November 10 – 1 Peter 3:8-22

Main Focus: The hope we have in Christ enables us to remain faithful to our God even when it’s most costly.

The past two weeks we had some difficult stuff on politics and wives submitting to husbands. This week the passage trades buzzworthiness for straight up weirdness, with a one-off comment about Jesus preaching to the “spirits in prison.” We’ll get into that for your preparation purposes, but the biggest task this week will be not chasing that theological rabbit trail and sticking to the more straightforward path of the passage, which assures us that we have a steadfast hope in Christ that enables us to remain faithful even in the midst of suffering.

You’ll notice in the discussion questions that we save verses 19-20 for the end, and the question even says to ignore the bit about the “spirits in prison.” This is not to turn a blind eye to the text; if questions come up, feel free to chat about it. But we’ll mostly talk about other things because “spirits in prison” simply isn’t the main point of the passage. Notice how Peter begins in verse 18 by addressing how Jesus’s example enables us to stay faithful in the midst of suffering. At the end of 3:18 he talks about the spirit, and this kicks off his meandering course from spirits in prison to Noah to baptism, i.e. being saved from the midst of judgment (a motif that also connects the parting of the Red Sea with baptism in 1 Corinthians 10). This brings him to what we appeal to God for in baptism: salvation, as evidenced through Christ’s resurrection, and freedom from guilt over sin (“a good conscience”). If you keep reading to 4:1, there Peter returns to Christ’s suffering in the flesh, where he left off in 3:18. All that to say, 3:19-20 is a digression from the main point, and furthermore, there’s a lack of significant scholarly agreement about what exactly Peter is saying here.

The main point of this passage is addressing when followers of Jesus suffer for righteousness. 3:8 starts with some general counsel for the unity and compassion within the church, but very quickly gets to “not paying back evil for evil.” We’ll open discussion by talking about the various ways the passage calls us to behave towards others, then use the next question to zero in on why a forsaking of retribution is so important for the Christian life. Here Peter ties it in directly with our ability to obey God, to receive the blessings he has in store for us in Christ (he talks about these for a while by quoting Psalm 34 in verses 10-12), and to proclaim the gospel. On this latter point, note how quickly he gets from suffering for righteousness’s sake in v.14 to evangelism in v.15.

In discussion we’ve got three questions that should help us discuss the difficulty of the commands here as well as the way in which God might use faithfulness in the midst of suffering in our lives. That concept is also not without its difficulty—does 3:17 indicate suffering is God’s will? The short answer is “sometimes,” provided we understand all suffering in light of Jesus’s death on the cross for sin, which is the immediate cause of all suffering. “Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand” (Isa 53:10). On the cross we see the ultimate example of how God can remain holy (as in, not be the author of sin), while using mankind’s sinful actions to work out his plans.

As an aside, in much of this discussion we’ll need to take into account how costly following Jesus has been for Christians in other eras and still is for many Christians around the world. This is not to discount our experiences, but merely to admit that what we face in modern-day America, things like social ostracism, being thought of as silly or weak or stupid, even broken relationships, often feel so devastating simply because we don’t face anything worse.

When we suffer for righteousness’s sake, we’re ultimately faced with whether or not faithfulness to God is worth the cost. Within this we’re also faced with whether or not the camaraderie of a suffering savior is enough for us. He leads us by example, having suffered for us, “the righteous for the unrighteous.” Think about it this way: if Jesus is getting whipped and the only way to be with him is to stand beside him, is he worth facing the lashes too? If we look to the cross and find hope there—hope in our salvation, hope in forgiveness for sins—then we can also find hope in the midst of our own suffering, particularly when we suffer because we follow Jesus.

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