0 1 Peter Introduction
Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear; not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward. - 1 Peter 2:18

1 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

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