Foundational truths (1:1 – 12)
The incorruptible inheritance of God’s elect (1:1 – 4)
The refining of faith (1:5 – 9)
The testimony of the prophets (1:10 – 12)
Incentives for holiness (1:13 – 25)
Holiness exhorted (1:13 – 14)
The holiness of God who calls (1:15 – 16)
Reverence for him who has redeemed at such cost (1:17 – 19)
Christ manifested to bring us to know God (1:20 – 21)
The great change already taken place (1:22)
The incorruptible seed in us (1:23 – 25)
Holy living (2:1 – 3:13)
The manifestation of the new life (2:1 – 3)
Every good thing in Christ (2:4 – 5)
Church metaphors as prophesied (2:6 – 10)
Abstaining from the world (2:11)
The testimony of a holy life (2:12)
Obeying civil authorities (2:13 – 17)
Distinct responsibilities (2:18 – 3:13)
Servants (2:18 – 25)
Suffering wrongfully for God’s sake (2:18 – 20)
Christ, our example of patient suffering (2:21 – 25)
Wives (3:1 – 6)
Testimony to unbelieving husbands (3:1 – 2)
Women’s adorning (3:3 – 6)
Husbands (3:7)
All to eschew evil (3:8 – 13)
Suffering as Christians (3:14 – 22)
Handling unjust treatment (3:14 – 17)
The great gains of Christ’s suffering (3:18)
Noah’s example of suffering (3:19 – 20)
The fruit of suffering (3:21 – 22)
Ceasing from sin (4:1 – 5)
The Christian mindset (4:1 – 3)
Estranged from the world (4:4 – 5)
The Christian outlook (4:6 – 9)
Living for the end of all things (4:6 – 7)
Having fervent charity (4:8 – 9)
Living for Christ (4:10 – 11)
Use of spiritual gifts (4:10
The teaching ministry, the serving ministry (4:11)
Suffering patiently for Christ (4:12 – 19)
The sifting and testing of believers (4:12)
Sharing Christ’s sufferings (4:13)
The privilege of suffering (4:14)
Giving no cause of suffering (4:15)
No shame in suffering (4:16)
Patiently waiting for God’s judgment (4:17 – 18)
Committing our souls to God (4:19)
Conduct in God’s house (5:1 – 7)
The elder’s service and reward (5:1 – 4)
The clothing of humility (5:5 – 6)
God remedy for anxiety (5:7)
Final exhortations (5:8 – 14)
Steadfast in Christian warfare (5:8 – 9)
God’s glory in view (5:10 – 11)
Greetings and farewell (5:12 – 14)
- to teach the security of salvation
- to teach the riches of salvation
- to exhort believer to live a holy life
- to urge abstention from the world
- to encourage advance to maturity in Christ
- to have believers respect legitimate authorities
- to teach patience in suffering
- to teach about Christian marriage
- to exhort godly living which removes all excuse for persecution
- to help believers bear up under persecution
- to define responsibilities of elders
- to lay down the standard of humility for all
- to encourage the strongest confidence in the gospel
Bible Commentary on the First Epistle of Peter
by Dr Peter Masters, Metropolitan Tabernacle, London (supplemented by Bible Notes)
This is a book full of Jesus Christ and his glories. It is a book of holiness – separation from the world and from sin is emphasised repeatedly. It is a book of citizenship – it tells us how to live in this world, how to live and how to live under authority, worldly authority, how to behave. It tells us about marriage – there are remarkable and profound comments and exhortations concerning Christian marriage in this letter. It is a book of trials – every chapter of the book refers to some great trial or another and how to live them and prove the Lord through them by faith. It is a book of service – how to serve the Lord and how to be committed and dedicated to him. It describes God’s people as resident aliens in this world; a people who are called out of the world. Yes, we are to be good citizens, the apostle Peter will say, but this isn’t our place, we are living of course for eternity, for the kingdom of God, so it is a book about this lively hope, an epistle really for so many different departments of the Christian life.
It was written, we think, roughly speaking, AD 63-64, but there are those unbelieving critics who say the apostle Peter could never have written this epistle. Why not? Because he was a Galilean. Because he was an ignorant fisherman – that can be exaggerated, of course. He spoke Aramaic and Hebrew and this book is written in good, beautiful, perfect, even very elegant Greek and it could never have been written by the apostle Peter, they say. Well, right at the end of the book in chapter 5, verse 12, we read these words: ‘By Silvanus [that is Silas, of course], a faithful brother unto you, as I suppose, I have written briefly, exhorting and testifying that this is the true grace of God.’ Here Peter says, ‘I have written by Silvanus.’ Silvanus was the secretary, as it were. God took hold of them both. Peter gave the words, Silvanus put them into Greek, God superintended the process but it was not essentially Peter who forged the grammar and so on. Just as what we sometimes call the ‘Gospel of Peter’ was actually written by Mark as his secretary, the Gospel of Mark. So it is with 1 Peter: the secretary was Silas, Silvanus, but that is just by the way. We remember that the Lord Jesus Christ said to the twelve disciples that when the Holy Spirit came, he would remind them of everything that he said and did, because they were to be his witnesses. They were to record it. They were to complete, under the inspiration of the Spirit, the New Testament Scriptures.
Did we think the apostle Peter was just a raw, ignorant fisherman? Did we think that among all the disciples he was the impulsive one, who was least inclined to use his mind, and operated directly out of impulsive and his heart? Well, that may be correct but what wonderful things conversion accomplishes. How tremendous that it takes impulsive, raw Peter and makes him such a close, spiritual, reasoning being. There is no tighter reasoning anywhere than the sequence of arguments and incentives that come out one after the other in this epistle. Though we may think of him as a fisherman, he became a marvellous preacher. The Spirit of God is certainly enabling him, but when we look at the Acts 2 and the Pentecostal sermon, this man is a marvel. The way he puts all this together, it is as though he must have been preaching for forty years. This is a sermon not only full of truth, but experience in the way in which it’s structured and put, in everything about it. But no, it is his first sermon. So there is a blend here, not only of the inspiration of the Spirit, but God using a man's natural inherent capacities. But Peter are was not only a preacher, he was a theologian.
We marvel when we consider the apostle Peter. Here he was, by the time he writes this epistle, a very seasoned, experienced preacher; an apostle, of course. And from his great experience he brings in this letter full of lessons. But of course the letter is given by inspiration of the Spirit of God. You have the wisdom of a seasoned preacher and his illustrations, but taken by the Holy Spirit of God and woven into a message, into a structure, which is beyond human composition. It is a marvellous then that you read these chapters of first Peter and they are plain and direct, and – you might be tempted to think – simple, and unadorned. Then you look again, and you find they are rich with illustrations. You look yet again, and you find running themes worked out and developed – not a sub-message, but intrinsically woven into the fabric of the epistle, which you can analyse and break up into sections.