1 Peter 1

1 Peter was written by the disciple Peter. We have seen a lot of him in the Gospels because he was very close to Jesus. He was a huge influence as a leader of the early church. Fun fact: my Bible tells me he was married, which means Jesus called him away from his wife for three years. In 1 Peter, he discusses hope, suffering, family life, and how to act like a true Christian. When he wrote this, Nero had outlawed Christianity, and Peter was eventually crucified upside down because he did not even feel that he was worthy enough to be executed in the same way as Jesus. But in the letter, he is able to point to how Jesus handled suffering since Peter witnessed it first hand. Here is 1 Peter: http://www.esvbible.org/1+Peter+1/

Peter uses a different greeting than Paul. First, Peter says he writes to the temporary residents of the world. I really like that because as Christians, we know that our time on Earth is brief. CS Lewis says it's a breath. Going on, he says that God chose them long ago to live with the Holy Spirit and be obedient to Jesus. Then, he and Paul similarly bless the lives of the readers.

Peter talks about what great joy comes from worshipping the One, True God. He gave us new life through Jesus. We can be confident in this new life because Jesus came back to life; therefore, death cannot hold back God. He can truly do anything. In this new life, we have an inheritance from God that cannot be destroyed. In fact, nothing can happen to it because it is kept safe in Heaven. God will give it to us when we die. The gift is Salvation. The gospels all did research about Salvation, and they found their answers in the prophets. God spoke what is useful to Christians through the prophets, and it was not until the Gospels that people could make sense of some of the things that the prophets said God told them. It is through the Holy Spirit that we can now understand the things that were once a mystery. This salvation is something to rejoice about. We rejoice even though we have not seen Jesus. Despite that, we are so happy that we cannot even express in words how great God has been to us. That just further shows the power of God. He can still do work through Jesus without a physical body present on Earth.

A warning: live a holy life because we are now of Jesus, and He lived a holy life. Not only that, but He commands us to live holy lives as He did as an example. We must spend our temporary time on Earth keeping in mind that Jesus will judge the Earth at the end of all time. He will judge each and every one of us as we die. We didn't gain freedom from death by paying money or because we come from a certain lineage. We have only gained life because Jesus, blameless and perfect, shed His blood in our place as the most holy sacrifice so that no sacrifices were needed after that point in time.

Peter echoes what Jesus tells as the second greatest command: love your neighbor. He tells us that we should love fellow believers especially because we are all family through Christ. Because of the Word, we are saved for all eternity because the Word lasts forever. Meanwhile our human selves will die like the grass and the flowers. When you think about it that way, doesn't all this petty hate seem pointless?