Christians of the 1st Peter communities were in tension with, at odds with, and otherwise completely alienated from their society because of their Christian identity and practices.

The church of 1st Peter is a “love survival” community in which believers mediate God’s love to one another and sustain faithful discipleship in an alien world that does not, by and large, actively or eagerly consent to the good news of the gospel.

• Contents-Christians are not to withdraw nor incite conflict. In place is the call to submission (2:11-3:7) to governing authorities (2:13-17) and within family systems (2:18-3:7). Christian slaves were to endure unjust suffering and translate such suffering through the lens of Christ’s exemplary suffering. Such reflection could lead to the view that unjust suffering can lead to redemptive results.

• Jesus fully embraced suffering, being obedient in all things. “God has vindicated Jesus in the resurrection and ascension to share the very power and rule of God (3:21-22). To share in Christ’s suffering means the encouraging certainty of sharing in his vindication.”

Excerpt from Resident Aliens:

The Jews in Dispersion were well acquainted with what it meant to live as aliens trying to stake out a living on someone else’s turf. Jewish Christians already learned, in their day-to-day life in the synagogue, how important it was for resident aliens to gather to name the name, to tell the story, to sing Zion’s songs in a land that didn’t know Zion’s God . . .

. . . The church is a colony, an island of one culture in the middle of another. In baptism our citizenship is transferred from one dominion to another, and we become, in whatever culture we find ourselves, resident aliens.

• Hilary of Arles (c. 401-449): Here we see the two sides of the human being. The outer man is like the flower of the field which is mortal and will pass away, whereas the inner man lives forever by the power of the living God.

 

Invite your listeners to listen with you to 1st Peter as a baptismal sermon; explore and identify images and words that might suggest this reality.

• You could draw inferences about how Christians today may need to see themselves as resident aliens.

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[1] Warren Carter, New Proclamation (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2002), page 36.
[2] Ibid., page 36.
[3] Stanley Hauerwas and William H. Willimon, Resident Aliens (Nashville: Abingdon, 1989), page 12.
[4] In Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture XI  (DownersGrove: InterVarsity, 2000), page 81.