1 Peter 1:1

Peter is a Greek name (lit. Petros, meaning a stone or rock). No one else in the New Testament has the name Peter, though Peter called Christians stones in this epistle (1 Peter 2:4-5). In Aramaic "stone" is the word cephas. Jesus gave the name Cephas to Simon (The Greek transliteration of Simeon, Peter’s Hebrew name) as a prediction of what this apostle would become (John 1:42; Matthew 16:18).

The word "apostle" has both a technical and a general sense in the New Testament. It refers to the Twelve and Paul, but also to others who went out as the Twelve and Paul did to represent Jesus Christ (cf. Acts 14:4; Acts 14:14). Peter was one of the Twelve. He wrote with full apostolic authority.

Peter called his readers aliens (NIV strangers) to introduce this self-concept into their minds. In this letter he emphasized that Christians are really citizens of heaven and our sojourn here on earth is only temporary (1 Peter 2:11; cf. Genesis 32:4; Psalms 39:12). The Greek word perepidemos (alien) contains both the ideas of alien nationality and temporary residence (cf. 1 Peter 2:11; Hebrews 11:13).

"Parepidemoi are persons who belong to some other land and people, who are temporarily residing with a people to whom they do not belong. . . .

"Aliens are often held in contempt by the natives among whom they dwell." [Note: Richard C. H. Lenski, The Interpretation of the Epistles of St. Peter, St. John, and St. Jude, p. 21.]

"This is an epistle from the homeless to the homeless." [Note: Michaels, p. 9.]

The particular group of Christians to whom this epistle went first lived in the northern Roman provinces of Asia Minor (modern western Turkey), north of the Taurus Mountains. [Note: See Ernest Best, 1 Peter, pp. 14-15.] Peter Davids estimated that when Peter wrote this epistle about one million Jews lived in Palestine and two to four million lived outside it. Asia Minor held the third largest concentration of Diaspora Jews after Babylon and Egypt. [Note: Davids, p. 46.]

This was originally an encyclical letter written for circulation among the addressees. The sequence of provinces corresponds to the route that the bearer of the original epistle would have normally followed. [Note: F. J. A. Hort, The First Epistle of St. Peter 1:1-2:17, pp. 157-84; Selwyn, p. 119; Goppelt, p. 4.] This is also true of the seven cities addressed in Revelation 2, 3.

Peter’s readers were God’s elect (Ephesians 1:4; cf. Deuteronomy 14:2; Isaiah 45:4). One writer believed "chosen" (NASB) should be connected with "aliens." [Note: D. Edmond Hiebert, "Designation of the Readers in 1 Peter 1:1-2," Bibliotheca Sacra 137:545 (January-March 1980):65.] However most translators regarded "chosen" as a noun, not an adjective, as the NASB suggests. [Note: E.g., Bigg, p. 90.]

". . . the letter develops a unified thematic focus: the existence of Christians in a non-Christian society and overcoming that society by being prepared to bear oppression, i.e., to ’suffer.’

"This thematic focus, i.e., the question of how to live in society-the fundamental problem of every social ethic-was for Jesus’ disciples from the very beginning an acute problem." [Note: Goppelt, p. 19.]