Greetings From Peter

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Greetings From Peter

1 Peter 1:1-2 (ESV)

Scripture:

Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who are elect exiles of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood: May grace and peace be multiplied to you.

 

Devotion:

          Reading these words of greeting one may not suspect that there is much here that could be used in a devotion. However, on closer inspection there is much here that one can comment on in a devotion.

          We begin by looking at the name Peter. Peter’s birth name was Simon, however, Jesus renamed him Peter when he chose him to be a disciple and reaffirmed that name in Matthew 16:18 after Peter had confessed Jesus to be the Christ. Peter despite his flaws and failures eventually lived into the name Jesus had given him. We see him leading the other disciples at Pentecost and afterward in the book of Acts.

          Next, Peter calls himself an Apostle of Jesus Christ. Now the word apostle simply means a messenger who has been sent by someone. But here the word means someone who has been sent by Jesus Christ himself. This means that the words which he writes are to be deemed specially important. As one commentator observed, “The opening phrase reminds the readers, then, that Peter is writing in his role as an apostle of Jesus Christ: the words are also God’s words, and we should receive them as that.”[1]

          Then Peter greets the churches to whom the letter is addressed. He greets them as “elect exiles” here. Probably the exile is not that of being political exiles but rather to being spiritual exiles because of their allegiance to Christ. The churches listed in this order because that would be the order they would have been delivered by a courier. They form a rough circle beginning and ending at ports from which the courier might have sailed from and back to Rome where Peter was at the time of the writing of the letter we presume.

          The second verse contains a trinitarian allusion. As it states that the believers are called to salvation by the “foreknowledge of the Father”, the “sanctification of the Spirit”, and “for obedience to Jesus Christ”. This gives a rough outline of how God works through all three persons of the trinity to bring about salvation in the lives of believers.

          These verses are meant, as is the entire letter, to be of great encouragement both to its first hearers and to us wherever we find ourselves today.

 

Prayer:

          Heavenly Father, thank you for using Peter to write this letter of encouragement for us. May we receive these words as your words to us today. Help us to seek to work out our salvation with fear and trembling according to your foreknowledge, being sanctified by your Holy Spirit, in obedience to every word from your Son our Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. 


[1] Wayne A. Grudem, 1 Peter: An Introduction and Commentary, vol. 17, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1988), 52.

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