What the book is
1 Peter is written to believers scattered across five provinces of Asia Minor, most of them Gentiles, who were being slandered and mistreated by their neighbours for their new faith. Peter tells them who they are: foreigners and exiles in this world, but a people God has claimed as his own, with an inheritance kept for them in heaven. He calls them to holy lives, to do good even to those who wrong them, to submit within the structures of their day, and to be ready to explain their hope. Its best-known words are about that identity:
But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people God has claimed as His own, so that you may declare the great deeds of the one who called you out of the darkness into His amazing light.
Who wrote it, and when
The letter is from “Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ” (1:1), who calls himself a witness of Christ’s sufferings (5:1). It was written “through Silvanus” (5:12), who may have helped write it or carried it, or both, and it sends greetings from “my son Mark” and from “she who is in Babylon” (5:13), most likely the church in Rome. Many accept it as Peter’s, written from Rome before his death under Nero in the mid-60s AD, with Silvanus’s help explaining its polished Greek. Others think it was written later in his name, around AD 70–90, pointing to its style and to the spread of the church it assumes.
How the book is laid out
- A living hope (1:1–12): born again through the resurrection of Jesus to an inheritance that cannot perish, and joy even in trials.
- A holy people (1:13–2:10): be holy, love one another deeply, grow like newborn babies, and be built as living stones into a spiritual house.
- Living among outsiders (2:11–3:12): good conduct, respect for authorities, slaves under harsh masters following Christ’s example, wives and husbands, and blessing in place of insult.
- Suffering for doing good (3:13–4:19): ready to give a reason for the hope, Christ who suffered once for sins, and the fiery trial.
- Elders and the flock (5): shepherds under the chief Shepherd, humility, the roaring lion, and greetings.
How Open Word Bible translates 1 Peter
Christ’s proclamation to the spirits in prison (3:18–22). These are some of the hardest verses in the New Testament. Christ was put to death “in the flesh” and made alive “in the spirit”, and “in that spirit he also went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison”, who disobeyed in Noah’s day. Who were the spirits, and when did he go? The decisions mark each question uncertain. The draft reads the spirits as most likely the rebellious spiritual beings of Noah’s time, to whom the risen Christ announced his victory, and the footnotes give the other readings: the people who died in the flood, Christ preaching through Noah, or a descent to the dead between his death and resurrection.
The dead (4:6). “The gospel was preached even to those who are dead”: most likely believers who heard it while they were alive and have since died. The footnote gives the other readings, among them the dead to whom Christ proclaimed after his death.
Baptism (3:21). Baptism saves, not as a washing of the body, but as “the pledge of a good conscience made to God”. The word is rare, and the footnote gives the other readings, “an appeal to God for a good conscience” and “the answer of a good conscience”.
Babylon (5:13). The decision explains why “Babylon” is most likely a name for Rome, as in Revelation, and the footnote gives the other places suggested.
The key words. Grace, glory and salvation are kept the same throughout. For the picture behind “brace your minds for action” (1:13), literally “girding up the loins of your mind”, see Girded loins and burning coals.