I Peter Made Easy
Joyce Webb 2009
This is a study of the books of Peter. Peter was one of the 12 disciples. Peter wrote two books.
I Peter Chapter 1
I Peter1:1
Opening sentences: This letter from Peter is to the Jewish people who have become believers in Jesus as the Christ, the Messiah.
These people are Jewish but have believed that Jesus was truly God’s Son. They believe that He was the promised Messiah from the Old Testament prophecies.
Most of the Jewish people did not accept Jesus as God’s Son.
This letter will be passed from one group of Jewish believers to another through 5 cities. These Jewish people had lived in Jerusalem before, but they left Jerusalem to live in other cities. They left because other Jewish people in Jerusalem were making trouble for them because they believed in Jesus. Some of the believers were killed or put in prison.
I Peter 1: 2
Peter gives a greeting to these Jewish believers.
He tells them that God the Father had chosen them to be His children. God knew that they would choose to believe in Jesus.
Peter told them that the Holy Spirit has been working in their hearts. The blood sacrifice that Jesus made on the cross has made them clean from sin. The Holy Spirit has helped them please God.
Peter said that he prayed God would bless them a lot and give them freedom from worry and fear.
They left Jerusalem because of what the other Jews were doing to them. They were still afraid that those Jews may follow them and make trouble, or maybe in this new place they would still have people who would make trouble for them.
Peter prays for them that God will give them peace of mind.
I Peter 1: 3
Peter said that it is because of God’s mercy we have been “born again”.
Peter uses the words “born again” in the same way that John used those words in the book he wrote.
St. John 3:3 Jesus was talking to a man named Nicodemus. Jesus said, “Unless a man is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
Nicodemus was surprised! He said, “How can a man go back into his mother and be born again the second time?”
Jesus told him that flesh (body) is one thing, but the spirit is another thing.
We are born with a body by our mother, but God gives us the spirit of life. The spirit of us must choose what to believe about God.
Jesus said in St. John 3:16, that whoever believed in God’s Son would not perish (die), but would have eternal life.
Believing that Jesus is God’s Son and that His blood sacrifice on the cross can wash away our sins—-is being “born again” in our spirits.
The spirit is born into God. The spirit now believes and in connected to God. God forgives us and accepts us because we accepted God’s Son.
Peter said that now we belong to God’s family.
Now we live with the hope of eternal life.
We have hope because Christ is risen from the dead. Jesus had the power to rise from the dead and He will raise us up from the dead in the last days.
I Corinthians 15:20 “Christ is risen from the dead, he is the first of them to rise.” vs. 22 “As Adam died, all men die. In Christ all men will be made alive.”
I Corinthians 15: 44, 45 These verses tell that we are “sown” –meaning like a seed is planted in the ground. When we die, our bodies are buried in the ground like a seed is put in the ground.
Our natural bodies are put in the ground, but some day our bodies will be raised up—like Jesus was—to a new spiritual body.
Vs. 45 “The first Adam was made a living soul, but the last “Adam”—Jesus Christ–was made a quickening spirit.” A spirit that gives life.
I Thessalonians 4: 16 “..and the dead in Christ shall rise first.”
In the last days of time, Jesus will come in the clouds and will take all believers to heaven. First, those who have died will go up, then those who are alive will go up.” I Thessalonians 4: 15-18
When we die, our bodies go into the grave. Some day those bodies will be given new life and be changed into a body like Jesus had.
I Corinthians 15: 51-55
Vs. 51 “we shall all be changed”
vs. 52 “when the trumpet shall sound, the dead shall be raised incorruptible (a body that cannot rot),
and we shall be changed.
For this corruptible (a body that can rot) must put on incorruption (a body that cannot rot) ,
and this mortal ( a body that can die) must put on immortality ( a body that cannot die).”
Colossians 3:20-21 “…we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall change our earthly body, that is to be made like his glorious body.”
When we die, our bodies are in the grave, but our spirits go to be with God.
II Corinthians 5:8 “….to be absent (away) from the body, and to be present with the Lord.”
Our spirits go to be with the Lord when they leave our bodies. Our spirits wait in heaven. Some day–when the trumpet sounds–our old bodies will be made new and we will continue with Jesus forever doing whatever things God has planned for us.
We do not understand everything about how we will look when our spirits go to heaven when we die.
If our bodies are not resurrected until the time Jesus comes —-then what do we look like in heaven while our bodies are still in the grave?
We do not become angels. Angels are special beings that God created before the time of people. Angels are spirits that can take on any body shape they need to do the job God has sent them to do.
Angels have been seen to be very, very large shining beings with swords, they have been in man size shining beings looking like a man, they have come looking like real men, they have come looking like a woman or a child. They are talked about in Daniel, Ezekiel, and Revelation as having very special bodies and shapes.
Angels are “messengers”. They carry messages for God, or do work for God. God is their “boss”, we can not tell an angel to do something.
Angels are many thousands or maybe many millions of years old.
I Corinthians 15 tells us that we will have a new body that will never die—-this happens when Jesus comes and the resurrection happens.
So we still do not know what our spirits will look like in heaven until we get our new resurrected bodies. When we think of a spirit—we think of a presence that does not have a body. The Bible does not tell how all of this is going to be.
In the Old Testament, there was a special waiting place for people who were true to God when they died. It was called “The Bosom of Abraham”.
There could have been a place of waiting for those who did not obey or believe in God. The New Testament speaks of Jesus going to “preach to those in prison”–speaking of those who had died.
In the Old Testament animal sacrifices were made for their sins.
A person who sinned should have to die for his own sin. God told them that they could take an animal and offer it in their place for sin. The animal would die instead of them. The animal’s blood for their blood.
Remember in the Garden of Eden that God told Adam and Eve that if they ate of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil they would die?
And when they ate of it—they brought the punishment of death on themselves.
God loved them and wanted to give them a way to save them, so He let them bring an animal instead.
The animal was not a person. God promised Adam and Eve that some day He would send a person to take the death punishment for them.
Genesis 3: 15 God is speaking to the serpent vs.14 –God said that He would put feelings of being enemies between the serpent and the seed of the woman –“seed” means a child—a child to come— this seed shall crush your head (serpent’s head) and the serpent would hurt the heel of the woman’s child.
God planned to send a child–a special child–from the woman someday. This child would become a man who would be a sacrifice for all men who sinned.
Just as the animal had to be a perfect animal, so the person who would be the sacrifice had to be a perfect person. Adam was perfect when God made him—-but he sinned. Jesus would be the perfect person who would not sin. He would stay perfect. He would be the perfect sacrifice to pay for all men’s sin.
When the people in the Old Testament made animal sacrifices—-the animal’s blood (death) was accepted by God instead of the person’s blood (death).
The animal sacrifice was a substitute for a person. But because it was not a person, the animal sacrifice was not “perfect”—it was not completely as it should be.
Only the perfect man, Jesus, could make a perfect person’s blood sacrifice. Then the sacrifice would be “perfect” and complete.
Then the sin was washed away. The death punishment was paid.
So when Old Testament people died, their sin had not been removed by animal sacrifice. They were still waiting for the perfect person sacrifice to pay the death punishment.
When they died they went to what was called paradise or Abraham’s Bosom—it was a waiting place for people who believed and trusted God to forgive them.
There could have been a part of this place of waiting—for those who did not believe—now that Jesus had died on the cross for sin—Jesus must have preached to these people to give them a chance to accept His sacrifice.
It is hard to understand these verses about Jesus going down into the lower parts of the earth to bring up certain ones of them to heaven. And the verses that talk about Jesus going to preach to those in prison—meaning those who had already died.
When Jesus died and the death punishment was paid. Then Jesus’ blood washed away the Old Testament people’s sin, too. Now that their sin was washed away, they could enter into heaven.
So after Jesus died, he went into the lower parts of the earth, those who were captive (held), and he led them into heaven. Ephesians 4:8-10
Our earthly bodies wait in the grave until the trumpet sounds at the end of time, our spirits are in heaven waiting for our new changed spiritual bodies.
What we are like while we wait—we really do not understand it all. But the real us—our spirits—will be with Jesus in heaven, so we do not need to worry how it will all work out.
I Peter 1:4
God has kept the wonderful gift of eternal life for His children. It is kept in heaven for you. It is pure and holy, and will not change or be lost.
I Peter 1: 5
We will be kept by the power of God, through our faith, until we get to heaven. Heaven will be shown to us in the last days of time.
I Peter 1: 6
So be glad! There is wonderful joy ahead, now (on this earth) you are having trouble and temptations, but there is joy in the future.
I Peter 1: 7
Your faith is being tested. It feels like a fire. Like when gold is put in the fire to make it pure—-the gold is hot to burn out the things in it that are not gold. So your faith is tested with hard things to burn away anything that is not of faith.
Your faith is tested to see if you will choose faith in God or if you will give up faith and will yield to doubt, unbelief, anger, bitterness, or choosing pleasure of this world, or living your own way.
Your pure faith is worth more than gold.
Gold is only good for this world. It is not eternal. You will not need gold in heaven. Gold will not buy your way to heaven.
Your faith is more important than gold, because your faith will take you to heaven. Your faith is what will get you eternal life.
Gold is put in the fire to make it pure, so your faith is tested by hard troubles to make it pure and strong. Pure faith and strong faith keeps on believing God’s promises.
If we keep on believing and do not give up our faith and hope—we will see a great wonderful gift of life when Jesus returns to earth.
I Peter 1: 8
You love Christ, even if you have never seen Him. You trust Christ. You are happy and have joy that comes from God in heaven.
Peter is telling them that it is a good thing for them to love Christ even if they have never seen Him. Peter had seen Christ, so he knew Him personally. It is easy to love someone you have seen and known.
To love someone you have never seen is harder.
Many people love Abraham Lincoln. Why? They have never seen him. Their love is because of what they have read. They have believed what others have said about Lincoln. They trust what has been written.
Peter is telling what Jesus is like and what He did. He hopes these people will believe what he has said about Jesus and that the people will believe in Jesus and love Him.
There is a big difference between loving Abraham Lincoln and Jesus.
Abraham Lincoln is dead. His spirit is in heaven. Abraham Lincoln was a believer in Jesus—so we believe he went to heaven when he died.
Abraham Lincoln can not come to us and love us. Lincoln was a man and his spirit is in heaven waiting. He can not leave heaven. Even if he could—as a man–he could only come to one person at a time on earth.
Christ is not just a man. He is God. When we love Him, He comes to us in our spirits. His Holy Spirit comes to our spirit and we can feel His love and His presence near us and in us. He can come to live in millions of people around the world at the same time.
I Peter 1:9
The end of your faith of trusting Christ will be the salvation of your soul.
Our faith is not just for this world. Our faith is our “ticket” for heaven. It is the only thing that gets us into heaven.
We must keep our faith until the end of our life so we can go to heaven.
If you buy a ticket for a ride on a plane, train, or bus—-then you lose your ticket—you will not get a ride.
If you lose your faith before the end—or give up your faith— you will not be given eternal life.
Revelation 2: 10 “…..be thou (you) faithful unto death and I will give thee (you) the crown of life.”
Matthew 24: 13 “But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.” Matthew 10: 22 Matthew 13: 13
There are more verses in other places in the Bible that say the same thought.
I Peter 1: 10. 11, 12
The prophet/preachers of the Old Testament talked about the Messiah, Promised One, Anointed One who was to come.
They said the Messiah would come, that He would suffer, that He would have great glory, but they did not know when or how it would happen. They would have liked to know and understand it, but it was hidden from them. It was for a future time.
They were told these things would happen in the future–in your time—not theirs.
And now the Good News has been told by those who preached to you in the power of the Holy Spirit sent from heaven.
It is all so wonderful that even the angels are watching these things happen.
I Peter 1: 13 -16
So think clearly. Be serious. Hold on to your hope until the end when Jesus will return.
Obey God because you are God’s child. Do not go back into your own ways of doing sin. You did not know any better then, but now you must be holy in everything you do, just as God—-who chose you to be His children—is holy.
God said, “You must be holy because I am holy.” Leviticus 11:44
I Peter 1:17
You call on the Father in heaven; you need to live here on earth with fear (deep respect) for the Lord.
God will judge everyone someday. He will not have favorites. Everyone will be fairly judged.
I Peter 1: 18 – 20
You were not saved “redeemed” by gold or silver. You were not redeemed by the traditions (rules of religion) given to you from your ancestors (great grandparents).
You were saved “redeemed” by the precious blood of Jesus Christ. He was like a lamb that had no mark or spot on him–He was perfect.
Jesus’ death was planned before the earth was made. Peter says —But we have understood this plan only in our life time. Only after Jesus came and died and rose again and then went up into heaven—did the Jewish people understand all those Old Testament prophecies about the Messiah.
I Peter 1: 21
It is by Jesus that we have come to trust in God. We believe that God raised up Jesus from the dead, and gave Him glory; so that you can have faith in God.
I Peter 1: 22
You have made yourselves pure and clean and are obeying the truth through the Holy Spirit. You show true love to your brothers in the Lord.
Make sure you love your brothers in the Lord with a pure heart and with sincere love.
I Peter 1: 23
You have been born again. Not born again in the body which will die, but born of the spirit which will live forever. God’s word has promised it and God’s word will last forever.
I Peter 1: 24
People’s bodies are like grass and flowers that will die and be gone. Man’s glory, pride, riches, things he has done—will all pass away.
I Peter 1: 25
But the word of the Lord stands forever.
This is the word of the Lord that we have preached to you—the gospel about Jesus.