Chosen for obedience of faith
Warm-up: Did you ever make future plans based on whether you expected (or not) to be heir of a sizeable fortune?
Read: 1 Peter 1:1-12
Setting: The opening of this letter presumes that the recipients were already instructed in the Christian faith. Therefore, instead of another detailed explanation, the writer only summarized the doctrines of Christian belief in very brief terms (cf 1Pet 5:12) by way of introduction and as a reminder of the foundation on which he is about to build.
1) vv1-2: Does anything strike you as unexpected in how Peter addressed his readers?
- Lit. to the elect exiles of the dispersion: How were the recipients of this letter ‘dispersed’, and why call them ‘elect exiles’?
- In what sense are all Christians ‘exiles’? cf Phil 3:20
- Would you expect someone in exile to feel privileged to be chosen for that status?
- Does this salutation as ‘elect exiles’ say anything about what Christians are elected for? [Repatriation after their role as expatriate ambassadors]
2) According to this prologue, what are Christians elected for, and why?
- for ‘obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by his blood’: What distinguishes such obedience from legalism ? cf Jn 14:15, Jn 14:23
- What does it mean to be ‘sprinkled by his blood’? cf Heb 9:14.18-19.22; Heb 10:22
- What was sprinkled with blood in the Old Testament, and why?
- ‘…according to the foreknowledge’: Read Jer 1:5; Eph 1:4; 1 Cor 1:28; Deut 7:7-8
- Accordingly, what did God ‘foreknow’ that was instrumental to guide his planning: His own choice, or yours? cf Jn 1:13
- v2: What is sanctification, and why did Peter attribute it to ‘the Spirit’? cf Eph 1:5-6 & 14; 2:9-10
- vv3&7: Who gets all the glory and praise for this, and why?
3) v3: What led Peter to bless (lit. ‘speak well of’) God for his ‘great mercy’?
- How would you define what mercy actually is?
- Why did Peter view himself as ‘born again’?
- v3: How/when does such a new birth manifest itself?
- Is there a difference between hope and living hope?
- What has this to do with the resurrection of Jesus?
4) What beliefs about salvation did Peter emphasize in vv4-5?
- v4: In what sense does salvation resemble an ‘inheritance’?
- Why is it important for believers to understand that in this life they have not yet received the best to come?
- What makes the future aspect of that salvation superior to anything in the present life?
- v5: ‘ready to be revealed…in the last time’ (NLT translates ‘on the last day’; gr. kairos: fitting season, occasion, suitable time): In what sense does that salvation differ from one that is not yet ready?
- Why did he not say: ‘…for you who make a worthy effort’, or ‘for you who work it out properly’?
- Christianity teaches that this salvation is ‘…for you who by God’s power are being guarded through faith’: Does that mean that God can protect, but that he has no power to save unless you ‘agree to believe’?
- Hint: How did you yourself come to put faith in God? cf v21
- What does that say about the power of God?
- Read 1 Cor 15:2. => Is faith nonetheless essential, even though we entirely depend on God to have faith?
- Where does that point you to find such faith?
POTENTIAL FOLLOW-UP: Christians can become confused about the role of ‘sanctification’ in the process of salvation, and when and where the Holy Spirit comes in to help with that (e.g Gal 3:2). What did Peter write about it in vv1-2?
- What does it mean that Christians are ‘in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood’?
- Why did Peter not put it all in the reverse order, e.g. ‘sprinkled with his blood for obedience to Jesus Christ so that you (if you pray long enough?) enable the Spirit to fill you and make you a real saint, eventually’?
- When growing up as a Jew, Peter had to obey the law of Moses. Why must the Holy Spirit sanctify you first that you actually can obey Christ (and not only a set of rules)? cf Jn 14:15; 14:23-24 =>
- What kind of obedience is this which apparently precedes even the sprinkling by His blood? [faith -> love]
- Read Eph 1:13; 5:26 and Ro 16:26. Accordingly, what might be the link between faith, the Holy Spirit, and the word of God? [Sanctification of the Spirit is the process whereby: Holy Spirit -> word/prophetic writings -> calling/hearing -> faith -> cleansed conscience -> works of love, cf Tit 3:8]
5) vv6-9: Can such living hope and joy spare believers from trials of suffering? Why not?
- v6: How may believers keep such joy even in fierce trials? cf v8
- v7, Through trials and ‘suffering a little while’, if necessary:
- What good may come from such testing?
6) vv10-12: Is the salvation proclaimed in the NT the same as the one in the OT?
- Why did Peter insist that prophets in the OT were fully conscious that their prophecies were for future generations and not their own?
- How could Peter know that the prophets knew this, or searched what time the Spirit in them prophesied about? cf e.g. Isa 8:16; Ezk 12:26-28; Dan 8:26; 12:4.
7) Personal & application
- Do you think one can be a Christian without believing in a bodily resurrection of Jesus from the dead? Why or why not?
- As a Christian, what do you think distinguishes your ‘living’ hope from the hope of natural optimists?
- Do you think others recognize you as someone who has such supernatural hope? Why or why not?
- What may strangle the liveliness of such hope in your life?
- According to this passage, how can you keep up hope in dark times ?
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