Chapter 2

2022 - This first verse of 2:

1 So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. [1Pe 2:1 ESV].  The word is "so", but could just as easily be "Therefore", and indicating that this verse is the conclusion of the points made in the previous chapter.  Why do they keep doing this in the chapter breaks? 

1 ended by saying life here is short, and we are just sojourners here.  We who are saved are a new, changed, different, "alien" people among the lost.  If we are not "of" them, then we should behave differently than they do.  Rather than reacting with "nukes to hand grenades", or lying, or claiming to be the same as the persecutors to avoid the persecutors, or wishing we could be like them, or just bad mouthing them all the time...Do none of these things.  Go instead back to 1:22 and "...love one another from a pure heart."  No subterfuge.  I can't help but think of it..."Always tell the truth, or at least don't lie".  Peterson has distilled so many truths, and stated them in easy to understand language, and then attributed them to human evolution rather than recognize where they really came form.  I admire his advice, but I fear it is a deliberately deceitful parallel, preaching God's revealed truth as man's independent discovery.  Who would orchestrate such a deception, such a misleading, hidden, obscured fork in the road?  Only one masquerading as an angel of light.

This phrasing:

5 you yourselves 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. [1Pe 2:5 ESV]

Several thoughts:  Jesus was the chief cornerstone, mentioned as such the verse before.  Peter means rock, and Jesus had changed his name.  He is using his own history as an analogy of the change Jesus brought.  Stones are used to build.  Another analogy.  We are used to build a spiritual house - a spiritual temple that replaces the earthly temple made with physical brick and mortar.  The Law was brick and mortar, the new "law" is spiritual, we can't touch it with hands, it is based on faith and not ritual.  We are our own priesthood, needing no other since the new temple is spiritual.  The sacrifices we offer are inward, spiritual, invisible, made in the spiritual temple of our ourselves, without need of or regard for an external, separate priesthood.  These are acceptable - these spiritual instead of blood sacrifices - through Christ who tore the veil, giving us access to God directly instead of through an earthly priesthood.  We offer our spiritual sacrifice from our position IN Christ, our high priest.  We have direct access to God through Jesus.

2025 - What though, exactly, constitutes a spiritual sacrifice?  A physical sacrifice requires the death of an animal - an animal without blemish, perfect as far as can be observed - and the shedding of blood.  What "perfect thing" do we possess, spiritually, that we can "end" as an offering to God?  What can that be? 

I found this:

1 I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. [Rom 12:1 ESV].  We make ourselves holy, and then we worship?  No...in this verse to worship is present our bodies for his use.  To be the "doulos" of God.  That's what Paul calls himself.  A slave who's life is only of value if given for his master, living every millisecond for the direct benefit of his master.

Maybe this one has some application here also:

2 And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. [Eph 5:2 ESV]

15 Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. [Heb 13:15 ESV]

2023 - This verse:

8 and "A stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense." They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do. [1Pe 2:8 ESV]. 

It seems that Peter is very certain that election - which he spoke about in 1:2, and now we see the other side of the coin.  In 1:2 he speaks of those who are elect according to the foreknowledge of God, and here, he speaks of those "destined" to disobey.  It is hard to interpret either of these in any other way than to say that there was no other way it could have gone.  Those who reject God were ALWAYS going to reject him.  All I can say about that is "See Grudem, Chapter 32" for a full treatment of this doctrine.  The short version is that God decided, in his infinite wisdom that we have no chance of glimpsing much less comprehending, that he would save some and send others to hell.  This because his glory - and his characteristic of being just - requires that some go to hell.  God must see his glory and justice as higher priorities than the absolutely free exercise of will by mankind.  That's all that I will say here...there are notes on Grudem.  This same verse is quoted under the topic of Reprobation.

2023 - Looked in MSB, which is NASB, and worded this way:

8 and, "A STONE OF STUMBLING AND A ROCK OF OFFENSE"; for they stumble because they are disobedient to the word, and to this [doom] they were also appointed. [1Pe 2:8 NASB95].  MSB says this does not mean that some were appointed to disobedience - so MSB does not go along with reprobation it seems.  What was appointed was that those who DID disobey were doomed from the beginning, as in God had decided the fate of all who would disobey...but had not decided particularly who would disobey.

This verse:

9 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. [1Pe 2:9 ESV]  Can there be any doubt that Peter is writing to converted Jews?  I don't see any indication that he is talking here about the spiritual sons of Abraham.  Chosen race and holy nation as references to the Jews seems pretty unarguable. 

2023 - Why "royal" priesthood?  Why would he use that term?  MSB says this comes from Ex 19:6;

5 Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; 6 and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.' These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel." [Exo 19:5-6 ESV].  Because of their apostasy, Israel never "realized" this combination of King and Priest.  It was "temporarily" forfeited and will be ultimately wholly realized during the Millennial when Christ reigns.  However, MSB says that currently the church is a royal priesthood, united with Christ (in Christ?) who is the Royal Priest.  The concept of a royal priest means not only a priesthood that belongs to and serves the king, but one that also exercises rule.

Another verse:

10 Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. [1Pe 2:10 ESV]

Who is addressed here?  It would seem to be addressed to Gentiles, barbarians, pagans in contrast to the nation of Israel, a chosen people.  But then, the Jews were not a people either until Abraham left Ur.  MSB says this refers to Hos 1:6-10, which speaks explicitly of a nation made up of both Jews and Gentiles.  So MSB makes this inclusive.  The verses in Hosea must be plainer to MSB than they are to me.  There is this one verse that might be seen as inclusive: 

10 Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be like the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured or numbered. And in the place where it was said to them, "You are not my people," it shall be said to them, "Children of the living God." [Hos 1:10 ESV]

2022 - I still don't really agree with MacArthur here, but I would qualify what I've been saying - about this letter being written exclusively to Jews.  There is one more parameter...Peter is writing to saved Jews, to "Christian Jews" who believe in Christ as resurrected Messiah, as God's Son, and as fully God.  So looked at that way, we as Gentile Christians do partly share in Peter's address.  We too are Christian, and as to that his admonitions are more general.  So should Christian Jews in Nero's time "love their neighbors"?  Yes, that's who Peter means.  But should all Christians in all times love instead of hate in the face of the world's hatred aligned to persecute them?  Again, most certainly yes.

2023 - In vs 10 I can make a case that the people now God's could refer either to Israel or to the church in our time/in Peter's time.  God made Israel a nation where no nation had been and gave them a country - gave them some geography that made them a nation.  The Gentiles, until Christ came, were just a scattered bunch of nobody's.  Now they are all one people, God's people, the church. 

(2024 - A Spiritual nation!  God now looks after the church in the spiritual kingdom as he previously looked after Israel as a physical nations.  And that gets me once again to this:  The Millennial will see physical promises kept to the physical nation of Israel and the church will receive the spiritual promises of the rapture, and as the bride of Christ because we are a spiritual nation.) 

The second phrase also, about mercy, is the same.  The elect Jews to whom Peter is writing were saved.  They had received mercy.  All those in the church, of whatever race, creed, color, have equally received God's mercy.  I THINK, however, that we must read this verse as being about those elect Jews from Chapter 1.  I don't think that "comforting phrase" is meant for the church.  The next verse I think confirms this in that it contrasts those addressed not with the unsaved, but with the Gentiles.  It is surely unsaved Gentiles that are in view here, but Gentiles, nevertheless.  I do not see interpreting this to label all unsaved as Gentiles and all saved as elect exiles.  No.  I don't see that at all.

2024 - Or, in the simplest interpretation, Gentiles refers to Rome, which was the persecutor of Christians at this point, without regard to whether they were Jews or Gentiles.

vs 12 says this:

12 Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation. [1Pe 2:12 ESV]  Surely this implies that it is Jews that are being addressed in vs. 10?  2022 - And that further implies that the Gentiles are NOT being addressed, either directly or peripherally.  Peter is apostle to the Jews, Paul the Gentiles.  We need to keep the beam of this letter focused tightly on the Jews. (but...see above.)

2023 - This verse is the proof text.  This letter is written to elect Jews - both saved and future saved - and to no one else except insofar as commands like "love your neighbor" and "behave yourself as a Christian should" are applicable to everyone.

In vs 13 we seem to take a new course, away from the spiritual and into the day to day practicalities of Christian living:

13 Be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, 14 or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good. [1Pe 2:13-14 ESV]

No wiggle room.  Written just before or just after Nero burned Rome.  Despite the injustice and corruption of Nero's empire, Christians were NOT urged to revolt from it, to separate themselves from it, to "sovereign citizen" themselves, or even to do as Qumran did and segregate themselves into an ascetic/monastic/insulated encampment.  And for what reason?  So that by our example of submission we "should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people."  Then at the end of the section he reiterates:

17 Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor. [1Pe 2:17 ESV]

2021 - It is hard to imagine the helplessness, the feeling of being trapped and not knowing which direction to run - hide, fight, or flight - that followed the persecution of Christians - whether Jew or Gentile - under Nero.  It must have sent some massive shock waves of fear through all the churches that were in Roman provinces.  No matter where they were, they were blamed, and they were fair game for just about any jealous, covetous, greedy person who wanted what they had materially.  They could just steal it.  These Christians were likely rounded up in some places, taken into arenas or other places and just summarily executed.  Can you imagine the church doors opening up and a contingent of police and military officers coming in, and putting the attendees up on the stage in front of a firing squad one at a time?  These were not terrorists that were killing Christians as if the season was open, these were government officials, local politicians, and so on.  These people were never going to be prosecuted for what they were doing.  This was a time for Christians much like what happened to the Jews in Nazi Germany (2022 - or to Christians in Afghanistan when the Taliban took power in 21/22).  To say that only the Jews experienced such persecution in history is to ignore this time in Rome.

So what advice does Peter give them?  Run and hide?  Only worship in secret?  Don't associate with each other lest you give others away under torture?  No.  None of that.  Peter gives them vs 17.  When they come for you, honor them by going peacefully.  Honor the corrupt and vile Emperor that sent them.  And here we sit, in the US in 2021, and we're all twisted off about Joe Biden.  Really?  We should be ashamed of ourselves.  2022 - Yes we should.  When they came for Jesus, meaning to kill him in a horrible way, he not only went along, but he chastised this same Peter for cutting off the ear of the High Priest's servant.  Surely Peter is in a position to tell us how to act in such a situation because he learned it from an unimpeachable source....

2022 - These verses need to stay together:

15 For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. 16 Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. 17 Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor. [1Pe 2:15-17 ESV]

When they arrested Jesus, do you imagine they expected a fight?  Did they expect the 11 to draw swords and start swinging?  Instead, Jesus says here I am.  I'll come along peaceably, and that would have prompted some to say, Hmm...maybe we have this guy all wrong.  He certainly doesn't act like a vicious violent subverter of the Temple and/or of Roman rule?  And vs 16...Jesus wasn't hiding when they came to get him.  He was in a place where anyone could go, praying as anyone could pray.  He was not trying to conceal his devotion to God.  My my...we certainly do that.  Keep the light under a basket I mean.  At a business lunch or in a political discussion.  We don't pray over our food in public, perhaps.  Things like that.  And the last verse - HONOR EVERYONE.  This is not in any way restricted to honoring all our Christian brothers.  To make sure we know it means literally everyone, Peter gives examples of who he means.  Christians, our God, and then EVERYONE ELSE.  And that includes Joe Biden, and it included Donald Trump before him.  Peter tells us, as one with firsthand experience of resistance to authority, that it is the wrong way to do things.  Just turn around, put your hands behind your back, and follow orders.  That's what Christians are to do. 

2023 - There is just no doubt that the emperor in power when Peter wrote vs 17 was Nero.  It is interesting, I think, that we don't have to love him, but he is due honor.  Everyone is due honor, but the brotherhood is to be loved. 

2023 - Next day...The word translated "submissive" is the Greek "hypotassomenai".  A little later in this same chapter, Peter uses a little bit different form of the same Greek word.  The way he uses it gives us a clearer idea of the "intensity" of the commanded submission:  22 who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him. [1Pe 3:22 ESV].  So, going all the way back to 1 Pet 2:13, about being "hypotasso" to human government - emperors, governors.  Servant submit to masters - even and maybe especially to the bad masters - as Jesus submitted to earthly authority.  Then in Chapter 3, that same word, hypotassomenai, as what wives show to husbands.  Angels, authorities - think fallen angles, demons - and powers - again think supernatural beings far beyond us in power, who submit to Christ's BECAUSE of his God given authority.  You can bet that fallen angels do not submit because of how much they love and honor Christ, but BECAUSE of the authority God has given Christ in his position at the right hand.  That is the extent to which we submit to government, we submit to masters/bosses, and wives submit to husbands.  This is far more intense than I'd previously though, and Peter anticipates in Chapter 2 the argument that sometimes they are not worthy of submission.  He says we are to submit anyway.  We ought not denigrate our president.  We ought not denigrate the people he appoints - and there is where it gets REALLY tough.  No matter how distasteful, no matter how erroneous, no matter how ludicrous and stupid are the orders of civil government, the ONLY ones we can ignore are those specifically contradictory to God's commands, AS FOUND IN THE BIBLE!

2023 - This verse:

18 Servants, be submissive to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and gentle, but also to those who are unreasonable. [1Pe 2:18 NASB95].  This rankles our sensibilities today.  But the higher concept is that anyone can be nice to those who are nice to them.  Anyone can serve cheerfully if it is also serving voluntarily.  What sets Christians apart is serving by force, serving bad masters as well as good, honoring good Kings as well as Bad - and governors and mayors and so on.  We ought to be more careful about balking at this defining characteristic of Christian behavior.

Good FB post with 17 included.   WAIT!  Vs 19 drives this home.  Include it also!!!  19 For this is a gracious thing, when, mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly. [1Pe 2:19 ESV]   And it goes on.  This is, in fact, what I would call the primary statement/definition/description of this characteristic of Christian distinction.  And how many of those we admire who are not Christians are admired because by common grace they display this characteristic!?  The notes below continue to amplify this command from Peter.

2023 - Next day...The word translated "submissive" is the Greek "hypotassomenai".  A little later in this same chapter, Peter uses a little bit different form of the same Greek word.  The way he uses it gives us a clearer idea of the "intensity" of the commanded submission:  22 who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him. [1Pe 3:22 ESV].  So, going all the way back to 1 Pet 2:13, about being "hypotasso" to human government - emperors, governors.  Servant submit to masters - even and maybe especially to the bad masters - as Jesus submitted to earthly authority.  Then in Chapter 3, that same word, hypotassomenai, as what wives show to husbands.  Angels, authorities - think fallen angles, demons - and powers - again think supernatural beings far beyond us in power, who submit to Christ's BECAUSE of his God given authority.  You can bet that fallen angels do not submit because of how much they love and honor Christ, but BECAUSE of the authority God has given Christ in his position at the right hand.  That is the extent to which we submit to government, we submit to masters/bosses, and wives submit to husbands.  This is far more intense than I'd previously though, and Peter anticipates in Chapter 2 the argument that sometimes they are not worthy of submission.  He says we are to submit anyway.  We ought not denigrate our president.  We ought not denigrate the people he appoints - and there is where it gets REALLY tough.  No matter how distasteful, no matter how erroneous, no matter how ludicrous and stupid are the orders of civil government, the ONLY ones we can ignore are those specifically contradictory to God's commands, AS FOUND IN THE BIBLE!

Instructions to servants/employees, about serving not only good, but bad masters.  Remember that these verses are about masters, not about governments, and I think some distinction is "allowable".  So where earthly masters are concerned this summary:

23 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. [1Pe 2:23 ESV]

Hmm....just the same, Jesus is held up as the example, and this was his behavior toward religious and civil authorities - but certainly not his masters.  Jesus was never a bondservant to men, nor do we have examples of him "building furniture" for men.  As Jesus behaved toward civil authority, so should we.  Our judge is in heaven, and no matter how earthly judges treat us.  Sure throws a dim light on the American Revolution...

2022 - I want to put this on my website as a full thesis.  Doesn't have to be long, I just want to expand on the idea of Jesus teaching Peter how to behave, and Peter passing it on as one with firsthand knowledge.  There can be NO DOUBT that Peter means exactly what he is saying, though we in our day and in this country will likely spend hours looking for loopholes.  There are none.

2024 - Based on the above, I wrote this and sent it:

So this morning, in my daily reading, I got to 1Peter 2:13-25.  It doesn't say anything in there about "wives and husbands", but it says a lot about authority and submission.  The authority in these verses is the Roman government which was persecuting Christians horribly at that time, and masters over slaves - making you think that slavery was becoming an issue already, even back then, among believers.  Husbands DO NOT HAVE the kind of authority over their wives that governments have, nor the kind that masters had over slaves back then.  But there is a principle here also, not just a couple of rules.  And you know the principle - dealing submissively with abuse in order to "silence the ignorance of foolish people".  But here's the thing...if you read this whole chapter, the idea was to behave in a way that "they may see your good deeds and glorify God".  The question you ask yourself might ought to be about whether leaving your husband is more likely to make people say "I thought she was supposed to be a Christian", or more likely to say "It's about time.  Only a really good Christian would have put up with him for this long!"  It is not the actual thing you do but the way people perceive it that should guide your decision.  Now don't take my word for it, but read the whole chapter.  It is an awesome chapter.  And I think finally I am onto the right way to think about things like this.  But it's your call, because you have to live with the results, whichever way you decide to go.

And then the next day I read Chapter 3, which DOES talk about wives and husbands, so the question is, does Chapter 3 change what I said after reading 2?  Likewise, so "like being subject to human institutions", and "like slaves being subject to their masters", women are to be subject to their husbands.  With marriage, it is a way of "influencing", of "winning" the husband.  If we take this all the way to hyperbole, we can ask "Are we to be submissive to the point where we allow them to kill us?"  When the government came for Jesus, he submitted.  But he stayed in Galilee for much of his ministry to avoid them.  Until the time was right for what he was sent to do.  Is a wife sent to die by  her husband's hand?  Same with slaves.  It says they are to stay when they receive unjust punishment, but that doesn't mean death.  No wife ever "won" her husband to Christ by letting him beat her over and over - abuse her continuously - until he finally kills her.  All these are about submissive behavior in the face of injustice.  Is it right to extend this to unending endurance of abuse - whether verbal only or physical abuse - or is doing that going way beyond the context?  Wives are not slaves.  Slaves can be beaten, wives cannot - but they could back when this was written...Sarah is given as a specific example of how wives should behave.  Abraham did not verbally abuse Sarah, nor did he physically abuse her.  Her submission was not to his abuse but to his decisions in all matters.  When to move, where to go, how to raise the kids perhaps.  But enduring abuse is not in the context here.