1 Peter 1 Studies

For those who may wish to ‘study’ this chapter, the following simple resources are provided for you. Each chapter is divided into a number of studies and each study or passage has a simple four-Part, verse-by-verse approach, to help you take in and think further about what you have read.

Passage: 1 Peter 1:1-2

1 Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ,

To God’s elect, exiles, scattered throughout the provinces of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, 2 who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to be obedient to Jesus Christ and sprinkled with his blood:

Grace and peace be yours in abundance.

A. Find Out:

1. How does the writer describe himself? v.1a
2. What two designations does he first give his readers? v.1b
3. Where are they? v.1c
4. What was the Father’s part? v.2a
5. What was the Spirit’s part? v.2b
6. What was Jesus’ part? v.2c

B. Think:

1. What does Peter’s description of his readers in respect of their relationship with God tell us about what is in his mind?
2. What does his comment about their relation to the world suggest?

C. Comment:

       Very often the opening words of the New Testament letter writers give a clue to what is on their heart to say in the main body of the letter, and Peter is no exception.

     He describes his readers as “strangers in the world, scattered”, indicating a people in an alien environment, often isolated, people in need of a lot of encouragement. Christians often wonder why they have difficulties because they forget they ARE in an alien environment and ARE often isolated, a minority in a non-Christian situation!

      But Peter also uses words of encouragement. First, “elect” and “chosen”. We are what we are because God chose us, so first and foremost HE is on our side. God knew us even before He made the world, He looked into the future and saw that we would respond (see Eph 1:4). We are part of His long-term plans and purposes, and we can be secure in that. We sometimes need to take our eyes off the short-term or immediate events and get a new focus on God’s long-term purposes that include us.

     Then there is the “sanctifying work of the Spirit”. It is God who is working in us to change us on a long-term basis to become more like Jesus (see 2 Cor 3:18), and this is all possible because Jesus shed his blood to redeem us – all HIS work, for us. Wow!

D. Application:

1. We do live in an alien, hostile world.
2. God is for us, working in us. We are part of His plans. Rejoice.

Passage: 1 Peter 1:3-9

3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, 5 who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 7 These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith – of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire – may result in praise, glory and honour when Jesus Christ is revealed. 8 Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, 9 for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

A. Find Out:

1. What has God the Father given us? v.3b
2. What two things has that opened up for us? v.3c,4a
3. How are we shielded by what until when? v.5
4. What may we have to cope with now? v.6
5. Why? v.7
6. What do we do and with what results? v.8,9

B. Think:

1. What part does faith (v.5,7,9) play in our lives?
2. What “hope” have we got?
3. How do our lives bring glory to God according to these verses?

C. Comment:

      So much in these verses! Pray you can take it in!

     First of all, WHAT GOD HAS DONE: He has given us new lives through a new birth (also Jn 1:12 ,13) and that has opened up a new future for us. It has given us “hope”.

      Biblical hope is a sure confidence in what will be. When we are younger we may “hope” that we reach the age of sixty say, but in fact we may not reach it; that is not Biblical hope. As a Christian we hope we will see God face to face in heaven. That IS Biblical hope, for it is a sure confidence that we have, that is built on God’s declared word.

       We’ve been given this hope through the word and that was confirmed by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. What God did for Jesus He can do for us. At the end of our lives we are sure we will go to heaven to receive our inheritance, what God has promised for us, life eternal with Him, and nothing can spoil that or take it away.

      For the moment that may seem far away, as we face the trials and tribulations of life in this sinful world, yet it WILL be!  

      This is where “faith” comes in, that response to what God says. It’s by faith that we hold on, it’s by faith we persevere, it’s by faith that we receive our salvation from God, both here and in eternity. Faith is believing and keeping on believing what God has said.

D. Application:

1. In the face of trials, remember our origins, born of God.
2. In the face of trials, remember our future, an eternal destiny!

Passage: 1 Peter 1:10-12

10 Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care, 11 trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of the Messiah and the glories that would follow. 12 It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you, when they spoke of the things that have now been told you by those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Even angels long to look into these things.

A. Find Out:    

1. Of what does Peter now speak? 10a
2. What two things had the prophets done? v.10b
3. What were they trying to do? v.11
4. What were they shown? v.12a
5. When was this applicable? v.12b
6. How had this come & who longed to understand it? v.12c

B. Think:

1. Of whom or what had the prophets spoken?
2. Who was prompting them?
3. What was he doing?

C. Comment:

       Peter has been speaking about salvation, directly (v.5,9) and indirectly (v.3 new birth, v.4 inheritance) and now goes into the foundation of our salvation. God had declared His means of salvation, centuries before through the prophets of Israel. When we look at the prophecies that had puzzled the rabbis over the centuries, we find there are over 300 that were fulfilled by Jesus!

      As these men spoke, they were being prompted by the Holy Spirit, and therefore in the midst of their words for the present were reflections from heaven as to the future purposes of God, yet to be worked out.  Both they and the rabbis realised that they were saying things that had clear future import, yet they were unable to get a coherent picture of what God had in mind.

      This, says Peter, was all pointing to Jesus, and now that He has come and the Gospel has been preached, we can now see how all these things pointed to what has recently happened.

      We should never think of Jesus’ coming as a last desperate act of God to redeem a fallen world. It was part of the clear strategy of God, formulated even before He formed the world, to be brought into being at the appropriate time in history (see v.20 and Rev 13:8b, Eph 1:4. Jn 17:24, Tit 1:2, 2 Tim 1:9). The Gospel did not originate 2000 years ago but before Creation!

D. Application:  

1. The Old Testament declares God’s long-planned intent.
2. The New Testament reveals God’s fulfilment of His intent.

Passage: 1 Peter 1:13-21

13 Therefore, with minds that are alert and fully sober, set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at his coming. 14 As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. 15 But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; 16 for it is written: ‘Be holy, because I am holy.’

17 Since you call on a Father who judges each person’s work impartially, live out your time as foreigners here in reverent fear. 18 For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. 20 He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake. 21 Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God.

A. Find Out:

1. What 3 instructions does he next give? v.13
2. What are they not to do? v.14
3. What are they to do instead and why? v.15,16
4. How are they to live and why? v.17
5. How weren’t they and how were they redeemed? v.18,19
6. How is Jesus described and what does he enable us to do? v.20,21

B. Think:  

1. How are our past lives described?
2. What motives are given for living differently?
3. What guidance is given on how to live?

C. Comment:

       There is enough here to meditate upon for a week! However…. note first of all, Peter’s CALL TO HOLINESS. 

• Initially it is the call to look to the future – consider what we will receive as Jesus is revealed in us and in the age to come.
• Then there is a call to forsake the past : don’t let your old wrong desires prevail.
•  Then come instructions on how to live in the present: be self-controlled, be holy (different, separated to God), consider yourselves strangers in this world.

    Second, see the MOTIVATIONAL ENCOURAGEMENT that Peter gives: there is:

• the hope (sure confidence) of meeting and receiving from Jesus (v.13) that  should spur us on, then
• there is to be obedience to the written command in the Law (v.15), to be holy, then
• we are to consider our home is in heaven (v.17) so that the pull of the earth is not so strong, then
• we are to remember what we had before was an empty way of life  (v.18), then
• we are to be moved by Christ’s death for us (v.19), then
• we are to remember we are just part of God’s long term plans (v.20) and finally
• we are to remember that God raised Jesus from the dead and glorified him in heaven.

      All these things are to act as a spur, as an encouragement to help us leave the past, look to the future and press on in the present.

D. Application:

1. The call to us is quite clear: be holy!
2. Consider each of the encouragements to that.

Passage: 1 Peter 1:22-25

22 Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for each other, love one another deeply, from the heart. 23 For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God. 24 For,

‘All people are like grass,
    and all their glory is like the flowers of the field;
the grass withers and the flowers fall,
25     but the word of the Lord endures for ever.’

And this is the word that was preached to you.

A. Find Out:

1. What have we done? v.22a
2. So what are we to do? v.22
3. Why, what has happened to us? v.23a
4. How did it happen? v.23b
5. What are men like? v.24
6. Yet what is God’s word like? v.25

B. Think:

1. How did we “purify ourselves”?
2. How were we “born again”?
3. What is the connection between the two expressions?

C. Comment:

       We need to pick up each of the phrases here.

      First “you have purified yourselves”. How? When we came to Christ. We have been “purified” when we were forgiven and cleansed by the blood of Jesus (see 1 Jn 1:9).

     Second, “by obeying the truth”. The truth here was God’s word, the Gospel, and the prompting of the Spirit of Jesus as he led us into salvation. As we obeyed what he put before us, so we received what God gave, His salvation.

      Third, “You have a sincere love”. We do love one another because the Spirit of Christ now dwells within us (e.g. 1 Cor 6:19). God is love (1 Jn 4:8), so His love is in us for one another.

      Fourth, “love one another deeply”. God’s love is in us, but we have to express it and let it flourish from deep within us, not a mere surface, token love.

       Fifth, “you have been born again”. Peter echoes what John told us in his Gospel (Jn 1:13, 3:3). Being a Christian means God has enabled you to start all over again with a new life-power source within. You are a new person.

      Sixth, “not of perishable seed”. What God has put in us will not shrivel and wither away, it is His very own word which will go on and on, the truth, and that endures. The truth came to us and changed us and will continue to change us. Yes!!!

D. Application:

1. God’s word came to us and convicted us and brought us to Him.
2. God’s word keeps on changing us, until we see Him face to face.