"But All The Cool Kids Are Doing It..." - 1 Peter 4:3-5

"3 For the time already past is sufficient for you to have carried out the desire of the Gentiles, having pursued a course of sensuality, lusts, drunkenness, carousing, drinking parties and abominable idolatries. 4 In all this, they are surprised that you do not run with them into the same excesses of dissipation, and they malign you; 5 but they will give account to Him who is ready to judge the living and the dead." - 1 Peter 4:3-5

     I think this passage is pretty straight forward.  Before you came to Christ, you lived in your sin.  Peter says that that time before Christ was plenty of time to spend on that kind of lifestyle.  Lust, drunkenness... He is describing a life lived chasing pleasurable but ungodly things, which is a life of idolatry.  There is so much more than that, and we are called to be separate from that.
     Now, I definitely get the sense that he's specifically talking about overindulging in alcohol and not talking about having any alcohol at all.  "Drunkenness and drinking parties" go hand in hand.  A drinking party is an event where the main point is to drink and get drunk, like the ones they have at college frats.  He's not talking about an event where people have a beer or two and no one gets drunk.  I think that strays into legalism.  Anyway...
     Peter then talks about how some in the culture will look down on you for not engaging in the same sorts of things they do, and that they might harass you about it.  But he reminds us that they will all have to be judged by God and justice will be served in the end.  It is not our place to enforce God's law on others, God will do that himself.  We can take a little comfort from that; that as we submit ourselves to others, and they cause us harm, in the end God will repay them, unless they turn to Him.

"A Slave to the Flesh No Longer" - 1 Peter 4:1-2

"Therefore, since Christ has suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same purpose, because he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, 2 so as to live the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for the lusts of men, but for the will of God." - 1 Peter 4:1-2

     Again, Peter directs us to emulate Christ.  Christ suffered in the flesh, and He did so because He was submissive to God's will, and because He loved others to the point of sacrificing Himself.  We are to arm ourselves with that same attitude.  It's hard, but we should view suffering as an opportunity to submit to God and love others.
     He talks about how fleshly suffering makes sin cease.  This is interesting.  I think what he is trying to communicate is that choosing to suffer in the flesh is robbing it of it's power.  If our flesh is naturally bent towards what it likes, and a lot of the things our flesh likes are sinful, then when we submit our flesh to God and even allow it to suffer, then God has the power and not our flesh.  Living for the will of God means denying our flesh and no longer being mastered by our lusts but by what God desires.

"The New Ark" - 1 Peter 3:21-22

21 Corresponding to that, baptism now saves you—not the removal of dirt from the flesh, but an appeal to God for a good conscience—through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 22 who is at the right hand of God, having gone into heaven, after angels and authorities and powers had been subjected to Him.

     Here Peter draws a parallel between the Ark, that brought Noah and his family salvation from the flood, with baptism and the saving work of Christ.  Water was often equated with death; especially large bodies of water.  To be a fisherman, as Peter was, was a perilous profession.  Many were not good swimmers, if they could swim at all, and people at the time had no concept of what might lie deep beneath the waves.  The idea of the being out in the ocean was terrifying for many.  Add to that the fact that the word had already been completely destroyed by a flood and it is easy to understand why water was equated with death.
     So here Peter says, just as the Ark saved Noah and his family, Baptism now saves you.  He goes on to clarify that it is not the literal dunking, not taking a bath and removing dirt from your body, that saves you.  No, what saves you is two-fold.
     First is the "appeal to God for a good conscience," that is the acknowledgement of our guilt and sin, and our call to God to do something about it.  In the greek, the word "appeal" is eperōtēma and it is more than just a question or call.  It holds within it a deep longing and desire.  It is an attitude change, a desperate call for rescue.  It is the feeling many of us experienced when we initially came to faith in Christ (what many call getting "saved,") whether that corresponded temporally with our physical baptism or not.  Historically, there was no gap of time between baptism and salvation in the early church, but somewhere in the many permutations of the church since then, a gap has formed where one may be "saved" for many years before being baptized.  I think this is because of a lack of proper understanding and education regarding baptism.  Baptism is important, but it is not most important though.  The second piece is the bigger piece.
     Secondly, we are not saved only through our own action of eperōtēma, but much more through the bigger action of Christ's death and resurrection.  Centuries before we would ever choose to acknowledge Him, Christ chose to die for our sins.  He chose us over Himself.  He chose us.  All authority was given to Him by the Father, and He laid it all down to die for us, and now He waits for us at the right hand of the Father, His victory over death forever sealed.  And so we are saved by both our action and His action, or better yet, His action and our reaction.

"God is Patient, We Should Be Too" - 1 Peter 3:18-20

18 For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit; 19 in which also He went and made proclamation to the spirits now in prison, 20 who once were disobedient, when the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah, during the construction of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through the water.

     Christ died to demolish sin; all sin.  He lived a perfect life and thus, He was perfectly justified in the sight of God.  And yet, He sacrificed that perfect life for all of us sinners.  He did it because He loves us and God wanted to bring us back to Himself.  He had to die to pay for sin, and so His body was destroyed.  His spirit however is eternal, just like each of our spirits.  This is where this passage gets a little hard to parse.  Verse 19 and 20 in particular are hard to interpret but let's see if we can take a stab at it.
     One might be tempted to conclude that verse 19 is talking about Christ dying and going to Hell to preach to the spirits in prison.  This interpretation however is contrary to the rest of scripture.  This verse and a few others have been misinterpreted even by very respected sources.  The line, "He descended into hell" even appears in the Apostles Creed, but I still insist that that is inaccurate.  (I am not going to spend this post going into all the reasoning behind my argument, as I could spend hours and hours writing a paper on the topic, and that is not really the purpose of this blog.)  For one thing, Peter mentioning Christ going to Hell seems way off topic and a needless, confusing aside that would detract from his main point here, and so I don't think that is what he is saying at all.  Furthermore, there would be several reasons why Christ preaching in Hell would be fruitless.
     The first is that if He did preach in Hell to those already in prison, He would basically be just rubbing their eternal damnation in their faces since they are already in Hell and missed their chance to avoid it.  That does not sound like something Jesus would do-  It would serve no righteous purpose.
     Secondly, from all the study I have done of scripture, it is my firm belief that there is no one currently in Hell... yet.  Hell is very real, and was created for Satan and his demons as the ultimate punishment- eternal separation from the presence of God.  But Satan is not down in Hell right now, He is active on the Earth.  It is Satan's goal to take as many of us with him as possible.   Peter speaks of it later in Chapter 5.  But one day, Satan and all those who reject God will be cast into the lake of fire (Hell) after the final judgement of God spoken of in Revelation 20.  But what about all the verses that talk about people dying and going to hell now?  If you look at the original language, you will see that the word for hell (lake of fire) is not used, the word "Hades" (grk) or "Sheol" (heb) are used for both righteous and wicked people, and it just means, "out of sight, the place of the dead."  This place of the dead is described in Luke 16, and existed as a holding place for both the damned and the faithful- the damned because none are in hell until judgement, and the faithful because they cannot enter the presence of God until sin is paid for by Christ.
     Thirdly, Jesus tells us with His own mouth where He went when He died.  This can be found in Jesus' reply to the believing thief on the cross, "Today, you will be with Me in paradise."  That word paradise literally means "garden," but figuratively refers to a place like the garden of eden before the fall, untouched by sin, and is referenced two other times in Scripture.  Once in Revelation, speaking of where the Tree of Life is.  And once in 2 Corinthians, as the place Paul was caught up to but allowed to return from, as long as He did not speak of it.  This cannot be Hell, whether or not it is Heaven or not i'm not sure.  I think it could be Abraham's bosom, as described in Luke 16, or it could be heaven since with Christ's death, sin was also put to death, so then the faithful would be justified and allowed into the presence of God, but again, that might not happen until final judgement either.  So "paradise" may just refer to the side of Sheol where the righteous go, where Lazarus was.
     So now that we've talked at length about what Peter does not mean, let's talk about what he does mean.  We need to think about how this fits into the chapter we just read.  He was just talking about the attitude we are to have towards others, how we are supposed to have a strong quiet patience in the face of unbelief.  Think of his command to wives, and how they are to behave with their unbelieving husbands.  I think he is drawing a parallel back to Noah and how people did not believe him and yet he persevered and was justified by God when the flood came.  Noah preached to the world around him that if they did not change their evil ways they would be destroyed and they continued to do whatever they wanted to, yet he continued to be faithful and build the ark and preach until the day it began to rain.  Peter is a jew, and he is writing mainly to jews that acknowledge Christ as Lord, so he frequently draws parallels to prominent Old Testament figures.  Here is my best paraphrase of verses 19 and 20 above - I also simplified verse 18 to keep the context:

 18 Jesus died for sins so that He might bring us to God, His body was put to death, but He continued to live in the Spirit.  19 In the same way, alive in the spirit,  He (who is eternal and existed from the beginning before He ever took on a body) preached to the sinners in the days of before the flood through Noah (those who are now dead and in prison.)  20 Those who were disobedient are now dead, even though God was very patient, giving them 120 years of Grace from when Noah began to build the ark and preach until the great flood, but only 8 people were brought to safety through the flood in the ark. 

     Peter is talking about how Christ was speaking through Noah.  It makes sense to me in context because He has already made reference to Christ speaking through people in the old testament back in 1 Peter 1. It also makes sense to me that Peter would bring attention to God's patience in giving man 120 years to get their act together.  In Genesis, God decides that the people of the earth have gotten so bad that they need to be destroyed and He can only find one family, Noah's, that live righteously.  Stay with me-  Many years before that, a man named Methuselah is born, and God prophesied this coming flood through Him.  Not through his mouth, but through His name.  The name Methuselah means. "His death shall bring judgement."  You may recognize that name, because Methuselah is the oldest recorded person to ever live according to the Bible; he lived for 969 years.  And, the year He died was the year of the Great Flood.  God displays his mercy by prolonging Methuselah's life longer than any other man lived to hold off judgement as long as possible to give people time to repent!  God's patience and grace is what we should model to those around us, even those who disagree with us or even hurt us.
     This passage is one of the more difficult that I have ever had to dig in but I really seek to understand what is being communicated in a given passage and not just what It appears to say on the surface.  You may disagree with me, and that's fine, but I think this interpretation is the most consistent with the rest of scripture as far as I can tell.  For more on this, I recommend this succinct article by Pastor John Piper.  Thanks for reading!
   

"Suffer For Good" - 1 Peter 3:13-17

"13 Who is there to harm you if you prove zealous for what is good? 14 But even if you should suffer for the sake of righteousness, you are blessed. And do not fear their intimidation, and do not be troubled, 15 but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence; 16 and keep a good conscience so that in the thing in which you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ will be put to shame. 17 For it is better, if God should will it so, that you suffer for doing what is right rather than for doing what is wrong." - 1 Peter 3:13-17 NASB

     It can be a frightening thing to answer evil with good; to allow ourselves to be taken advantage of; to not seek our own safety...  God wants us to trust Him more than we fear suffering, and more than we fear evil.  We must trust that we are His and that because of that, we cannot be destroyed.  Even though we may suffer in this life, it is temporary compared to the blessing we receive in eternity with Him.  No power of Hell or Earth, no evil can ever snatch us out of His hand.  And so we have freedom in placing our trust in Him.
     If we have truly surrendered completely to Christ as Lord of our hearts, then we will be ready to respond in love.  "Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks," Christ says in Luke 6.  If our heart is filled with Christ, then Christ-like words will come out of our mouth.  Our attitude towards even our persecutors will be Christ-like.  And even more, responding to them with gentleness and respect will be like a slap in the face.  If they are looking to get a rise out of you, you will rob them of that.  Or, they may just not know what to do with your love.  Not that we should be motivated by trying to stick it to our enemies, but it's a nice little bonus to doing what is right in this instance.  I kid, but really, showing Christ's love in this way can cause them to think... It can seriously affect people!
     If anything is a guarantee in this life, it's that we will endure some amount of suffering.  Some of us will suffer more than others, but all of us can choose to handle it well.  Peter ends by saying that if God should will it that you suffer (and you almost certainly will, Jesus said so,) it's better to suffer for doing what's right, than to suffer for doing what is wrong and get what you deserve.

"Do Right, Even When You Are Wronged" - 1 Peter 3:8-12

8 To sum up, all of you be harmonious, sympathetic, brotherly, kindhearted, and humble in spirit; 9 not returning evil for evil or insult for insult, but giving a blessing instead; for you were called for the very purpose that you might inherit a blessing. 10 For, “The one who desires life, to love and see good days, Must keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit. 11 “He must turn away from evil and do good; He must seek peace and pursue it. 12 “For the eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous, And His ears attend to their prayer, But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.” - 1 Peter 3:8-12 NASB

     After giving instructions to servants, wives, and husbands, Peter now broadens his lens to every Christian.  He calls us to be harmonious, to work together with and partner with those around us in peace.  He calls us to be sympathetic, to understand and empathize with those around us, and to be conscious of their feelings.  He calls us to be brotherly, to treat those around us as if they are our own family.  He calls us to be kindhearted, ready to take care of the needs of others.  He calls us to be humble in spirit, not exalting ourselves above anyone else but viewing ourselves as less important than others.
     Verse 9 is again a restatement of Paul's writing in Romans, "do not repay evil for evil, but overcome evil with good," which we referenced earlier in our study.  Our natural instinct is to seek what is "fair."  When someone wrongs us, we often wish the same wrong be inflicted on them, even though it does nothing to heal the original wrong that was committed against us.  God's call is higher than our natural instincts, and we are called to bless those that insult us.  We are called to seek the good of those who seek our destruction.  We do it because we trust God to be our righteous judge.  We allow ourselves to be taken advantage of because we know God will take care of us.
     Peter goes on to reference Psalm 34 as support.  This passage basically says that if you want to live a long life and be blessed, then you must seek peace.  You must keep yourself from evil, even in the midst of evil treatment.  God favors those who do right, and opposes those who do evil, so if you wish to prosper, do what is right.

"To Husbands..." - 1 Peter 3:7

"7 You husbands in the same way, live with your wives in an understanding way, as with someone weaker, since she is a woman; and show her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life, so that your prayers will not be hindered." - 1 Peter 3:7 NASB

     Much of what Peter commands of wives and servants applies to husbands as well.  Again, he starts off with the words "in the same way" linking back to the previous verses.  Husbands are to adopt the same selfless, Christ-centered attitude towards their wives, but it plays out differently.  Men and women were created with distinct roles and differences.  That does not mean that one is inherently more or less valuable, in fact, they are both essential to God's design.  They are complementary.  This is evidenced in Genesis; the only thing God said was "not good" was Adam being alone, and he created Eve to bring balance and harmony.  He created man and women incomplete, so that they would always recognize their need for someone else.  It was a picture of our need for God, and we more fully reflect His nature in this way; He is three persons in one God, and when man and woman come together, they are two persons with one flesh.
     So I just said that men and women are equal but different, and then the next sentence of this verse says women are "weaker."  "But Weaker isn't equal," you might say.  Well, let's look a little deeper into what Peter is actually saying.  The phrase, "as with someone weaker" is better literally translated as "as the weaker vessel."  We are often referred to as vessel's by God, and it's done for a few reasons.  The first is to show purpose.  A vessel's chief purpose is to be filled.  We are created with a purpose and find fulfilment in being used by God.  A second reason is to show that we are empty, that we have a need for something other than ourselves to be complete.
     So why is woman referred to as a weaker vessel?  Well, first off, let's clarify something.  She is not even called a weaker vessel directly in this verse... Husbands are called to treat their wives as a weaker vessel.  This is much more a statement on how the Husband's attitude should be.  I'll come back to this in a second...  To understand what Peter is getting at, let's consider something for a second.  Say you have two vessels: a plastic paint bucket, and a teacup made of fine china.  The plastic paint bucket can be filled with heavy things, can be used to haul rocks to the backyard, or filled with soapy water to wash your car.  It's very utilitarian.  If you drop it on the ground, whatever is in it might spill, but the bucket probably won't break.  You'll be able to use it again.  It can take a beating.  Now the tea cup is different.  The teacup is beautiful.  The teacup was expensive.  You bring it out at your fanciest parties and you serve delicious hot tea to your guests.  It makes them feel comfortable.  Then you carefully wash the teacup and place it in the china cabin to display its beauty even when it's not being used.  If you dropped the tea cup it would likely shatter.  The teacup and the bucket are inherently different.  No one puts a bucket on display.  When not in use, it lives in the garage somewhere.  The teacup is not utilitarian, it is treasured.  God is calling Husbands to treat their wives as treasure.  To be careful with them, to keep them safe.  Just as the teacup is washed carefully and placed in the china cabinet in a place of honor, so are Husbands to treat their wives.  Does this mean women need to be dainty and can't be tough?  No-  Because like I said before, this is about the Husband's attitude towards his wife.  He needs to cherish his wife, and treat her with respect and sensitivity.  He needs to treasure her and do whatever he can to let no harm come to her.  That is a high order.  That takes being purposeful.  I never owned china before I got married, but with my wife came some very old china she inherited from her grandmother.  She loves to make tea and sit with one of those teacups in the morning.  When I am doing dishes, I don't just hastily was that cup and toss it in with the rest of the pots and pans.  I usually was it separately and place it alone to dry, somewhere where it won't get bumped by another dish, or fall to the floor.  I treat it with a special respect because it is a more delicate object.  I am purposeful about how I treat it.
     Moving on, there is even more embedded in the language here that indicates that men and women are equal in the sight of God.  The line "show her honor as a fellow heir" is huge.  We've already talked a little about what it means to be an heir back in chapter 1, but we'll revisit quickly.  In those days, the first born son was the rightful heir to his father's estate.  To the first born son was passed the land, livestock, money, and charge of the family.  Women received nothing.  In fact, if a woman didn't marry, she stayed at home with her parents and if her parents died she could even end up on the streets.  Contrary to the culture at the time, Peter says here that christian women are co-heirs.  They are equally deserving of all the inheritance of God and that they should be treated that way.  That is very much in contrast to the way that the culture at the time viewed woman.
    So Husbands are to cherish and protect their wives and treat them as of equal value in the sight of God.  And also, failure to do so might hinder their prayers...  What's that about?  Well, the answer comes in a few of the following verses, so i'll leave that to tackle for a future blog post.