1 Peter

Chapter 3

vs 13

People don't generally go around kneecapping those who help poor people. Not to say that it doesn't happen. One of the critics of the early Christians said that he hated them for "stealing our poor people" - the suggestion being that the Christians were helping all the poor people before the majority religion had the chance (which they weren't using, by the way).

vs 14

That aside, even if we suffer, it's still a blessing, because we are sharing in the suffering of Christ. We are not called to fear suffering, because we're the ones who get to heaven at the end of it all. If we fear anything, it should be that these people won't get there.

Interesting sidenote - next time someone goes off about the Catholics and the Illuminati and the orbital mind control lasers, quote Isaiah 8:12 at them. I'm certainly saving it up in my arsenal, because I come across a good number of wierdos in churches I go to.

vs 15

Christ should be Lord. If you fear something, then your fear is putting that thing in Christ's place.

Interesting that our preparedness for answering people about our faith (hope) is in this context of not fearing, and putting Christ as Lord. To use the nationhood example again, it's the equivalent of stitching an American flag to your backpack whilst touring through the Middle East. People might not like it, but you're showing where your allegience lies. And when you do that, you'd better be prepared to have an answer for it! But unlike an American, we should do this with gentleness and respect :) <---- Note the smiley face. I am just making fun.

vs 16

Eventually, even as we defend our allegience to Christ, people will realise that their slander is pretty poor, and they'll feel ashamed. But that is contingent on our consciences clear - if we're being brutal and arrogant, then we're no better than themm, and they'll feel justified in their slander.

vs 17

A repetition of the betterment of suffering for doing good than for doing evil. This shows the importance to Peter of this idea - as my college lecturer said, they didn't have underlining or bold type on their parchments. If you wanted to draw attention to something, you repeated it over and over again.

He also brings into play God's will in our suffering. So don't go jumping out in front of cars for doing good. If you're doing good, suffering will come, you don't need to attract it.

vs 18

I think what Peter is saying here is that if we look at Christ's example, he died not because he was obnoxious or because he was looking for it, but because it was going to bring us to God. So I think that bit is a comparison to the previous idea about God's will for suffering, and once again showing us to use Christ's example in this.

As for the other half of verse 18...

vs 19-20

Wtf? I don't mean to make fun of the 'simple reading' argument, but this whole thing about Jesus' spirit ministering to "the spirits in prison" and what that has to do with Noah - there's just no such thing as a simple reading to that. Yes, there is an 'uninformed reading' of it, but I just don't think there's a simple answer to whatever this means. Sure, we know the story of Noah, but who knows what that has to do with the "spirits in prison"?

I'll give you what one commentator says: basically, between the time that Christ died and was resurrected, he went in spirit form down to hell - not to suffer for our sins - and while there he preached to all the evil spirits about how he had fixed the problem of sin, and rubbed their noses in it. The reason this is tied up with Noah is because that's when people were just doing evil all the time, and that was because the devils were tempting them to do it. I think that's mega-speculation, personally. But I don't have a better interpretation than that.

vs 21

Back to reality, and we're talking about baptism. Note that it's not baptism that saves you - washing dirt off your body doesn't do anything except keep you clean. It's the pledge of a good conscience toward God (which is what your baptism means) through Jesus Christ's resurrection that saves you!

vs 22

That same Jesus that saved us is up there in heaven commanding about powers, authorities and angels. That's not meant to make us feel good because he's still got something to do ("oh, how nice, he's found a hobby") - it's meant to make us feel safe because he's got everything under his control.