Sermon Tone Analysis

Our Coordinates in Christ

1 Peter 5:12-14

The Christians of Asia Minor were facing troubling times.

Because of their faith in Christ, they were being persecuted through social ostracism.

Slander and malicious talk undermined their relationships with associates and family, threatened their honor in the community, and possibly jeopardized their livelihood.

Because of their Christian faith, they were being marginalized by their society, alienated in their relationships, and threatened with— if not experiencing— a loss of honour and socioeconomic standing (and possibly worse).

(Jobe, Introduction).

There is a lot here in the circumstances of these believers Peter is writing that has parallels with our experiences.

We live in a society that opposes our Biblical values, although not yet to the degree and intensity they experienced.

What we can learn here in 1 Peter is highly relevant for us as Christians living in a modern society.

Though these scattered groups of Christians, facing considerable suffering and persecution, might have felt marginalised and forgotten, Peter reminds them from the outset who they are and to whom they belong.

Through the work of God the Trinity, they have been chosen to live as exiles in this world until they reach their promised inheritance.

This is who they are—God’s chosen people.

This is where they live—as exiles in a hostile world.

This is how they live—by obeying the Lord Jesus Christ.

Within God’s sovereign, eternal purposes they are certainly not forgotten; they are a very special people, belonging to God, Father, Spirit and Son.

He reminds them of two things:

Remember who you are, 1 Peter 1:1

Remember whose you are, 1 Peter 1:2

1. Remember who you are, 1 Peter 1:1

Peter, the apostle of Jesus Christ, is the author of this letter.

In the first century church, the primary characteristic of an apostle was his authority to bear authentic testimony to the life and significance of Jesus Christ.

An apostle was recognized to have an authority distinct from other church leaders.

Peter writes with the confidence that he is presenting the “true grace of God” (5:12) and that his words come with that apostolic authority.

Karen H. Jobes, 1 Peter, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2005), 59.

The letter probably was written from Rome.

First Peter 5:13 conveys a greeting from Babylon—a metaphorical reference to the capital city of the Roman Empire (see Rev 17:5, 9).

The letter must have been written sometime before the mid-60s AD.

According to tradition, Peter was martyred in Rome around that time, during the persecution of Christians under the emperor Nero.

He is writing to Christians in regions that are part of the central and northern plateau of Asia Minor, now the nation of Turkey.

He refers to them as those of the Dispersion, the Diaspora, reminding us of the exile and scattering of God’s people.

Are these Jewish Christians?

I am sure that there were Jewish Christians among those to who this letter is addressed, but I think he is using the Jewish Dispersion / Diaspora as an analogy, implying that believers, regardless of ethnicity, should understand themselves as God’s people scattered as foreigners in these lands — even if they are native born to the area!

They, in Christ, have a new identity!

He calls them

a. elect — They have been chosen, elected by God.

Election is key for understanding the Bible’s grand narrative—the account of God’s plan to redeem and restore, through Christ, a holy people who had been lost in Adam.

In the Old Testament, the nation of Israel is designated as God’s chosen or elect people.

In the NT, this term is expanded to include the Church, which consists of both Jews and Gentiles.

God’s chosen are no longer identified by ethnic or national markers, but spiritually by faith.

This election is both corporate and individual.

God chooses individuals for salvation and incorporation into His chosen people.

We are saved as individuals by God’s grace alone, but saved to be part of His Church, the Body of Christ.

Every one of these people who are believers, and indeed, all of us in Christ, have been personally chosen by God.

As those chosen by God, Peter may be thinking of Jesus’ teaching in Mark 13:20-27.

Amid the struggles and trials they went through because of their faith, there is the assurance that as God’s chosen, they will be protected and one day gathered up even from the remotest regions to be with God.

By calling them elect, chosen by God, Peter wants them to recognise the glorious privileges they have and their standing in relation to God.

He will unpack this in the first main section of the letter in 1:3-2:10.

The second thing he tells them is that they are exiles

b. exiles - strangers, resident aliens

The Exile in OT history is when God’s people faced a lengthy period away from their homeland due to their covenant unfaithfulness.

Many were taken away from Israel and scattered across the Assyrian Empire; later, many were taken from Judah and brought to Babylon.

God’s people faced hostile environments, pressured to conform to the pagan cultures surrounding them.

There were harsh repercussions for resistance to this assimilation.

Peter uses this theme in applying this part of the history of God’s people to the circumstances facing the Christians to whom he writes.

While they are in these places, they are not of these places.

While they live as resident aliens, they are not to give allegiance to the surrounding culture.

Their allegiance is to Christ, who will one day gather them up as His people and bring them home.

Once they realise just who and what they are: elect of God, exiles in the world, they have their coordinates, they have their bearings, and can then think and act accordingly.

Peter will unpack this in the second main section of this letter in 2:11-4:11.

c.

The tension of living as God’s elect in exile

When we are elect we are then exiles in this world.

And because of this we are aliens and strangers, pilgrims and resident aliens in this world.

We have a home in glory to come, to be with the Lord in the new heavens and new earth, where righteousness dwells, but we at the present live in a world that is hostile to God and to those who belong to Him.

We will face persecution, we will face suffering on account of our belonging to Christ, for living for Christ.

Who we are, how we live, is at odds with everything this world values.

Peter will develop this in the third and final section of this letter in 4:12-5:11.

The believer, then, is never really “at home,” as the second-century Epistle to Diognetus puts it:

For Christians are no different from other people in terms of their country, language or customs.

Nowhere do they inhabit cities of their own, use a strange dialect, or live life out of the ordinary.…

They live in their respective countries, but only as resident aliens; they participate in all things as citizens, and they endure all things as foreigners.

Every foreign territory is a homeland for them, every homeland foreign territory.

They marry like everyone else and have children, but they do not expose them once they are born.

They share their meals but not their sexual partners.

They are found in the flesh but do not live according to the flesh.

They live on earth but participate in the life of heaven.

They are obedient to the laws that have been made, and by their own lives they supersede the laws.

They love everyone and are persecuted by all.

They are not understood and they are condemned.

They are put to death and made alive.

They are impoverished and make many rich.

They lack all things and abound in everything.

They are dishonored and they are exalted in their dishonors.

(5:1–14 [LCL])

Green, Joel B. 1 Peter.

The Two Horizons New Testament Commentary.

Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2007.

First Peter, then, is addressed to folks who do not belong, who eke out their lives on the periphery of acceptable society, whose deepest loyalties and inclinations do not line up very well with what matters most in the world in which they live.

This is not the sort of life that most people find attractive.

It is a really hard sell!

Who thought up this marketing campaign: Come to Jesus, and the world will hate you!

Come to Jesus, and you will find yourself a zero in the world’s eyes!

In terms of our ability genuinely to understand 1 Peter, the basic reality is that, as a whole, we squirm at the possibility that this letter is addressed to us, that we might be cast as “nobodies in the world.”

No one wants to be considered irrelevant by the culture.

And yet we are.

But it does not end there.

Peter wants them to remember that though we are exiles, we are the elect of God, and as His elect, we are His.

There are many times when we feel forgotten, insignificant and marginalised.

Things happen around us at work or in the family, but we feel left out and abandoned.