1 Peter 1
Questions answered from 1 Peter 1
Short answers from Always Ready that cite this chapter
Chuck Smith on 1 Peter 1
Verse by verse, the C2000 series. Permission granted by The Word For Today.
Verses 1-25
Tonight let's turn to First Peter chapter one. Of the many disciples that were following Jesus, He chose twelve to be apostles. One of the twelve that was chosen as an apostle was Simon Peter. Simon Peter was by profession a fisherman. He was called by the Lord from fishing for those Saint Peter's fish in the Sea of Galilee to become a fisher of men, and was a very impulsive person by nature, according to tradition, a very big man physically. He became one of the leaders in the church. And now he is writing his first epistle introducing himself as,
Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the strangers ( 1 Peter 1:1 )
The word translated "scattered" there is the Greek word "disperse."
throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia ( 1 Peter 1:1 ),
During the beginning of the early church, there arose persecution against the church in Jerusalem. And as the result of that persecution, many of the Christians were scattered abroad throughout the world. And it is to these Christians, who have been dispersed as the result of persecution, which is recorded in the book of Acts, that Peter is addressing this epistle, primarily to the Jewish believers scattered because of the persecution in Jerusalem. But the epistle does also include Gentile believers as is noted in chapter two, verse ten. He calls them,
There is the doctrine of election; God having elected those who would be the heirs of salvation. The election of God is based upon His foreknowledge. You do not read of election apart from the foreknowledge of God. Now if you believe that God does know all things, you should have no problem with the doctrine of election. If you have a limited God that has only a limited knowledge, then you could have problems with the doctrine of election.
Paul tells us in Ephesians 1:0 that "we were chosen in Him before the foundation of the world" ( Ephesians 1:4 ). Here election is according to the foreknowledge of God.
Now let's put it this way. Does God know everything? We believe that He does. "Known unto Him are all things," James said, "from the beginning" ( Acts 15:18 ). If God knows all things, then God can't learn anything. It's impossible for Him to learn anything because He already knows it. If God is ever going to know anything, then He already knows it.
You see, the problem that we have is living within this time continuum. We think of everything, and as Chuck Missler says, "in the linear"; but God is outside of our time dimension. And looking down from His vantage, He can see the beginning and the ending at the same time. And so He knows all things from the beginning. So if God will ever know who is going to be saved, then He has always known who He is going to, who is going to be saved; that's God's foreknowledge. And as the result of that foreknowledge, knowing those that would respond to His love and to His grace through Jesus Christ, He has elected that they should be the children of God, and so the election according to foreknowledge. And Peter in several places here does bring out this idea of called and elected, and all, and the foreknowledge of God involved with it. "Elect according to the foreknowledge of God"
sanctification [or being set apart] by the Spirit, unto the obedience and the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ ( 1 Peter 1:2 ).
So the work of the Trinity in our salvation is "Elect according to the foreknowledge of God, set apart by the Spirit of God, and then cleansed by the blood of Jesus Christ." To those he said,
Charis, the typical Greek greeting, the grace; Shalom, the typical Jewish greeting, peace. Let them be multiplied.
Blessed be God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead ( 1 Peter 1:3 ),
He begins his epistle with sort of a doxology. "Blessed be God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has begotten us again." Now this idea is that of being born again, "begotten of God", I've been born again, "to a living hope." Hope is so essential. It's just a part of man's character and it's the thing that keeps you going. A lot of times we just give up, except we hope that things are going to turn around. And so that hope is the thing that keeps a person going. I hope it's going to change so I hold on.
The disciples had come to hope in Jesus Christ as the Messiah. When they saw the miracles that He did, when they heard His teaching, they became convinced that He was the Messiah. When Jesus said to the disciples there at Caesarea Philippi, "Who do you say that I am?" Peter said, "You're the Messiah. You're the Son of the living God". Jesus said, "Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: flesh and blood did not reveal this, but my Father" ( Matthew 16:17 ). They had come to believe; they were convinced that Jesus was the Messiah, but the cross changed things.
