Jesus is the Messiah OR Jesus is a 55 Gallon Drum Liner’s Worth of Nutbag!

By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, ⁴and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, ⁵who are being protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

The lynchpin of the entire Christian faith is the resurrection of Jesus Christ, Jesus the Messiah, from the dead.  This is the method of God’s mercy to bring new birth and living hope.  The new birth promised begins with the new birth of Jesus at His resurrection.  He was, to use that worn out yet loaded term, literally, born again. 

Now choose.  You believe Jesus was resurrected, brought back from the dead, by the power of God, or you don’t.  If you believe it, the system makes sense, Jesus the final blood sacrifice, Jesus the instrument of God’s perfect mercy, Jesus the First Born of the New Creation.  If you don’t believe it, if you consider Jesus simply to be a ‘moral leader’ or a ‘teacher of good’, my question is how?

If it wasn’t all true, Jesus exhibited suicidal tendencies, he was definitely delusional, probably manifesting a full blown break with reality.  He advocated very strange religio-cannibalistic behavior and the Romans did us a favor by killing him.  Despite all that, he was the charismatic leader extraordinaire, because he inspired his followers to perpetuate the most effective cover up in history.  That charismania continues to this very day, because people who don’t believe in the whole death to life thing can ignore all the crazy talk and still praise him for his ethical teachings.  You can’t have it both ways. 

Jesus is the Messiah OR Jesus is a 55 gallon drum liner’s worth of nutbag!

The resurrection of Jesus from the dead is the lynchpin of Christianity.  It is the ultimate demonstration of God’s merciful power, to return us from the judgment of our sins-death-to life, but not simply as it is now, but a life made new in Jesus.  From here, we look to what that means for us.

To quote Ripley, “A man came back from the dead…believe it, or not.”

Salvation History, Rooted in the Jewish Faith

By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, ⁴and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, ⁵who are being protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

God is giving us a new birth.  The implication is that the old one is all messed up.  Peter is writing to a Jewish audience in the First Century.  What was the expectation of the “old birth”?  What was the expectation of the “living hope”?  There was not the distinction of Christian thought and Jewish thought at that time as there is today.  How do we understand this?

There are expectations of a Messiah throughout the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament.  Peter’s familiarity with that book (the New Testament had yet to be written) draws a consideration of basing these understandings on what he would have understood.

A new birth contrasts to the old birth.  The old birth returns to the beginning of Genesis, to the creation of humanity-its birth, and its fall and separation from God.  Under the ‘old birth’, was there hope in making things right with God?  Yes, through the Law of Moses.  There was a system of animal sacrifice, blood for blood, to provide a substitute to atone for sins committed.  The ‘living hope’ seems to a sacrifice that continues to live.  And Jesus is the provider of both, as we are to see in the next phrase.

But this is the foundation of interpreting the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.  The foundation is that in God’s great mercy, God gave a new birth and a living hope.  At the time of its writing, these expectations were drawn from the Jewish audience to whom Peter is writing.  These expectations were not made up by Peter as he wrote. 

What disturbs me, as a Christian, is the divide we have today from the roots of our faith.  That divide makes Christians responsible for horrible atrocities committed against our Jewish brothers and sisters.  But without God’s covenant with and care of the Jewish faith, we Christians would have nothing.

I thank the Lord for the gift of the whole of our Scripture, the entire unfolding of Your will.

Mercy; God Reaching Into The Muck 1 Peter 1: 3-5 or so...

By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, ⁴and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, ⁵who are being protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

 “By his great mercy…”  This is the reason for all God has done for humanity.  It has been done out of mercy.  If not for mercy, there is condemnation.  This is the black and white (to use an outdated metaphor), good and bad, the absolutes of God’s perfection.  Obey or die.  It is that absolutist mentality that has led many to despair that God doesn’t care.  It is that same mentality that has led many others to believe they can kill in God’s name in some warped sense of God’s justice.

The experience of life is an experience of shades of gray, between good and evil.  For we, the broken sinners who make up humanity, we are coming from the evil side and seeking justification that all our bad behavior has shades of goodness within.  Systems of sacrifice, codes of behavior, obligations, these are all means by which we, as humans, seek to reach levels of goodness, higher levels of acceptance, trying to achieve ever lighter shades of grey. 

God’s mercy flips that on its ear.  God comes to us from the good side, mercy reaching down into the broken, sinful lives of people.  We act from desperation, God acts without expectation.  There is not a code to follow, there is simply acceptance of His mercy.  He reaches down, will we take His hand?  He shines a light into the darkness and the darkness does not overcome it.

Sidebar: Are we really so bad and broken?  Well, we’ve tied the metaphor of “white and black as good and evil” to our racial profiles.  Slavery, murder, and genocide have all resulted from it.  We cannot even talk about ‘shades of grey’ without snickering comments about there being 50 of them (I rewrote this section three times to overcome my own amusement at the word play). 

Thank you Lord for reaching to us because we are never going to reach You.

Salvation History in Under A Hundred Words

1 Peter 1: 3-5 (approximately)

"By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, ⁴and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, ⁵who are being protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time."

Peter has blessed God.  Here, he lays out why this blessing is so appropriate.  In one sentence, he lays out the promise and process of God's saving plan for us all.  It is a primer to the whole of our faith experience.

By his great mercy…  “his”, God’s great mercy, His mercy being delivered to us instead of deserved judgment.

he has given us a new birth into a living hope …  It is a fresh start in our existence to a new and better way.

through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, ⁴… In this act, mercy, new birth, and a living hope come together, risen from the dead.

and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, …  Note how this language connects back to some of the descriptions of God!

kept in heaven for you, ⁵... There is an eternal aspect to this inheritance.

who are being protected by the power of God through faith … Fort Knox and the Bank of England have nothing on this protective power, but note its source.

for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.  “Last time”, sounds like the Book of Revelations.

Blessings, God, and Jesus…

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!”

 In one sentence, we see three of the most significant words in the Christian faith.  Moving forward, references to God and to Jesus, unless there is something new to unpack from them, will be connected to the context in which they arise.  That is, there won’t be a fresh posting every time “Jesus” comes up.

Peter is blessing God.  What comes next unpacks this thesis.  Peter starts by explaining why God is to be blessed, outlining what God has done in the lives of all believers.  That will carry us to verse 6 in the next sentence.  From there, Peter outlines why rejoicing is the proper response to these gifts from God.  This paragraph is completed by Peter’s recognition that although his readers are not eyewitnesses to Jesus, there is still reason to rejoice.

So we will look to this first theme of Peter’s letter, why the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is truly to be blessed.

 

Our 'Lord Jesus Christ' is NOT a Name in the Order of 'Neal Patrick Harris'!

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!”

He is ours and God is his Father.  That is the first thing to note about Jesus.  The second thing to note is that his last name isn’t “Christ”.  He is not Jesus Christ, son of Joseph and Mary Christ of Bethlehem and Nazareth. 

 

Some Greek is appropriate here.  Christ is from the Greek word “Christo”, which means “the Anointed One”.  So, he is Jesus, the Anointed One.  The Anointed One refers across the Bible to the Messiah, in the Old Testament this is he who is promised by God to redeem God’s people.  Priests and kings, servants of God, were also anointed in the Old Testament, but the Christ, THE ANOINTED ONE, has unique significance, combining the powers and responsibilities of both offices.

 

As our “Lord”, Jesus is our Royal Ruler, our King, our Boss, and our Master.  O Captain, my Captain…Jesus is he.  It is a class difference (divine versus human) and can easily rub against our democratic ideals of all people being created equal.  Jesus, being God and human, is outside our usual parameters for defining ‘people’. 

 

“Jesus” is the best part.  It is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew name “Joshua”.  Joshua (when translated from the Hebrew, means “God saves”!!) was the war leader of the Israelites who led them into the Promised Land.  There is an entire theology of name significance and historic parallels that can be built between Joshua and Jesus. 

 

So, to sum up, “our Lord Jesus Christ” becomes ours-belonging to us-our King and Ruler, Joshua (like the kick-butt guy in the Old Testament) who is the Anointed One of God and Promised Messiah to save everybody.  Our Lord Jesus Christ is much easier on the ears.

And Neal Patrick Harris is pretty cool too.

How Do We Understand God the Father?

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!”

“The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ…”  Our focus is on God and Father.  They are the same ‘person’ in the Trinity, but the second helps to define the first.  When we say “God”, we are attempting to define the undefinable.  Here is one attempt:

Q. 7. What is God?

A. God is a Spirit, in and of himself infinite in being, glory, blessedness, and perfection; all-sufficient, eternal, unchangeable, incomprehensible, everywhere present, almighty; knowing all things, most wise, most holy, most just, most merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth.

 

This is given courtesy of the Westminster Larger Catechism.  What are not included here are the fourteen footnotes outlining a summary of the biblical passages from which this description of God is drawn.

 

Peter narrows what he wants us to understand about God in this sentence as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.  God here is the parent-figure.  Here is the wall we run into: Father?  What about Mother?  Is God a male at the expense of the female? 

 

So, consider metaphor.  The bible uses language we understand and are familiar with in an attempt to establish a relationship with God (The bible writers were never interested in helping us ‘define’ God).  On the one hand, God is neither male nor female.  On the other, male and female are created in God’s image.  To understand God as Father is to understand God as Mother, is to understand God as Parent.

 

But God is a particular kind of Parent.  God is NOT abstract.  Therefore, if we were to update the language of the Lord’s Prayer, I would not like opening the Lord’s Prayer with “Our Parent who art in heaven…”  I would prefer “Our Father and Mother who art in heaven…” 

 

But, I don’t use that language.  I use the traditional male dominant language of “Our Father who art in heaven…”

 

Now we are about to go off track, no longer connecting to God and Father, but to sinful males and females.  I am not going there today.

 

The metaphor of Father and Mother as connected to God is rooted in the definition of God, in Question 7 of the Westminster Catechism.  Some of the words that really appeal to me are ‘wise, holy, just, merciful, gracious, and longsuffering (a really cool if ancient word for ‘patience’).

 

In other words, God is the ideal Father and Mother.  In our sinful world, Father and Mother are loaded with all the baggage of our sinful natures.  If you are coming to God and the only image you have of a ‘father’ is the abusing bastard who turned the life of your whole family into a living  hell or the only image you have of a ‘mother’ is someone who decided your family was not worth her happiness and disappeared, you are not coming to God to argue about gender issues in divine naming.

 

You are coming to God to find healing.  You are coming to God to learn what a father and a mother can truly be.  You can look at the mothers and fathers of families around you where love exists and you can find that love for yourself in God.  The image of parent can be redeemed as surely as Christ has redeemed us all.

 

But that is a story for tomorrow.

Blessed Be…

 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!

Blessing is like thanking, but more.  It is an offering of goodwill, an offering of joy and praise, an offering of celebration.

 

A blessing, to bless, to offer a blessing, is "religious gift-giving".  The blessing might be confused with ‘grace’ said over a meal, but it is different.  Blessings come from God.  At first glance, it might seem counter intuitive to be blessing God. 

 

Examples may help.  Jesus is a blessing from God.  Salvation is a blessing from Jesus.  Hope in Jesus is a blessing from the Holy Spirit.  My wife is a blessing to me.  My kids are blessings to me.  The act of reflecting on the blessings of life can make someone realize again just how much they have been…well…blessed.
A blessing is not limited to who can deliver it.  As a pastor, I have been asked to bless a number of things, to add God’s blessing as His annoying henchman, as his minister.  A blessing can be a person, a thing, it can be a short devotional phrase, it can be anything that brings with it benefit to those who receive it.  In turn, it can be delivered by any whose intention is sincere.

Blessing God, blessing He who has everything is…is it even possible?  But, on the other hand, is it not the most natural act in the world?  According to the Westminster Catechism, a foundational teaching document of the church, the highest reason for our being here is “to glorify God and fully enjoy God forever.”  To bless God, as Peter is doing, is to offer God our goodwill, our joy and praise, our offering of celebration, or, to glorify Him.  And the blessing we receive in return is to enjoy God forever.

How Does One Start An Pastoral Letter?

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!”

It is a fitting way to open his letter, in praise of God.  In the opening, there was reference to God, to Jesus, and to the Spirit.  Here, we will look more closely at God and at Jesus, how they relate, and who they are to Peter’s, and our, faith. 

Blessed be… Blessings are usually considered in the bible as flowing to us from our God.  Peter here is placing the blessings upon our God.  What does that mean to us?

… the God and Father… We consider our God and the role of our God as Father.  It is certainly not the exclusive role of our God, but one way in which He has revealed Himself to us.

… of our Lord Jesus Christ!  Such is the central role of God in the writings of Peter.  It certainly does not exhaust who God is, but instead is a way for Peter to bring focus to where the infinite wonder and power of God is brought to bear.

“So, in order to say hello…”

Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ,

To the exiles of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, ²who have been chosen and destined by God the Father and sanctified by the Spirit to be obedient to Jesus Christ and to be sprinkled with his blood:

May grace and peace be yours in abundance.

These are verses 1 and 2, the first sentence, Peter’s greeting to his intended audience.  Having gone back through the various posts on the various pieces of this greeting, I realize that I should have started with this kind of an overview.  But this is not a 'do over' event, it is learning.  When entering into God's Word, there is meaning in the words, the terms, the phrases, the sentences, in the very structure of each book.  I hope God opens my eyes to see more of these amazing things as we progress.     

Moving forward, I am going to go sentence by sentence, (NOT verse by verse) starting with an overview, ending with a connector to what came before.  One tidbit, in Greek, there is no punctuation as we know it.  Letters are pretty much run-on sentences, the structure defined by the verb forms.  It is different from English, which is rather highly structured.  I should note that verses are convenient ways to divide the text, but they are NOT part of the original and can sometimes be confusing if assumed to be sentence structure.

So, sentence 1, vss. 1 and 2 of 1 Peter:

Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ… Peter is identifying himself and establishing his credentials, an apostle of Jesus.

To the exiles of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, ²…   Peter is now identifying his audience, they are Jews dispersed from the Promised land-historically defined as “the Dispersion”, with geographic boundaries, in this case, the Roman provinces in what we know as Central and Northeastern Turkey.

who have been chosen and destined by God the Father…  This couplet implies two ‘levels’ of selection by God, the All-Father.  One is historic and theological, that these are Jews, God’s chosen people.  The second is theologically significant to the current ministry, that they are destined, indicating a more focused selection within God’s Chosen People.

and sanctified by the Spirit…  ‘Chosen and destined’ are an external mechanism, given down by God, sanctification by the Spirit is an internal mechanism, a manner of being made holy by God’s Spirit, that expression of God that lives within people who believe in Him.

to be obedient to Jesus Christ and to be sprinkled with his blood:  This is what we are chosen, destined, and sanctified to do, be obedient to Jesus Christ, God’s Son, which is the demand of every covenant, every agreement that God has made with us AND to be sprinkled by his blood, the method of offering blood for blood, life for life, the sacrifice of a substitute for the punishment demanded when we are not obedient-our very lives.

May grace and peace be yours in abundance.   Peter is writing to this audience, defined historically, geographically, theologically, and redemptively to continue to give them the truth of Jesus Christ.  Grace and peace come through the process he has just laid out in his introduction.

Time to take a breath...

“Hi! I’m Peter, I Will Be Your Apostle Today”

²who have been chosen and destined by God the Father and sanctified by the Spirit to be obedient to Jesus Christ and to be sprinkled with his blood:  May grace and peace be yours in abundance.   3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, ⁴and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you,

"Grace and peace", this is what Peter is wishing to the Exiles of the Diaspora in the central and northern parts of what is today the nation of Turkey.  And he wants them to have it in abundance.  That is a good, Bible-letter kind of greeting.  Paul says much the same kind of thing when he opens his letters.  It is like a Hebrew greeting of “Shalom”, “Peace”, or, in Arabic, “Salaam Alaikum” “Peace be with you.”

The desire of peace connects all three of the ‘desert religions’, Judaism, Islam, and Christianity.  But what does it mean?  And where does it come from?

Peter pairs peace with grace.  Grace is the free gift that comes upon us through the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ and, as Peter just stated, being ‘sprinkled with his blood…’  That is a nice Christian phrase, but what is ‘grace’ supposed to accomplish?  My understanding of its biblical use is that God’s grace is how God has forgiven us our sins without our paying the judicial price for those sins. Have you heard the rule, “If you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime?”

We’ve done the crime and God has graciously-by His grace-forgiven us and not only kept us from punishment, but ultimately remembers our sins no more.  The process for this is by the substitute of a Lamb, as was the process of Old Testament blood sacrifice, but this Lamb of God is our Lord Jesus.

In a word-grace, Peter is summing up the weight and measure of God’s forgiveness.  And peace?  Peace is the fruit of grace.  We have peace with our God because of the grace provided via the death and resurrection of Jesus. 

Peace with one another?  In the light of how all three faiths express the desire for peace when we greet one another?  In the light of a world where there is terror in Paris and threats to our own nation?  Doesn’t seem likely for us humans.  Thankfully, with God, all things are possible.

“Sprinkled with his blood”

²who have been chosen and destined by God the Father and sanctified by the Spirit to be obedient to Jesus Christ and to be sprinkled with his blood:  May grace and peace be yours in abundance.   3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, ⁴and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you,

The life is in the blood, so says our God.  This was said to Noah.  When animals are taken to feed we who are humans, the blood is to be poured out, the life is not to be consumed.  In the sacrificial system of the Old Testament, where life for life was taken, but where animals served as substitutions for humans sacrificed for their own sins, the blood was sprinkled upon the altar, a sign and symbol of life offered to God.

When Jesus died upon the cross, his blood was spilled, life for life for us all.  He is the Son of God, he is the one worthy to be sacrificed on all our behalves, the final sacrifice according to the Law of Moses, one sacrifice, once for all for us all.  The sacrifice of Jesus is the substitute, making atonement with our God, to make things right with God once and for all.

This is the significance of being sprinkled with his blood.  Jesus is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world.  As the lamb was sacrificed, so was Jesus sacrificed. 

It is the blood spilled with the body broken that we commemorate at the Lord’s Supper. 

The blood of Jesus sprinkled on the exiles, as the blood was sprinkled on the altar, connection of the Temple in Jerusalem now directly to the Exiles of the Diaspora.

Jesus’ blood was spilled that I might be forgiven for my sins.  Such is the power and the love.

Obedience-Not the First Word I’d Think of if Someone Asked What Makes Me Happy.

²who have been chosen and destined by God the Father and sanctified by the Spirit to be obedient to Jesus Christ and to be sprinkled with his blood:  May grace and peace be yours in abundance.   3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, ⁴and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you,

So, in order for Peter’s audience to be obedient to Jesus Christ, first, they must be chosen and destined by God, then sanctified by the Spirit.  But isn’t obedience to Jesus Christ a choice?  When I give my life to Jesus, am I not bending my will to that of God’s Only Son?  I mean, after I have made the choice, then certainly the power of God is invited in to help, but isn’t it up to me to make the first move?

Praise the Lord it is not!  Peter is being very clear to lay out for the exile community that coming to Christ is a journey that starts with God, sanctified by God’s Spirit, before obedience comes.

What is obedience to Jesus Christ?  It is obeying that which Jesus taught us.  It is learning from the example of his life and love and sacrifice how we ought to model our lives and behavior.  It is obeying the commands Jesus gave to us, like the Great Commission-going out to make disciples of all the world, like the Great Commandment-love God and love neighbor.  That part is easily defined (BUT it is NOT the easy part).

But there is a journey to coming to obedience.  God begins to work on the heart long before someone commits their life to Christ.  The sanctification of the Spirit, the process of becoming holy, of molding life as something worthy for God, can come before a decision to give one’s life to Christ ever comes. 

It comes as a frustration with what is, a basic disappointment with the way the world functions around us.  It is a desire for a better, more ethical, more loving, more joyful way of being than the world provides.  It is in obedience to Jesus Christ that the frustration is overcome, that the disappointment is turned back, that the desire is fulfilled.

“Sanctified”-Godly-vocab-aphobia: the fear of Big Bible Words

Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To the exiles of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, ²who have been chosen and destined by God the Father and sanctified by the Spirit to be obedient to Jesus Christ and to be sprinkled with his blood:  May grace and peace be yours in abundance.   

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,

We continue to narrow Peter’s audience in this phrase.  They are Exiles of the Diapora, they are chosen and destined by God, now they are sanctified by the Spirit.  This process of being sanctified is then to be obedient to Christ and to be sprinkled with his blood.  Obedience to Christ, sprinkled by his blood, these speak to the salvation won for us by the death of Christ and the means-obedience-by which we become followers of Christ.

To be sanctified is “to be made holy”, a process that, for Peter, comes by the Spirit, the Holy Spirit.  

So, being sanctified by the Spirit seems like a Pentecost experience, like when the Spirit came upon the disciples at the beginning of the book of Acts, turning them into apostles, bold to preach the message of Jesus Christ.  The Spirit came upon Moses, allowing him divine power to lead God’s people.  The Spirit came upon the artisans who created the tabernacle, allowing for divine power to artistically create.  The Spirit came upon King Saul, causing him to prophecy like the band of prophets, another manifestation of divine power.

So being sanctified, if we are to define it as a process of being made holy by the Spirit of God, is a process by which divine power comes upon those so touched.  And the difference between the Old Testament and the New Testament is that this sanctification process happened to only select people called to great things in the Old Testament narrative.  With Pentecost, the Spirit became available to all believers.

So Peter, in his greeting, is laying out what has happened to these exiles to whom he is writing.  They were chosen and destined by God, they were sanctified by the Holy Spirit.  But sanctification is not an end to itself, this coming of divine power, this coming of holiness, it leads to something more.  It leads the exiles “to be obedient to Jesus Christ and to be sprinkled with his blood”.

Those phrases we will consider next.

“chosen and destined”, Redundant or Something Else?

Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ,To the exiles of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, ²who have been chosen and destined by God the Father and sanctified by the Spirit to be obedient to Jesus Christ and to be sprinkled with his blood:

“…chosen and destined by God the Father…”-referring back to the exiles of the Dispersion, but now narrowing the audience.  It is part of a Trinitarian formula of greeting, identifying these exiles as picked, moved, and blessed by Father, Spirit, and Son.  Spirit before Son is an interesting consideration.

God the Father, God of the Old Testament, God shared by Christianity and Judaism (and Islam…a question for another study…), all powerful creator-being that transcends our understanding, who, in this case ‘chose’ and ‘destined’ certain exiles of the Diaspora for receipt of Peter’s letter.

Is this phrase simply a literary doublet, synonyms connected for emphasis, literarily commendable but theologically redundant?  Or is there a deliberate selection of these two words?

If we go back to the Greek…well, we are not!  One of the rules of this study is that it has to be pretty significant to the text to go back to original languages, Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic.  For example, where we might is in the name Peter, in Greek 'Cephas', which means “rock”, something Jesus deliberately plays with when he calls Peter the “rock” on which He will build His church. (It goes to show that Jesus likes puns, but that is another discussion). 

Peter speaks to the exiles of the Diaspora, Jewish folks scattered to a region of the Roman Empire.  They are chosen and destined, well, some of them are.  I believe Peter uses these two words to identify them deliberately, that there is common meaning but also distinct meaning in them.

First, God’s “chosen people” are the Jews, going back through the Bible, living out the promises God set for them.  Abraham was chosen by God, his family line became the nation of Israel.  They received the Promised Land.  That they are identified as exiles begs the question, exiled from what-the Promised Land of the Chosen People.   

Behind being chosen however is an entire history of covenants, promises made by God and by His ‘chosen people’.  Prosperity was connected to obedience, power tied to right service, with punishment when obedience and right service were not forthcoming from the people.

To be destined by God, to me, implies something more than being chosen.  Destiny implies a fixed endpoint, an inevitability of what is to come.  How many movies revolve around the paradox of “changing one’s destiny”?  It feels to me that Peter is identifying there is another step after being chosen, to being destined by God as well.

As the greeting develops, we’ll see the distinctions between ‘chosen’ and ‘destined’ played out.  The implication is that all the exiles are chosen by God, by virtue of being Jewish, but something more is required to be destined by God for the virtues and benefits of the faith.

Who Was Peter Writing To?

Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ,To the exiles of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, ²who have been chosen and destined by God the Father and sanctified by the Spirit to be obedient to Jesus Christ and to be sprinkled with his blood:

The Dispersion, or Diaspora, was a scattering of Jews out of the Promised Land and across the Roman Empire.  To be exiled is to be removed from your own land by threat of punishment or destruction.  These exiles were the first people that the apostles reached out to as they traveled beyond the Promised Land.  The Dispersion itself happened in various waves over the history of the Promised Land, going back to the Babylonian exile and before.

We understand the Christian faith to be one that is distinct from Judaism.  That came later in the church’s history.  Understand that the New Testament was written first to the Jewish communities that were inside and outside of the Promised Land.  Jesus did not consider himself to be outside of the Jewish faith, but a progression of the faith that was recorded in what we call the Old Testament.  

Given the audience, there are a certain conclusions that can be drawn for the interpretation of the whole of Peter’s letter.  First, the ‘exiles’ and the apostles have the same religious base, what we call the Old Testament.  So they would share a common theological language and tradition.  That would allow Peter to use some ‘technical shorthand’, words or concepts that can be summed up in a few words.  This does not make the letter inaccessible to us, but it requires Old Testament knowledge and familiarity. 

Second, this is not an evangelizing letter.  What I mean by that is Peter is not writing a letter meant to win new believers.  These exiles of the Dispersion are people with whom he has already had contact.  This letter follows up the instruction and teaching already delivered to them by Peter and whatever ministry team he might have with him.

Thirdly, it requires a certain focus on our part to understand what Peter has written.  This is a personal letter, a pastoral letter, sent from a leader of the church whose area of responsibility includes the regions discussed in the last post.  It is a follow up, most likely of personal visits and contacts, the establishments of Jesus-oriented communities within the larger Jewish communities-not to challenge the Jewish faith, but to continue its natural development as given by God, through Jesus Christ. 

The exiles of the Dispersion are people known to Peter, people Peter has grown in faith with, people Peter cares about as pastor and apostle.  It is an audience we can expect him to be open, honest, blunt, and passionate with.