Not Quite Time for “Christians vs. Lions”

In this you rejoice, even if now for a little while you have had to suffer various trials, so that the genuineness of your faith—being more precious than gold that, though perishable, is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.  vvs. 6-7 

Reality.

Those coming to believe in the message preached by Peter, by Paul, by the other disciples, they are suffering trials for their faith.  This is not the full blown persecution that Christianity is going to suffer in the next generations of the church under the Romans.  This is not yet time for that videogame “Christians vs. Lions”.  That will come.

Peter is writing to Jews, in the synagogues of the Roman Empire.  He is preaching Jesus as the embodiment of the Messiah predicted in the Old Testament.  The Church and Synagogue have not yet formally broken apart.  But it is coming.

In the Book of the Acts of the Apostles, we see the conflicts that are beginning to arise within the Jewish faith concerning the Jesus-Preachers.  Read Acts 4: 1-22, 5:12-42, and 12: 1-19 and you can follow the evolution of the divisions within the Jewish faith caused by the sharing of the gospel message.

It is against this backdrop that the Jews of the Diaspora are receiving the gospel preached to them.  Peter is acknowledging their struggles-he has had his own-and seeking to put them in the context of the greater power of God.