First Peter

First Peter is a letter of hope addressed to suffering Christians scattered across the provinces of Asia Minor — “elect exiles of the Dispersion” — summoning them, in the face of slander and persecution, to a living hope grounded in the Resurrection, to holiness as a chosen race and royal priesthood, and to the patient endurance of innocent suffering after the pattern of Christ. This file follows the letter’s address, its theology of exile and the royal priesthood, its teaching on suffering, and its closing notices of Silvanus and “Babylon.”

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Apostle)

The Address and the Setting

The letter opens: “Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who are elect exiles of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia” (1 Pet 1:1) — the Roman provinces of northern and central Asia Minor. The recipients are mostly Gentile Christians (cf. 1 Pet 1:14, 18; 4:3, their “former ignorance” and “futile ways inherited from your forefathers”), and the controlling image of the whole letter is given in this first verse: they are parepidēmoi, sojourners and exiles, resident aliens in a world that is not their home. Their baptism has made them strangers to the society around them, which now slanders and pressures them (1 Pet 2:11–12; 4:4). The letter’s purpose is to steady such Christians under social hostility — and, before its end, under something sharper, “the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you” (1 Pet 4:12). It was acknowledged as Scripture very early and almost without dispute: it is echoed already in Polycarp’s Epistle to the Philippians (which quotes it repeatedly) and cited by Irenaeus, and Eusebius lists it among the universally acknowledged books (HE 3.3.1; 3.25.2; trans. NPNF II/1).

The Living Hope

The letter’s first movement is a great doxology of hope grounded in the Resurrection: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you” (1 Pet 1:3–4). This hope is what makes the present suffering bearable: the trials are “for a little while,” the testing of faith “more precious than gold,” and the end is “praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Pet 1:6–7). The Christian loves a Lord he has not seen and rejoices “with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory” (1 Pet 1:8). On this foundation the letter calls its readers to holiness — “as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct” (1 Pet 1:15, quoting Lev 11:44) — and to fervent love of one another from a pure heart (1 Pet 1:22).

Living Stones and a Royal Priesthood

At the heart of the letter is one of the New Testament’s richest images of the Church, and it draws, strikingly, on the very stone-imagery associated with Peter’s own name. Christ is “a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious,” and believers, “like living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Pet 2:4–5). The letter weaves together the stone-texts of the Old Testament — the precious cornerstone of Isaiah 28:16, the stone the builders rejected of Psalm 118:22, the stone of stumbling of Isaiah 8:14 (1 Pet 2:6–8). Then comes the great conferral of Israel’s titles upon the Church: “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people” (1 Pet 2:9–10, drawing on Exod 19:6 and Hos 2:23). This “royal priesthood” of all the baptized is a foundational text of Orthodox ecclesiology: the whole people of God is a priestly people, offering spiritual sacrifice, within which the ordained priesthood serves (on which see Holy Orders).

The Theology of Innocent Suffering

The pastoral burden of the letter is suffering — not suffering in general, but the unjust suffering of those who do good and are reviled for the name of Christ. The pattern and ground of such endurance is Christ himself, set out in a passage of deep beauty: “For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed” (1 Pet 2:21–24, echoing Isaiah 53). The believer who suffers “as a Christian” is not to be ashamed but to glorify God in that name (1 Pet 4:16); “if you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you” (1 Pet 4:14). This is the apostle who had once denied that name now teaching the Church to suffer for it — the same Peter to whom the Lord had said, “when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers” (Luke 22:32; see The Denial).

The Charge to the Presbyters

Near the close the letter turns to the shepherds of the Church, and here the voice of the restored Peter is unmistakable. “So I exhort the elders among you, as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ… shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion but willingly, as God would have you; not for shameful gain but eagerly; not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock. And when the chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory” (1 Pet 5:1–4). The verb is poimainō, “shepherd” — the very word of the Lord’s charge to Peter, “tend my sheep” (John 21:16; see The Restoration). And Peter calls himself not the prince of the apostles but a “fellow elder” (sympresbyteros), and warns expressly against “domineering” (katakyrieuontes) over the flock — a phrase the Orthodox tradition reads as the apostle’s own check on any lordly conception of the pastoral office. Christ alone is the “chief Shepherd” (archipoimēn, 1 Pet 5:4); the elders, Peter among them, are under-shepherds.

Silvanus, Babylon, and Rome

The letter ends with personal notices that bear on the Petrine biography. “By Silvanus, a faithful brother as I regard him, I have written briefly to you” (1 Pet 5:12) — Silvanus (Silas) is named as the one through whom the letter was written, which has long been taken to bear on the question of the letter’s polished Greek (a fisherman’s amanuensis or co-author; see The Sources and What Can Be Known). And the greeting: “She who is at Babylon, who is likewise chosen, sends you greetings, and so does Mark my son” (1 Pet 5:13). “Babylon” is read by the broad consensus of the tradition and modern scholarship as a cryptic name for Rome — the imperial city as the new Babylon of God’s exiled people (so already in the early Church, and the reading of Eusebius, HE 2.15.2, who connects it with Peter’s Roman residence) — placing the letter, and Peter with Mark, at Rome (see Peter at Rome). The “Mark my son” is the John Mark of the Markan tradition (Papias, in Eusebius, HE 3.39.15), Peter’s interpreter.

See Also

References

  • The Holy Bible — 1 Peter 1:1–2:25; 4:12–16; 5:1–14; Exodus 19:6; Leviticus 11:44; Psalm 118:22; Isaiah 8:14; 28:16; 53; Hosea 2:23; Luke 22:32; John 21:16. Cited by book chapter:verse.
  • Eusebius of Caesarea. Ecclesiastical History 2.15; 3.3.1; 3.25.2; 3.39.15. Trans. in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series II, Vol. 1. (Early reception of 1 Peter; “Babylon” as Rome; Mark.)
  • Polycarp of Smyrna. Epistle to the Philippians. (Repeated echoes of 1 Peter; the earliest attestation.) Trans. Holmes, The Apostolic Fathers (2007).
  • Bockmuehl, Markus. Simon Peter in Scripture and Memory. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2012.
  • Achtemeier, Paul J. 1 Peter. Hermeneia. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996. (Commentary; the address, the royal priesthood, Silvanus, Babylon.)