#30SecondBible: 1 Peter

A Little Problematic

By Andy Meisenheimer

There’s a lot of reasons to look at First Peter sideways—what’s this about slaves obeying harsh masters because Jesus, or women not braiding hair because authority, or husbands being super nice to wives because they are weak—and so on. There’s things about the person who's suffered in the flesh, is done with sin, and the gospel being proclaimed to the dead. But this all makes Peter seem a little problematic, that if we suffer now for doing good, put our heads down and don’t make waves, Jesus will make it all ok in the end.

  1. When was a time you found the Bible to be a little problematic?
  2. What do you think it means to suffer in the flesh? What do you think it means to proclaim the gospel to the dead?

If Only He Knew Paul Better

By Andy Meisenheimer

It may be possible to squint hard and see the good in First Peter, but I like to imagine is the stuff Peter said to Paul in the infamous tiff they had in Antioch that Paul recounts in Galatians 2. I imagine Peter saying all of these things and Paul countering, “if I build up again the very things that I once tore down,” then what’s the point. Perhaps 1 Peter is just saying “be a better person, even if you suffer for it” in the only context he knows. If only he knew Paul better, in whom there is no slave or free, male or female, Jew or Gentile.

  1. What good can you see when you squint hard at First Peter?
  2. How do you think Peter’s words could have been different if he had known Paul better?

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