In the midst of our struggles, Peter reminds us that God’s track record of keeping his promises is pretty good. In Jesus Christ, the Father has caused us to be born again, and through the work of his Spirit, he ensures the salvation of our souls. He has promised to save us from our sins–he has. He has promised to give us a glorious inheritance which is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading–and he will.

Aliens and Strangers
Why does God allow his people to find themselves as aliens and strangers in their own land? How do Christians find joy in times of trial and suffering? What purpose can there be in suffering such as this? Peter will seek to answer these questions by pointing his struggling readers and hearers back to the promises God makes to us in the gospel. We have been given a living hope grounded in the same power through which God raised Jesus from the dead, a hope to be realized in part in this life, but fully in the next. This hope is not just so many words, but is grounded in the fact that what the Old Testament prophets (and even angels) longed to see, has come to pass in the person and work of Jesus Christ and now the basis of the living hope promised to the people of God.
In Part one, we covered Peter’s greeting (in vv. 1-2), here in part two, we turn to vv. 3-12, which is the apostle Peter’s opening words of encouragement to the elect exiles of the Diaspora in Asia Minor (modern Turkey). Peter is writing to Christians and Jews scattered throughout much of Asia Minor, many of whom had been uprooted from their homes by a decree from the Roman emperor Claudius, which granted land in this region to retired Roman soldiers. Many of those uprooted by Claudius’ decree were Christians (both Jewish and Gentile) who were viewed as exiles in their own land because they refused to worship the Roman gods (including Claudius), and because they would not participate in local pagan religious rituals, many of which were part of daily life in the Greco-Roman world.
The apostle opens this letter by declaring, “Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who are elect exiles of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia.” The Christians throughout the provinces mentioned were persecuted because of their faith in Jesus Christ. Although hated by their neighbors because of their Christian faith, Peter tells them they can take great comfort in the fact that they are loved by God who has chosen them in Jesus Christ, “according to the foreknowledge of God the Father.” Foreknowledge is not merely God’s knowledge of what will happen in the future, but refers to God’s intimate knowledge of the individuals whom he has chosen to save through the merits of Jesus Christ. God knows each of these people personally. He knows their trials and their suffering.
Resident Exiles
These “elect exiles,” as Peter identifies them, are chosen by God and said to be sanctified by the Holy Spirit, for the purpose of “obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood.” Although Peter’s audience are now exiles in their own land, God has called his elect out from pagan darkness into the wonderful light of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The primary meaning of “sanctified” as used here by Peter means to be set apart by God for his purposes. In this case, those called by God through the gospel are sprinkled with the blood of Jesus (the guilt of their sins is washed away) and are set apart for obedience to Jesus, the one who saves them from their sins.
Peter’s greeting to these elect exiles is overtly Trinitarian. God’s people are not merely theists, but they are believers in the one true God who reveals himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Their belief in the Triune God, as well as salvation by the merits of Jesus Christ through the work of the Holy Spirit, marks these exiles off as citizens of a heavenly kingdom. They may live as exiles in the civil kingdom with its joys, duties, and dangers, yet they possess a heavenly citizenship for which they long, and which gives this life meaning and purpose. These elect exiles need to know that whatever suffering and persecution they experience during their time in exile during the Diaspora is actually preparing them to receive all of the benefits of their heavenly citizenship by strengthening their faith.
Peter’s use of the term “exile” is not limited to the original audience. There is a sense in which every believer in Jesus Christ is a resident alien (a sojourner, a pilgrim) in whatever society in which they live–their true citizenship is where Christ is, in heaven. The original audience of this epistle were truly exiles–removed from their homes by the Romans. But all Christians are exiles in this world (resident aliens), making the journey to the heavenly city and longing to dwell in the home of righteousness–the new heaven and earth. Peter encourages such exiles by reminding them that through the saving work of the Triune God, “grace and peace are multiplied” to them. These suffering saints experience Roman oppression everywhere in their midst, and they feel the constant sting of life as an exile. They are in desperate need of the encouragement which Peter offers them.
Charles Cranfield makes a very important point about the context in which Peter offers praise and thanksgiving to God in the opening words (v. 3). Cranfield writes, “only a few months and the Neronian persecution will have burst upon the Church in Rome, where the Apostle is writing, and have it cost many martyrs–among them, the Apostle himself.” Cranfield goes on to say, “Already the storm clouds are gathering. There is an oppressive sense of insecurity. The Christians in Asia Minor to whom this letter is addressed are apparently also seriously alarmed, and, we suspect, prone to self-pity.” In other words, they were likely wrestling with the question of why it was that God was allowing this terrible hardship to happen to them.
Cranfield points out that this letter was written by Peter “to confirm feeble knees” among his hearers. So, how does Peter begin his letter? “Not by offering sympathy, not by trying to convince them that what they fear will never happen, nor yet with a rehearsal of [Peter’s] own troubles.” No, Peter opens this letter to the elect exiles throughout Asia Minor “with an ascription of praise to God.”[1] Christian pilgrims should not ignore or deny the reality of their suffering as a Greek stoic might do, but they can only gain a proper perspective their trials and travails by considering who God is, what he has done for his people, and the promises he makes to those whom he has chosen in Jesus Christ. Peter begins with praise unto God the Father for what he has done in Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit.
A Trinitarian Affirmation
The ascription of praise which opens verse 3, “blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!” is typical of Jewish prayers. The act of “blessing” means to direct our praise unto God the Father because of (or on the grounds of) who he is (our Creator), as well as what he has done for us as our redeemer–sending his Son to save us from our sins. We were chosen to be sprinkled with the saving blood of Jesus, and then we are set apart for God’s purposes (sanctification) and for obedience to God’s commands. On the contrary, pagan letters from the period profusely thank the “gods” thereby seeking to gain their favor. The apostle gives praise unto God even in times of suffering and trial, knowing that God has a purpose for everything, and that he will redeem his people even in the midst of their struggles.
When we direct our praise to God the Father in the Son and through the Holy Spirit, we are giving thanks for all of the blessings of the gospel. Peter spells out these blessings in the string of clauses and prepositional phrases in verses 3-5. The first of these is “according to his great mercy.” Peter does not begin with the justice of God–knowing that if the Triune God poured out his judgment upon us, we would face him as guilty criminals standing before an omnipotent, omniscient, and holy God who knows everything about us and how sinful we truly are. Instead, Peter says, God deals with his elect exiles according to his mercy–specifically that he demonstrates his mercy to us through the work of his Son.
A Living Hope
Furthermore, Peter says, “he [the father] has caused us to be born again to a living hope.” Notice that God initiates our salvation–God is the one who acts in mercy upon us while we are dead in sin. The word Peter uses (anagennēsas) refers to a “rebegetting or begetting anew rather than being born anew,” just as in 1 Peter 1:23, “where believers are said to be begotten (anagegennēmenoi) by the imperishable seed of God’s word.”[2] God “causes” (or brings about) the new birth when he makes those dead in sin to be alive through the preaching of the gospel. This is what we mean when we say the Holy Spirit works through means–in this case, the preaching of the gospel (the “word”).
It is very common to hear Christian evangelists command those in their audience to “be born again,” as though we could raise ourselves from the dead by repeating a prayer after the minister, walking the aisle, or by inviting Jesus into our hearts. People who are dead in sin cannot raise themselves from the dead. In fact, the Bible nowhere commands us to “born ourselves again” (even in John 3 and the account of Nicodemus). Rather, the Bible everywhere tells us that unless we are born again (regenerated, made alive) by an act of God, we cannot see the kingdom of heaven. We will remain dead in our sins. This is the simple distinction between the imperative mood (a command) and the indicative mood (a statement of fact). Peter could not be any more direct than it is God who has caused us to be born again. Through his word and in the power of the Holy Spirit, God raises us from death to life, and in doing so, gives us a living hope–that is a hope tied to the future life (heaven) and to the resurrection of Jesus Christ as indicated in the next clause, “through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”
Read More
Related Posts:

But this was no ordinary church service. Sanguin chose to die in the sanctuary that day. Last spring, Sanguin was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). And when she decided to access medical assistance in dying (MAiD), she wanted the procedure to happen at her church. Churchill Park United’s leadership team unanimously approved her request, and on March 9, the “crossing-over” ceremony took place in the church’s sanctuary. This was the first MAiD procedure to take place in a church in Manitoba.

At around noon on March 9, Betty Sanguin arrived at her church, Churchill Park United in Winnipeg, on a stretcher.
“The moment we rolled her in … and sat her up in her recliner, she lit up like a Christmas tree,” Lynda Sanguin-Colpitts, one of Sanguin’s daughters, recalls. “I hadn’t seen that much life in her eyes, so much joy [in a long time]. And honestly I think part of it was just being in the church.”
But this was no ordinary church service. Sanguin chose to die in the sanctuary that day.
Last spring, Sanguin was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). And when she decided to access medical assistance in dying (MAiD), she wanted the procedure to happen at her church.
Churchill Park United’s leadership team unanimously approved her request, and on March 9, the “crossing-over” ceremony took place in the church’s sanctuary. This was the first MAiD procedure to take place in a church in Manitoba.
Sanguin could no longer talk, so she used a whiteboard to communicate. When she was settled in her recliner, she wrote: “Welcome to my special day. I love you all so much.”
Sanguin’s children had worked hard to make the big space feel intimate. In the end, it was almost as if they were in her living room. There was a recliner for Sanguin to sit in, an area rug, a lamp, and a collection of family photos. Many of the quilts that Sanguin had made over the years were on display.
The chairs were set up in what Renée Sanguin, another one of her daughters, described as a “circle of care.” The six chairs immediately surrounding Betty were for her six children; the next tier was for husbands, wives and grandchildren; and the final tier was for friends.
During the ceremony, two of Sanguin’s grandchildren sang “Let Your Light Shine on Me” and everyone joined in for “How Great Thou Art.” Sanguin waved her arms along to the music. Sanguin had prepared a playlist for the event, which was mostly gospel music — a lifelong love of hers.
“There was an opportunity for every single person who wanted to to come and hold her hand and tell her they loved her and say goodbye,” says Renée. “It was very touching and very intimate.”
Afterwards, the minister of Churchill Park United, Rev. Dawn Rolke, offered a blessing. Each of Betty’s six children placed their hands on her as Rolke invited Sanguin to go in peace.
Read More
Related Posts:

“It’s not a culture war, not anymore. There is no common civic ground on which liberals and conservatives meet and hash things out…The debates are over now. The Woke brigades won’t battle your ideas. The marketplace of ideas offends them—you offend them. Now, they have the power of termination…[T]he Revolution is here and you’re in it…They follow the motto of that brilliant manager of men, Joseph Stalin, who reasoned quite soundly: ‘No man, no problem.’”

Roman Catholic Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò describes the globalist “Great Reset,” devised by Davos billionaires and powerful politicians, as the work of Satan and “Luciferian Globalists.”[1] Protestant American believers warn that “America is writhing in the grip of a full-scale Marxist political and cultural revolution.”[2] Some conclude that the two movements are deeply related. As responsible citizens, Christians must certainly consider what role the church should play in seeking to hold back the progress of godless political power in their own nation.
It may seem unduly sensationalist to describe progressive current politics as Marxist, but wisdom dictates that we think seriously about how the future could pan out. Slow changes can suddenly speed up, causing us to regret not having seen a movement coming. As Mark Bauerlein, professor at Emory University and senior editor of First Things, states: “One moment you’re a citizen of a well-running republic. The next moment you see that the federal government seems unable to fulfill its most basic responsibilities.”[3]
I continue to be motivated by the serious, yet delicate, challenge of showing believers how their faith and gospel witness must be applied to this changing culture, just as Moses warned Israel when going into Canaan. He warned them to be aware of the dangers of living among people who worship false gods, citing the Lord’s judgment: They made me jealous by what is no god and angered me with their worthless idols (Deut 32:21).
When I arrived in America for the first time in 1964, as a naive young European, I was struck at both how “Christian” and how anti-Communist America was. Now recent arrivals from China, like Lily Tang-Williams, and from North Korea, like the youthful and brilliant Yeonomi Park, warn that they see much in America that reminds them of the horrendous cultures they left behind. Ms. Park recently studied at Columbia University and was shocked to see that the Marxist ideology she was taught in North Korea was now being taught in every class at this well-respected American school.[4] As I study Critical Race Theory and the antiracism movements of the day, I realize how ideologically Marxist these movements are; yet they are spreading throughout the culture with relative ease and increasing power—even in the country’s churches. These movements are successfully dividing American culture down the middle, in typical Marxist fashion!
Let’s be clear. The Marxist grab for social power has always sought to divide culture into antagonist segments: the oppressors and the oppressed. In Russia the divide was created between the bourgeois oppressors (land and business owners) and the proletariat oppressed (workers). In China the division was made between the “Black” (professionals) and the “Red” (under-class ) Chinese, whom Mao convinced to murder millions of fellow “Black” Chinese. In Cambodia the divide was between the intellectuals (which included anyone wearing glasses – true!) and the agricultural workers, who were roused by the Khmer Rouge and their cruel leader, Pol Pot, to murder nearly a quarter of the Cambodian population. In our time, Marxist-inspired Critical Race Theory divides Western culture into the oppressors (Whites) and the oppressed (Blacks and other minorities). Some leaders of this movement have clearly stated Marxist goals.
This is not new. According to a first-hand witness, black American Manning Johnson, in his book Color, Communism and Common Sense (1958), describes a vast attempt by Soviet and American communists in 1934–35 to undermine faith in American institutions through a program that would convince the general public that America is deeply racist. Mr. Johnson signed up for this revolutionary program. The goal was to create “a common front against the white oppressors.”[5] Johnson documents that the plot to use “Negroes as the [expendable] spearhead” of the undermining of America was created by Stalin in 1928, ten years after the creation of the Commintern (the World Organization of Communism). This was employed by “the top white communist leaders” hypocritically playing the idea of racial conflict in “a cold-blooded struggle for power” to “advance the cause of Communism” in America.[6] The goal was “to make the white man’s system, the white man’s government, responsible for everything.” He noted: “Smear is a cardinal technique,” seeking to “divide America” that can only be called “a propaganda hoax.”[7] “Black rebellion was what Moscow wanted. Bloody racial conflict would split America. During the confusion, demoralization and panic would set in.”[8] Apparently, the movement had little time for black people. Marx dismissed the black race as much closer to the animal kingdom.[9] Finally understanding his role as a pawn, Manning abandoned the program.
As Black Lives Matter (ironically awarded the Nobel Peace prize of 2021) ultimately shows, the controversy over racism is not so much an attempt at purging real racism as it is a Marxist-driven attempt to divide our culture between the oppressed Blacks and their White oppressors, in order to overthrow civilized Judeo-Christian American culture. The accusation that police brutality is causing black genocide has been shown to be false,[10] but BLM’s self-definition as emerging from Marxism is certain. Using racism as its cover story, Marxism pushes forward with its goal to divide America and to cause a revolution that will “upset the set-up!” An anonymous first-hand ex-participant in BLM (like Manning Johnson, years earlier) states: “I have seen this [racist] ideology up close and seen how it consumes and even destroys people, while dehumanizing anyone who dissents.”[11] In other words, BLM’s Marxism is an essential part of the neo-Marxist revival that seeks to bring an end to traditional Western civilization by the age-old technique of antagonistic cultural division.
Ibram X. Kendi, founder of Boston University’s Center for Antiracism Research was recently given a $10 million “no strings attached” grant by Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey.[12 ] This is a clear example of “woke capitalism,”[13] by which Dorsey uses his financial power to promote his vision of social justice while silencing opposing views on his Twitter platform, thereby undermining the democratic process. This money will help create a U. S. Department of Antiracism, with the power to overturn any law or policy at any level of government if the department determines that such policies do not contribute vigorously enough to antiracist theory. With the subjective notion of “equity” as the defining term, such a branch of government could, by fiat, redefine public morality. Fallible, omnipotent, moral busybodies will apply inscrutable rules to everyone except themselves. Nothing could be more Marxist! Ironically, Kendi, richly supported by successful businessmen and profiting hugely from the free market system, has announced that he opposes capitalism and free enterprise: “To love racism,” he states, “is to end up loving capitalism.”[14] Equity now determines action, and we will define what it is
Professor Bauerlein understands precisely where we now are.
“It’s not a culture war, not anymore. There is no common civic ground on which liberals and conservatives meet and hash things out…The debates are over now. The Woke brigades won’t battle your ideas. The marketplace of ideas offends them—you offend them. Now, they have the power of termination…[T]he Revolution is here and you’re in it…They follow the motto of that brilliant manager of men, Joseph Stalin, who reasoned quite soundly: ‘No man, no problem.’”[15]
Stalin had many of his dissenting colleagues shot through the head. With cancel culture, it is now, as Bauerlein perceptively observes: “No conservatives, no problem.”[16] Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University, and a careful social analyst, says, reflecting on Norway’s recent law declaring illegal speech against transgenderism, even at home:[17] “Free speech in the United States these days is becoming described as a danger that needs to be controlled as opposed to a traditional value that defines this country as a democracy.… [F]ree speech…is under fire and may even be a minority view today.”[18] He refers to President Biden who selected Richard Stengel to take the “team lead” position on the US Agency for Global Media. “Stengel has been one of the most controversial figures calling for censorship and speech controls, a person who rejects the very essence of free speech. He promises the “unity” of a nation silenced by government speech codes and censorship.”[19] He is one of those who knows what equity is.
If this is true, we may be increasingly close to the situation of the German church in the 1930s. It watched the political rise of Hitler and the promotion of NAZI ideology. Individual Catholics and Protestants spoke out, but the church made no public opposition to antisemitism or to state-sanctioned violence against the Jews.[20] After 1945, the silence and even complicity of the church during the Holocaust produced major issues of guilt and recrimination. We may ask, without any sense of superiority: What should the German church have done to stop the slaughter of 6 million Jews, a bloodbath going on right under its nose?
Now is the time to ask what our Christian response must be to a dangerous political program that seeks to the divide culture and may well end up in far more physical violence than we have yet seen. May God grant us wisdom to face such a possible cultural future, not in order to produce a “Christian nation” but out of respect for God and for those made in his image. Yet while we live in this fallen world, we must also defend biblical principles of sound living, and of fair and polite discussion. We have the blessing of a First Amendment, which we would do well to defend. We must also defend the rule of law, any policy that promotes the nobility of the individual, normative male/female distinctions, and defense of the pre-born.
Clearly, truth must speak to power, whatever response it receives—even if it is a violent one. We must preach the gospel fervently both to the oppressors and the oppressed, for we all share a world temporarily under the oppression of the Evil one. We have true peace with God only through the suffering, sacrifice, death and resurrection of our coming King. We must make known the truth about God, the good Creator, whose common grace is extended to everyone and whose special grace is shown to all who will hear and respond to the saving death of his Son, which will produce the redemption of the entire creation (Romans 8:18–21), for God’s final glory—and for perfect, divinely defined, equity.
Dr. Peter Jones is scholar in residence at Westminster Seminary California and associate pastor at New Life Presbyterian Church in Escondido, Calif. He is director of truthXchange, a communications center aimed at equipping the Christian community to recognize and effectively respond to the rise of paganism. This article is used with permission.

[1]WND LINK: “…corrupt civil and church authorities have joined forces to exploit the coronavirus pandemic in their quest to bolster global sovereignty.”[2] “How Big Tech, Big Media, lying Democrats, deep staters and vote fraudsters cheated Trump – and America,” WND (September 02, 2021).[3]AM GREATNESS LINK, see also FRONT PAGE MAG LINK[4] Alex Newman, “Critical Race Theory: Marxist Poison Infecting America,” The New American (August, 9, 2021), 11-17.[5] Manning Johnson, Color, Communism and Common Sense (Martino Fine Books,1958), 7 and 15.[6] Johnson, ibid, 37.[7] Johnson, ibid., 44, 52 and 54.[8]FREE REPUBLIC LINK Joseph Hippolito BLM, Antifa and the Communist Strategy to Destroy the United States Frontpagemagazine | Sep 24, 2020 |[9] According to the recently deceased Walter Williams, see NEWS HERALD LINK[10] The BLM myth is turning the many encounters law enforcement had with African-Americans in 2019 into a racist genocide. In fact, only 9 unarmed blacks were killed by police in 2019 and, according to police records, a majority of the fatal encounters were the outcome of fully justified police actions of self-defense. In the same year, 19 unarmed whites were shot dead by police; yet no one hears or even seems to care about these victims, because they don’t fit the Left’s narrative of black genocide. 93% of all black homicide victims are killed by other blacks. This is the true genocide that needs to be stopped. Police are NOT waging war on African-Americans. This is a profound lie. This is NOT a nation mired in systemic racism. No one knows leftist radicals better than David Horowitz. He says Black Lives Matter, Antifa and Occupy Wall Street all seek the same thing: a progressive, socialist revolution in America – and they are far closer to achieving it today than ’60s radicals ever were.[11]NEW DISCOURSE LINK[12]BU EDU LINK[13] See Vivek Ramaswamy, Woke, Inc: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam, (Center Street, NY, 2021), 19.[14] by FRONT PAGE MAG LINK [15] Art.cit.[16] Art.cit.[17]FAITHWIRE LINK[18]THEHILL LINK[19]JONATHANTURLEY LINK[20]ENCYCLOPEDIA LINK