Peter challenges that statement and says that when we equate all suffering with Christ’s suffering we blur the issue of what Christian suffering is and we can even find that we advocate staying in abusive situations.

Suffering if we allow it only to be redemptive can become an excuse not to do anything about injustice or wrong. But people told to bear abuse to be saved, brings us right back to Tuesday’s conversation [Week 3 – Resistance and Resilience] about power and the misuse of power… how easy it is to be complicit in the misuse the abuse of power.

Peter was writing to a small group of Christians, a minority in their own culture who lived in a hostile empire which was increasingly nervous about their beliefs and viewed them with deep suspicion. In this context Peter was writing about the suffering we endure in the name of Christ something immensely familiar to many here. He’s pointing to persecution.

The Greek word of hospitality is φιλοξενία philoxenia which is literally love for the stranger, love for alien and exile. A call to love the stranger, the alien and exile, is being made by alien and exile, Peter, to aliens and exiles, those to whom he is writing. Because they share the same alienation from the world they must offer a welcoming home to one another. Those who are aliens and exiles have been given and identity as God’s chosen people. So, hospitality changes the identity of those who offer it and those who receive it. They are no longer strangers.

Peter makes clear that we cannot do this by our own strength. Christ and the grace of God remain absolutely central, remember that the theme in much of this letter is that without Christ we can do nothing, we are lost in our sins, we are simply aliens and strangers. Aliens and strangers from God not just from the world.

So the question has to be, how do we maintain love and offer hospitality. How do we campaign for the displaced and the stranger. How do we share with each other when we see suffering. How do we offer Christ hospitality and imitate Christ in our hospitality.

These are only a few of the quotes about suffering and hospitality from 1 Peter 4: Suffering in Christ.

The 1 Peter Bible Study is now ‘soul-ly’ on Zoom Wednesdays! 😊 The next and last session is August 9 from 6–8pm.

To access this worldwide Bible study, email Bonnie Bivins at blbivins@verizon.net to get the Zoom link and study materials!

Watch the 1 Peter 4 Video Here:

Ways to participate:

• Come Wednesdays from 6–8pm and participate LIVE.

• View the current week’s video and come Wednesday at 7pm to reflect on the questions LIVE.

• View the previous week’s video and find a friend, family member, or Trinity Church member to pair with, and discuss the study material.

Come and listen to Archbishop of Canterbury Welby leading next week’s Bible text with global contextual reflections.

Week 5: Authority in Christ, August 9, 1 Peter 5:1-14.

If you want a digital copy to access the links and Bible study materials, send me an email to my address above and I will happily send you a digital copy! 😊