1 Peter
Introduction

1 2 3 4 5

Contradictions
Good Stuff
Injustice
Interpretation
Women
Family Values
Cruelty and Violence
Absurdities
Prophecy

First Peter for Skeptics

The author claims to be the apostle Peter (1:1), but most scholars think it was forged. Illiterate (Acts 4.13), Aramaic-speaking, first century, Palestinian Jews didn't write letters in Greek.

There are a few things in First Peter that should be of interest to skeptics. Slavery is approved in 2:18, women are insulted in 3:1-7, and believers are told not to run away from skeptics in 3:15.

Here are the highlights.

• We are all predestined to be saved or damned. We have no say in the matter. It was all determined by "the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ." 1:2

• The author believed that he was living in the "last times." 1:5, 1:7, 1:20, 4:7

• "Gird up the loins of your mind." 1:13

• "The precious blood of Christ ... was foreordained before the foundation of the world." 1:19-20

• "All flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away." 1:24

• "Submit yourselves ... to the king." 2:13, 17

• Slaves should "be subject to [their] masters with all fear," to the bad and cruel as well as the good and gentle. 2:18

• "Wives, be in subjection to your own husbands." 3:1

• They should use "chaste conversation, coupled with fear." 3:2

• They are not to braid their hair, wear gold, or put on any "apparel." 3:3

• A wife should call her husband "Lord" as Sarah did. 3:6

• In relation to her husband, the wife is "the weaker vessel." 3:7

• "Be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you." 3:15

• God drowned everyone on earth except for Noah and his family. 3:20

• Things may get rough for Christians, but it will really be hell for nonbelievers. 4:17-18

• "The devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour." 5:8