishermen.

At first we might think that Peter was a poor fisherman.

Even though fishing was looked down upon by the purists like the Pharisees because fishermen handled dead animals, it was actually a middle-class trade.

The Jewish authorities tried to paint Peter as a rustic Galilean, calling him and John “agrammatoi” (without letters) and “idiotai” (think “idiots”) Peter was bolder than the rest of the Apostles, but he also had the tendency to put his foot in his mouth.

When told by Jesus that Peter would deny Him three times, Peter rashly replied that he would not.

He even made an attempt to take on the Temple guard and two cohorts of a Roman legion with his sword.

But deny he did three times.

By the grace of God, Peter was restored by Jesus after the resurrection.

His calling was changed from “fishers of men” to that of a pastor (John 21).

In the Book of Acts, Peter acted as the chief spokesman for the Apostles in the first half of the Book of Acts.

He was both bold and eloquent in his proclamation of Jesus, far above what would be considered the ability of a Galilean fisherman.

He became the first to proclaim the Gospel to Gentiles.

He had a part in what is called “The Jerusalem Council in 49 AD which dealt with the place of Gentiles in the church in which he stood solidly with the rights of the Gentiles even though his sphere was to be Apostle to the Jews in contradistinction to Paul who was sent to the Gentiles.

But this distinction should not be set in stone.

We already saw that Peter evangelized Gentiles and Paul came to the synagogues first when he came to a new city.

Other than a reference to Peter’s inconstancy for standing up for the Gentiles as recorded by Paul in Galatians, the New Testament is silent about Peter after this until the time of the writing of 1 Peter.

All kinds of speculations to fill in the gaps have been written, including the idea that Peter went early to Roma and became the first Pope.

There is no Biblical support for this idea.

But early tradition tells us that he eventually died by being crucified upside-down at his request in Rome somewhere about 67 AD.

John also verifies Peter’s martyrdom.

We would like to know more, but this is all we have that is solid.

Did Peter write 1 Peter from Rome?

This is another question we would like to know. 1 Peter 5:13 gives greetings to the recipients from the “church that is in Babylon.”

Is Babylon a code word for Rome?

It certainly is a possibility.

Peter indicates that “Marcus his son” is with him.

If this is John Mark, then we last hear of Mark in 2 Timothy just before the death of Paul in Rome.

He was supposed to bring the parchments and a cloak.

It could be that Peter joined up with John Mark there again in Rome.

An equally interesting theory is that there was a Babylon in Egypt.

Tradition makes John Mark as being the first bishop of Alexandria in Egypt.

So is this the Babylon?

Or is it the Babylon on the Euphrates river in what is today Iraq.

The answer is that we don’t know.

It would be interesting to know.

But it does not alter the message of the epistle which is what we are interested with here.

Where were these churches that Peter addresses?

The five regions to which 1 Peter is addressed were located in what is today called Turkey.

There were probably groups of house churches scattered in all the provinces as the introduction seems to indicate.

We know little how these churches were started or when.

We know Paul started several churches in Galatia and addressed an epistle to the Galatians.

Scholars are divided whether the churches to which Galatians was written were those he visited on his first missionary journey which was part of the Roman administration of Galatia, even though it wasn’t originally part of the area of the Galatian people proper or whether it addressed unknown churches in the original territory of Galatia.

Did Peter ever even visit these churches before, or was he made aware of their plight by Silas who had ministered with Paul?

All we do know is that Peter was aware of the difficulties these churches were facing and was led by the Spirit to address them.

This epistle was preserved and passed on to us in Scripture for our instruction.

When was 1 Peter written?

If we trust the tradition that Peter was martyred by the Emperor Nero in 67 AD, this would place the writing somewhat earlier than that.

It was probably written in the 60’s AD as these times became increasingly difficult for Christians.

The Jews wanted to disavow the Christians as not being a sect of Judaism.

This would remove them from the special protections afforded the Jews by the Roman Empire.

The epistle, as we have noted, demonstrates that Christians there were being persecuted, and martyrdom was a real possibility.

This is similar to the situation to which the Book of Hebrews was addressed, also in the 60’s.

But even here, we cannot be sure.

Unlike 2 Peter, Peter does not see his immediate death on the horizon, so the epistle could have been written at an earlier time.

Persecution of the church happened throughout the Apostolic and up to the modern times for that matter.

Let it be enough that Peter is addressing the persecution of believers in Asia Minor, and how they should conduct themselves in their present reality.

Exposition of the Text

Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ — Most letters in the ancient world began with the identity of the writer as compared to informal letters today which address the recipient at the beginning and the writer at the end.

Peter identifies himself as an apostle.

Most all of the churches in the Roman Empire had heard of Peter.

So, even if Peter had never visited them or even communicated with them before, they would at least know the importance and authority of the Apostle Peter.

Peter addressing himself as “apostle” might actually show that Peter had not met the churches in person or else he might simply have addressed himself by the simple “Peter.”

What we need to understand that the Apostle Peter is long departed from this world and cannot be made known personally to us until the return of Jesus.

But his words speak with authority to us as well.

To the elect pilgrims scattered in the provinces of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, greeting — Peter describes who the believers are.

First of all, they are the elect (chosen).

There has been and is a lot of controversy over what “elect” and “election” mean, but the New Testament frequently addresses the believers this way, and not just in 1 Peter.

The Greek word for “church” is “ecclesia” which has the root meaning “those who have been called out,” The emphasis of this is not our choosing Him but His choosing us.

The text makes this clear with the words: “according to the foreknowledge of God the Father.”

God has known from the beginning who His people would be.

The people addressed in 1 Peter are among them.

The emphasis of Scripture is always upon God’s choice rather than our own.

Whatever we might make of our choice, we would have no choice at all if God had not chosen first.

This is biblically beyond dispute.

God acted in our salvation by an act of His free will and freely offers us grace in the person of Jesus Christ.

Let us affirm this together, even if we might disagree over the freedom of our receiving Christ in return.