BOOK 60 OF 66 · GENERAL EPISTLES · KING JAMES BIBLE

1 Peter 1

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1 Peter 1 Overview

Peter writes to scattered believers as elect strangers and blesses God for a living hope through Jesus Christ’s resurrection and an incorruptible inheritance reserved in heaven. Their faith is tested by trials, yet they rejoice in Christ. Peter then calls them to holiness, reverent living, brotherly love, and confidence in redemption through Christ’s precious blood.

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Before you read 1 Peter 1

Coming from

James 5 closes with patient endurance, prayer, and restoration of a wandering brother.

In this chapter

Leads into

Peter calls believers newborn babes who should desire the word, living stones built into a spiritual house around Christ the chief cornerstone, and a chosen generation and royal priesthood meant to show God’s praises. As strangers and pilgrims they should abstain from fleshly lusts, live honestly among Gentiles, submit to human authorities, and follow Christ’s example when suffering wrongfully.

Key understandingExplore deeper

The inheritance is described as reserved in heaven while believers are kept by God’s power through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed.

Trials test faith but do not create the believer’s inheritance or earn redemption.

Major truths in this chapterExplore deeper

The new birth produces living hope

Christ’s resurrection grounds future inheritance.

God preserves His people

Believers are kept by God’s power toward the promised future.

Trials can refine faith

Present heaviness does not cancel future joy.

Redemption is through Christ’s blood

Not silver, gold, or inherited human tradition.

Connections to the rest of ScriptureExplore deeper

John 10:28–29

Jesus promises His sheep secure keeping in His hand and the Father’s.

Ephesians 1:13–14

The Spirit is the earnest of a future inheritance.

Hebrews 9:12

Christ obtains eternal redemption by His own blood.

What is clear, and where care is neededExplore deeper

Do not make trials the price of salvation

The inheritance is already grounded in new birth and Christ’s resurrection.

Do not turn holiness commands into the basis of justification

They are addressed to redeemed children.

Do not read ‘kept by the power of God’ as fragile self-preservation

God is explicitly the keeper.

Read 1 Peter 1 watching for…

Election and stranger language.

Living hope through resurrection.

The reserved inheritance.

Tested faith amid heaviness.

Precious blood and brotherly love.

Chapter outline5 sections

1-5Peter greets scattered believers and praises God for a living hope and reserved inheritance 6-9Trials test faith and produce praise while believers rejoice in unseen Christ 10-12The prophets searched concerning the grace and sufferings of Christ now announced by the gospel 13-21Believers are called to hope, holiness, fear of God, and confidence in redemption by Christ’s precious blood 22-25Believers are to love one another fervently because they are born again by God’s enduring word

Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia,

Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace unto you, and peace, be multiplied.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,

To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you,

Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations:

That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ:

Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory:

Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls.

Of which salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you:

Searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow.

Unto whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto us they did minister the things, which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven; which things the angels desire to look into.

Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ;

As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance:

But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation;

Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy.

And if ye call on the Father, who without respect of persons judgeth according to every man's work, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear:

Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers;

But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot:

Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you,

Who by him do believe in God, that raised him up from the dead, and gave him glory; that your faith and hope might be in God.

Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently:

Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.

For 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:

But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.

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1 Peter 1:19

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