1 PETER

Peter now comes to the close of his letter to the dispersed believers in northern Asia Minor...he has sought to encourage and strengthen them as they anticipate and are beginning to experience suffering for their faith in Christ...

I have a two-part series this week entitled “Elders and Deacons.” Today I’m going to teach from 1 Peter 5 on elders. Sunday, I’m going to teach on 1 Timothy 3:8-13 on deacons.

Peter sees that the church was entering a season of suffering that would test the very foundation of their faith...history recounts that indeed

The word “suffer,” or a variation of that word like “suffered” or “suffering” appears 18 times in 1 Peter and much of its contextual use is in relation to suffering for doing good and the majority contextual example given to us is that Christ also suffered for doing good.

In verse 18, Peter makes the connection here to verse 17 by using the word phrase “also suffered.” Peter takes the suffering for doing good and ties it into the greatest example of suffering for doing good – Jesus.

The passage breaks down into two portions: the first, verses 8 through 12, is instruction to the believers to whom Peter is writing, on how to live in the world...it includes a lengthy quote from Psalm 34.

Tonight I tackle a passage that Bible teachers sometimes skip over due to the probability of controversy...but that’s not what we do at this church...if you are committed to teaching the whole counsel of God, then that’s what you teach.

As you’ve likely noticed, this passage tonight fits in the middle of the larger context of the book...the theme of the second half of the chapter two and the beginning of chapter three is the phrase “be subject to” – Gr. ‘hypotasso’ – we’ll go into more detail on that in a moment, but first let’s do a quick overview.

We are going to study the text while considering the historic and cultural background, as well as the purpose of the book.

First we’ll look at Peter’s continuation of the thought from last week...our identity as living stones following the Cornerstone, the Lord Jesus Christ.

The primary thought of this passage is about Who Jesus is...that He is the Cornerstone, chosen and precious, foretold by the Old Testament prophets, having come to earth as the Word made flesh, and now resurrected, ascended, and present in His people through the Holy Spirit.

Peter begins this short verse with a transition, again looking backward to the earlier truths in the chapter, about being sober-minded and setting your hope fully on God’s grace; about not living according to your old life, but instead in a holy way, that’s in accordance with the character of the Father

Peter begins with a transition from the passage just before...”concerning this salvation”...he takes a few moments to describe how the Lord brought to us our understanding of what He has accomplished in saving a people for Himself.

Goal for tonight is to jump into the actual text of the book beyond the prologue, and realize who we are in Christ – those foreknown by the Father, sanctified by the Spirit, called to live in obedience to Jesus, and sprinkled – cleansed – by His very blood.

Goal for tonight is to build on what we learned last week about Peter, the book itself, the context, the first recipients of the letter...and begin to understand the message of this book...every book in the Bible is included in God’s word for a reason.