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A Study In 1st Peter - Part 1.

Bruce Thompson
06/01/25 - Sunday AM Bible Study

This is the beginning of our study in First Peter and we'll get started with a word of prayer here in just a moment.
A little bit of background on the circumstances of this writing as far as we know, probably the most significant thing that occurred in this world as far as Christians are concerned,
is that Rome caught fire on July 19th in AD 64.
And it's thought that Peter scholars, the experts claim either 63 or 67 as the year that First Peter was written.
In either case, whichever one you go with, the persecution begun by Nero was intense as far as Rome and the immediate provinces around Rome are concerned.
He deflected responsibility and blame for the fire on Rome to Christians.
They were the easy scapegoat and this would appear to be the first recorded official persecution of Christians.
And not yet an empire-wide ban on Christianity, not yet an empire-wide ban or persecution on Christians, but in and around Rome.
And so this is part of the background in which these recipients of the letter, even though they are in the outer regions of Asia Minor, the persecution is headed their direction in most cases.
So let's go to God in a word of prayer and then we'll continue.
Our God, our Father in heaven, we're thankful to you for the ability to meet here and to consider things from your holy word that have been recorded for our edification, for our growth as your people.
We're grateful, Lord, for the Messiah who makes all things possible.
We pray, O God, on those behalf of those who are unable to join us today that are suffering spiritually in this life and physically as well, be with our brethren and with their families as they work their way through these various challenges that we have in this life.
Watch over us in this study, help us to gather and glean the things and be reminded of the information that is here for our strengthening and our growth as your people.
This is our prayer in Jesus' holy name, amen.
So the Apostle, Peter, has a secretary and his name is Sylvanus or Silas.
Silas is the same man and he's mentioned in chapter 5, verse 12.
He's the same stylist that Paul chose on his second missionary journey.
You might remember that on the first missionary journey there was a falling out between Paul and Barnabas.
Paul did not want to take John Mark on the second tour.
John Mark and Barnabas, as I recall, were related somehow to cousins or something and so Paul chose Silas to go with him on the second preaching tour and that's in Acts 15, verse 40.
So Silas is a fairly prominent person in the recording of the New Testament and in his experience with the Apostles.
So Neuro carried out atrocities against the Christians from about 64, 65 for the next several years and we will go on to any of the specifics of that.
There is a book, it's been published years ago called Fox's Book of Martyrs and if you're interested in knowing what the specifics were concerning, the treatment of Christians in the first century, both under Neuro and later on at the close of the first century under Domitian, Fox's Book of Martyrs would be the one to take a look at.
So let's begin the reading and we'll make some application as we go through Peter and Apostle of Jesus Christ to those who reside as aliens scattered throughout Pontius, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, Dithinia who are chosen according to the four knowledge of God the Father by the sanctifying work of the Spirit to obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with his blood.
May grace and peace be yours in the fullest measure. We'll stop there for just a moment and make a couple of points.
He addresses the recipients of this letter, Peter does, as those who reside as aliens, those who reside as foreigners.
And the idea there is they are aliens, they are exiles that are scattered throughout these Roman provinces and they are simply temporary residents of Asia.
They are temporary residents of planet Earth in a spiritual sense. They have a Gentile pagan background, that's what they came out of. Most scholars agree that these are Gentile brethren, Gentile Christians.
And the idea is that the child of God, the converts to Jesus Christ are simply passing through this world, that this is not their permanent residence, that they are temporarily residing on Earth and in this case in Asia Minor.
So Peter inspired by the Holy Spirit to send this letter out to these sojourners of the dispersion, that's what is sometimes referred to as aliens.
Sojourners, those simply passing through the dispersion, that is those who are in various cases cast out of their homes that they were living in by the government.
And as you might know, if this is, and it is either 63 or 67 AD, this is a generation after penny cost.
So while the church has grown, and at one point in time in the book of Acts it talks about 5,000 men in Jerusalem making up the Lord's church, which is probably closer to 10,000 when you consider wives and children older and older.
Children old enough to believe. So, and that was 30 years ago, so the church is growing at a rapid rate.
But he uses the term chosen, those who are chosen. And the question is, chosen according to what, what were they chosen by, or based on what standard were they chosen?
Okay, yeah, exactly right. They are, they are the ones who responded to the foreknowledge of God. They responded to the call of the gospel.
Now this foreknowledge of God, God predetermined, he predestined a group of people, a class of person to be his people.
And it has to do with those who choose to believe. So the chosen are those who have chosen at the same time to believe what the gospel says about Jesus Christ.
Now this word predestined has given us some fits over the years. It sounds almost a little bit too charismatic for conservative churches of Christ to use that term.
But it's what is used here. The word chosen is by definition that or those who have been predestined.
But it's not a predestination according to individual, or according to individual names of persons. It's a class of people.
And in Ephesians chapter 3, I mean Ephesians chapter 1 rather, verses 3 to 6, the same type of language is used by the Apostle Paul. Ephesians 1 beginning at verse 3.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly in Christ.
Just as he chose us in him in Christ before the foundation of the world that we would be holy and blameless before him.
In love, he predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to himself according to the kind intention of his will to the praise of the glory of his grace which he freely be stored on us in the beloved.
God essentially said this, out of all of humanity, I am going to have a class of people, my creation as believers.
And I'm going to teach them about the coming of my son, the Messiah, who will be their savior.
And if they choose to believe, and if they choose to become obedient to their faith, then they will be my people and I will be their God.
Does that sound familiar? Has he used that terminology ever before in history? For sure, with physical Israel, with original Israel.
He said, what? He said, if you believe me and you become obedient to my will, I will call you my people and I will be your God.
But he says, when, if or when, you walk away from that, I will no longer be your God in this covenant relationship.
Now, he says the same thing later on, prophetically, in the Old Testament, when he talks about people who are not my people, will become my people.
And you see, look at this, what? Well, he's talking about the Gentiles. He's saying there's going to be a time when those who are not my people will become my people and he's talking about the Gentiles through Jesus Christ.
And so this idea of being aliens and being chosen at the same time is according to the foreknowledge of God.
He predestined a group of people, a class of person to become his people.
And so, back to first Peter, the conversion process then is described in verse 2.
And it's important for us to understand a little bit or be reminded a little bit of the sanctifying work of a spirit, the idea of sanctification.
What does it mean to be sanctified? Set apart for holy use. Set apart for holy use by God.
The vessels in the temple were sanctified. They were purified. They were made holy. And they weren't to be used for anything else except to glorify God. That's sanctification.
And so, he's talking about the sanctifying work of the spirit on these people who are chosen. His people.
And so, he says, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father and the work of the spirit was sanctifying, setting apart for holy use.
These people to do what? To obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with His blood. May grace and peace be yours in the fullest measure.
So, the conversion process is described in verse 2. Sanctifying work of His message means set apart for holy use.
So, the question then becomes, how does the Holy Spirit do that? How does the Holy Spirit sanctify the human being to be what He says here and to obey Jesus Christ?
Is that a feeling better felt than told? Say no. No. It's not a feeling better felt than told.
Is this some kind of magical, mystical sequence of dreams, visions, out-of-body experiences? Is this sanctifying work of the spirit? No. It's none of those things.
Well, there is none of those things than what isn't. And the answer, of course, is the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit takes place in our minds.
It takes place in our hearts. When an honest heart is seeking the truth and it connects with the gospel delivered by the Holy Spirit, the work this conversion process has begun.
And when that has begun, that is the beginning of sanctification. Now, to the end that we obey Jesus Christ and are sprinkled with His blood.
So, to sanctify, it's a set apart for holy use. What are we set apart from? We're set apart from the world.
So, when a human being who is seeking truth wants to know something or anything at all, or maybe everything there is to know about truth, about spiritual things.
When the human being wants to know about heaven and something about God, that honest heart comes into contact with the gospel of Jesus Christ and the light comes on and they say, in effect, that makes sense.
That sounds reasonable. They're not denying it. They're not fighting it. They're accepting the truth. And that is the beginning of sanctification. That's the beginning of the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit.
Ultimately, that person as they continue growing spiritually in the truth, they are that beginning of faith as they learn more and more about Jesus and what it takes to be made right with God through Christ.
They are eventually baptized and they continue to grow apart from the world. Jesus said, you cannot go out of the world.
But you cannot go out of the world. You must be in the world, but not to become worldly. Don't be of the world, be of Christ, but you must continue, obviously, to stay in the world.
And I think the whole purpose of that, what we're seeing here in this chapter 1 verse 1, is to obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with His blood.
And of course, the question that we have to ask is, how and where does this sprinkling take place?
We need to understand or be reminded of that sprinkling of blood is an old testament term used in sacrificial moments of sacrifice.
The blood of the animal was sprinkled on those who were entering into this covenant relationship with God.
There are places that we can look at that talk about that. It's the sprinkling of blood.
Well, if we're going to be saved in Christ and if we're going to come into contact with the sprinkling of His blood, how and when is that going to take place?
And the only place it can take place is through the act of baptism.
In baptism, we symbolically come into contact spiritually with the sprinkling of holy blood provided by Christ.
We are baptized in a watery grave. We come up as a new creature before God.
The old man symbolically spiritually was left in the water.
The new man is brought up out of the water in a relationship, a covenant relationship with God.
Now, does that make sense?
Is it anything that we're talking about? Resonate or is it in the beginning sense at all?
Ideas, thoughts, okay?
Yes.
Yes, exactly right.
I see it as a conversion process.
I see it as it takes time and each person goes at their own rate of speed in terms of comprehension.
If it takes a week, hallelujah is taken just a week.
If it takes a year, well, it took a year and that's okay too.
So, sprinkling of blood is a sacrificial term for a covenant relationship, a covenant agreement with the one who's providing the sacrifice.
And so, we'll pick up the reading then.
We're in first Peter, chapter 1, at verse 3.
Blessed be the God and the Father of all Lord Jesus Christ, who, according to his great mercy, has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
To obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled, and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are protected by the power of God,
through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
So, our first question is, what in the world is he talking about when he says to be born again?
What is our understanding of to be born again?
Remember Nicodemus, Nicodemus in John 3, verses 1 to 10.
And, you know, over the years I have empathized with Nicodemus. Over the years I've been angry with him.
But, this confusion is fairly common in the religious world today.
And, it's common because those who don't get this, it seems to me, have done what Nicodemus did.
And, that is, he puts a physical vision, a physical perspective on a spiritual teaching.
And, that's simply an impossible thing. You can't get to the truth when you treat spiritual things in a physical manner.
Now, there was a man, this is John 3, verse 1, there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews.
And, stop right there. Since he was a Pharisee, since he was a, quote unquote, ruler of the Jews, what was he responsible for?
He was responsible for knowing the will and the word of God.
And, later on, Jesus says, are you the teacher of Israel and do not understand these things? How is that possible?
Well, we know it's possible because he didn't understand these things. He chose not to understand these things.
Anyway, in verse 2, this man came to Jesus by night. Interestingly, he came by night.
See, Nicodemus has got a struggle. He is conflicted, as we would say, in our common vernacular.
He wants to know what's going on here with Jesus and who this man is, but he doesn't want to be seen in broad daylight with him.
Interesting, isn't it? And so, he says to him, Rabbi, we know that you have come from God as a teacher. For no one, look at this.
You can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.
See, that's Nicodemus' problem. He says, this guy is from God, but I don't know what to think. I don't know what to believe.
And then he says, Jesus, Andrew, and said, truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
You know, Jesus could have expressed some appreciation for the positive statement. He could have said, well, you know, you've got that right.
You know, and he got to send him a number of things. But he takes the opportunity and he teaches him the gospel that he is at some point going to die for.
He's teaching him the gospel of God concerning how to get into the kingdom of God. Every opportunity that he had, it seems to me, he tried to take advantage of that in that way.
And of course, the confusion on Nicodemus' part, how can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother's room and be born, can he?
And Jesus says, he's just emphatic. He says, truly, truly, I say to you, this is the absolute truth. Unless you are born of water and the spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
That which is born of the flesh is flesh. That was just born of the spirit spirit. Do not be amazed at I said to you, you must be born again. He's talking about a spiritual rebirth.
He's talking about being born again spiritually through that his death bearer of the resurrection books was coming.
Do not be amazed at I said to you, you must be born again. The wind blows where it wishes. You hear the sound of it. You don't know where it's coming from. You don't know where it's going.
So is everyone who is born of the spirit. He says, you can't see it. You can't see the actual conversion process. You can't see this soul of the person being saved just like you can't see the wind when it blows.
And so, and there again, he criticizes the great teachers of Israel because they did not know or understand this type of language back to Dr.
First Peter. So, he says that Peter says that his great mercy, God's great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
So, what we have through the resurrection, what do we have? What we have through the resurrection is stated in 1 Corinthians 15, 3 to 7.
And there Paul says, without the resurrection of Jesus Christ, you have nothing. He says, without the resurrection, you have no faith.
There's nothing to believe in. Without the resurrection, there is no hope. We all are lost eternally in our sins. And if the resurrection hadn't taken place, none of this would mean anything.
Church would mean nothing. The called out of the world, which is Ecclesia, the church is called out for nothing, for no reason. If there's no resurrection, he says, but Christ has been raised from the dead.
And of course, he offers proof of the resurrection. In 1 Corinthians, it seems to me like it's verses 12 to 20. Evidences of the raised Messiah interacting with other people, being seen by witnesses as the raised Messiah.
So, the resurrection did take place. Now, so what the Lord has caused us to be born again to is this living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
So that we know that when we're finished here, whatever it has cost you to be a child of God, at the end of your life, when you're all finished here, it will have been more than worth it to you.
That's what he's saying, the living hope. And then he says in verse 4, we're in 1 Peter chapter 1 and verse 4, to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away.
And the inheritance is heaven. The inheritance is eternal life. The inheritance is being in the presence of God. And I think it's important for us to emphasize that we have a reservation.
And maybe we lose sight of this once in a while in our lives. We get caught up in life and we get busy and we can't forget. But our names are written in the book of life. There's the reservation.
The only thing that's waiting is for us to show up because God has done everything else for us. And that's what Peter is talking about here.
Some inheritances are perishable. Occasionally you'll read about someone and air perhaps. And the estate owner passed away and left these airs with a great deal of financial assets and over time the assets just faded away.
They just lost their value. Sometimes the occasion is that they're not undefiled. They're not holy assets. And the opposite is true with our inheritance.
It is imperishable. It cannot be destroyed. It cannot be taken from us. It is undefiled that it is holy and it's unpolluted and it will not fade away.
Heaven is just as valuable today as it was 10,000 years ago. It will be just as valuable 10,000 years from now as it is today. The value does not change.
Any thoughts or comments down through verse four? Okay. So verse five, he says, reserved in the end of verse four, reserved in heaven for you. Who? The you is the recipients of the letter.
These brethren who are scattered in this different various parts of the Roman Empire, they are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
I want us to think about this idea of being protected by the power of God.
If you look according to one of the commentators, the commentaries that I use for this type of study, William Barclay, he's an old Scotsman or Welsh man or something.
Anyway, he's got a pretty good feel for scripture back in the late 1800s, early 1900s.
And he says protected here is also means guarded and it's a military term. And the question is protected and guarded from what?
We are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation, but protected from what? What is it that we are protected from?
And I believe the answer is being destroyed by Satan. See, that's where the power of the gospel is. That's one place where it is.
Is that we've got this assurance that if we remain faithful to the Christ, including repentance when we've committed sin and being forgiven for our sins.
As we continue in that, we have this protection from being destroyed by Satan.
It's a military term which allows our lives to be garrisoned by God, to be fortified by God, and that he stands post as a sentinel all of our days.
That's a huge guarantee. That's a huge issue in terms of what God's job is, what God does as our God, that he stands the post as a guard over our souls all of our days.
And so Peter's next issue, Peter's next point is the idea of doubt.
What is brought up is the concept of not seeing God or not seeing the Christ.
And because of our faith, we never doubt. We just do not doubt the promises that God has given us because they are promises and we believe them.
Now, we have a question now and then. And as most of you know, I have questions often times.
But I use it as a vehicle to have a chance to grow some.
You know, if we cannot grow, it seems to me if we don't have a question now and then trying to make sense out of what we've been shown in Scripture.
But we never doubt with the idea of falling away.
And so the idea is that Peter says, even though you have not seen him, this is in verse 8.
We've got to get back up to verse 7 in just a moment, but even though you have not seen him,
that he's keeping watch on those who are his.
We don't see God protecting us exactly in that way.
We might look back over our lives and say, you know, boy, that was a close call.
I could have gotten into a world of trouble, you know, on that issue.
And thankfully it didn't materialize and that just might be God's protection watching out for us and being careful that we stay out of the things that will destroy our faith.
Now, I think that I think that this does not mean that we will not have sorrow.
I think this means that we will have problems and we will have losses in this life.
I think that's a certainty, don't you?
With God protecting our souls, protecting our lives, it doesn't mean that we're going to skate through life without things occurring in our lives.
Irma Bomback said once, you know, if life is a bowl of cherries, why am I always in the pits?
And sometimes you feel that way as a child of God.
I thought this was going to be good. I thought this was going to be quote-unquote easy.
Well, that's our own assessment of our lives, what it needs to be a child of God.
God hasn't said necessarily that our lives are going to be problem-free as he.
But he does enable us to conquer those things and continue to march forward.
He allows us to get over and to come to grips with and to handle in a godly way the challenges that we have in this life, including the losses and we continue to move forward.
Is that necessarily easy?
Say no. That's not necessarily easy. Mark?
What do you say that could be a challenge to know that it's a yes and no?
Can you compare it to some of the world that's going to be dry out for a challenge?
Yes.
The only question that comes there with you either through an opportunity or a plan that you're going to be struggling to get dry out.
Having that aspect for some of the world doesn't have that aspect.
You know, any of those things would be easier for me.
Yes. Yes.
Some of the saddest human conditions we will ever see in this life are people who have lived without God and they're at the end of their lives and it's been a waste.
It's been an absolute waste of a human life.
And that to me is a sad thing because it doesn't have to be that way if they had been exposed to this and had taken the time to believe and understand what this is.
And that takes time.
And so protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation to be revealed in the last time.
He talks about rejoicing in verse six.
In this he says, you greatly rejoice even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials.
So that the proof of your faith being more precious than gold which is perishable even though tested by fire may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
And though you have not seen him, you love him and though you do not see him now, but believe in him, you greatly rejoice with joy and expressible and full of glory obtaining as the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
He talks about that we see God, these brethren saw God in a form but not physically, not in the physical sense.
And I believe what that's talking about is that we believe in God, we believe in the Christ.
And in that sense we have an image, a mental imprint of who and what Christ is.
Remember Thomas when he absolutely refused to believe that Jesus had been raised from the dead.
And they were in the, I think for the second time they were in a room and the doors were closed and locked.
And Jesus appears to the apostles and he goes to Thomas and he allows Thomas to feel the imprint in his hands and feel the place in his side where the sword went.
And Thomas praised him, worshiped him, fell, fell to his knees.
And Jesus, in my opinion, is an interesting response because he says, he says, happy are you or good that you've believed.
Good for you, Thomas, you got what you want and you got to see what you needed to see. Good for you, you believe.
But then he says, blessed or happy are those who without seeing still believe.
And he's talking about the millions, tens of millions of souls coming down the timeline who will do just exactly what Thomas did but without seeing him visibly, physically.
And I'll say to you, I think there is an image. I think we have the ability in a perspective kind of way to see Jesus in our faith.
And so it is that faith that allows us to get through these various trials.
He says rejoice. He says, you greatly rejoice. And if for a little while you are distressed by various trials.
And the contrast there is the little while of suffering as intense as it may be for the greater eternal benefit of being in the presence of God when you're all finished here.
And the challenge that we have, of course, is to understand what that means in terms of spiritual mindedness.
You know, we go through things here in this life and they're immediate, they're right before us. But what this is saying is that these things last for a short time.
From the perspective of eternity, this is nothing. And so that is where the joy comes from. That is where the rejoicing comes from.
That they're tested by fire. And yet that testing will be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ because Christ will say well done, good and faithful servant.
That's the glory. That's the honor. That's the praise. And even though you haven't seen him drop down a little bit further in verse 8.
But believe in him, you greatly rejoice with joy and expressible and full of glory. And as a result of those attitudes, as a result of that mindset,
we gain the outcome of our faith, the salvation of our souls, the outcome of our faith produces the salvation of our souls.
The suffering is temporary for a little while. The praise and honor and glory of Jesus that we're given is permanent and eternal.
That's right.
I think sometimes as humans we think, oh, a little while, will that just mean a couple of weeks or a couple of months or at the most a couple of years?
Right, right.
And the fact that he's presenting it in light of eternity, it could be for a lifetime.
Yes.
For some of the people living back here, it wasn't just sure as we think it should.
Right.
Right.
But the reward, if we can really just concentrate on what the benefit is, then the amount of time that we might suffer or have to trial can be proven.
In comparison, yeah.
Remember what Paul talked about, this is in, we don't have time to go there now, but in 2nd Corinthians, chapter 11, verses 23 to 31, Paul describes what I would refer to as light affliction.
Paul says, we've experienced light affliction.
That he enumerates the things that he suffered as an apostle and it's unbelievable.
It just absolutely blows your mind when you realize what this man suffered, what he went through.
And yet he said it was incomparable.
He said it absolutely meant nothing in comparison to the eternal glory that he was headed for, that they were headed for when they died.
He says light momentary affliction producing eternal glory.
And so we have these great examples from the gospel of Jesus Christ which helps encourage us that whatever it is that you and I are experiencing that is negative in this life.
If we're experiencing things because we're a child of God, then that's just something about our faith, doesn't it?
Let me ask you this.
If no one ever came to me over the course of my life and said, you know, I didn't know you were a Christian, what does that say about what my life consisted of as a Christian?
If nobody else knew it, not much, not much.
But if we are frequently challenged based on our faith as a disciple of Christ, then that says something positive about who we are and the impact that we may be having on others which hopefully is a good one.
Anything else before we close the next minute or two?
All right. Thanks for your comments. Appreciate your participation. Let's go to God in prayer.