THIS REMARKABLE LETTER OF PETER has been with me at every major transition I have made in my academic life. The first class I ever taught, at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in the academic year of 1980–81, when I was still a student, endured some lectures and meanderings on this letter, and the first class I taught after the same institution hired me was also a class that climaxed with a thorough look at 1 Peter. Even more important, as I was making the decision to become the Karl A. Olsson Professor of Religious Studies at North Park College, I was studying and writing up the results of my study on 1 Peter for this commentary. I will always remember 1 Peter for what I was doing; I hope this will do no disservice to its apostolic author.
One of the key transitions this commentary series serves is the one from the first century to the modern world. Its genius, of which I am thankful to be a part, is that it seriously considers the strategies that we as Christians use to make an ancient text relevant and powerful today. When the reader moves from the first section (Original Meaning) to the second and third sections (Bridging Contexts, Contemporary Significance), the worlds do change, as does the particularity of its meaning. I am not foolish enough to think that the second and third sections are the Word of God; that is reserved only for the first. These latter two sections, then, are human attempts to let the Word speak in modern words. This inevitably involves speaking to one’s own context; if my context differs from yours, which it will often do, I ask only that you follow my meanderings and see if you can learn something from a brother who is seeking to be both faithful to the ancient Word while seeking to gain a hearing in the modern world.
The message of 1 Peter concerns how Christians are to live in a hostile environment, and live in such a way that they not only endure but also have a lasting impact for good on that environment. Our children, Laura Elizabeth and Lukas Norman Matthew, are at critical transitions in their own lives. Laura is now finishing high school and is about to enter college life at Wheaton College; Lukas is finishing his first year at high school. Each of them, in different ways, challenges Kris and me to relate the gospel of Jesus Christ to a massively changing suburban environment. I pray that both of them learn from this short letter of Peter how to live as Christians in their new worlds, as Kris and I have sought to do in our worlds. As a token of our prayers, I dedicate this book to them.
I want to thank Trinity once again for the academic and pastoral environment it has provided for me over the last eleven years. This book, I trust, will serve as a living memorial of what Trinity has done to me and for me. As I write this preface, on a sabbatical, I eagerly await the collegiality of the Humanities Division of North Park College and the fellowship of the Evangelical Covenant Church. Once again, I wish to express my thanks to Terry Muck, our general editor, but especially to Jack Kuhatschek, not only for envisioning this remarkable series of books, but also for his painstaking scrutiny of my manuscript. Time after time he made suggestions that improved my thinking about Peter and our world. Frank Thielman, the author of Philippians in this series, carefully read a draft of this manuscript and made many helpful and encouraging suggestions. Finally, I want to express my thanks to my lovely wife, Kris, who creates a home where a marriage is as joyful as it is meaningful. In our daily walks around Butler Lake near our home, I frequently bounce my latest ideas off her and, nearly always, I have something more to write about by the time we get back. In this way she has enriched my understanding of 1 Peter.
Scot McKnight
North Park College