Pictures of the Church in 1 Peter -- By: Kenneth O. Gangel

Journal: Grace Journal
Volume: GJ 10:3 (Fall 1969)
Article: Pictures of the Church in 1 Peter
Author: Kenneth O. Gangel


Pictures of the Church in 1 Peter

Kenneth O. Gangel

Academic Dean
Calvary Bible College

The word ekklēsia is not used in the Greek text of the Epistle of 1 Peter. Because of this many have thought the epistle to be rather devoid of instruction and doctrine regarding the church. On the contrary, this epistle is literally permeated with church truth, and such a fact is obvious to the reader who recognizes that the New Testament concept of “church” was a concept of people rather than of an organization. It was the ministry of the Apostle Paul to proclaim basic tenets of church organization and to develop the bulk of New Testament ecclesiology. Peter, on the other hand, is writing to the church as a group of God’s people. His concern is their lives and behavior in the midst of a wicked and perverse world, a world in which they are finding and will continue to find testings and sufferings to be their common lot.

Some, like Kelly, have argued vehemently that this epistle is directed only to Christian Jews, and indeed much of the language and style parallel the books of Hebrews and James. However, if we assume the writing to be in the seventh decade of the first century, it is probably more correct to visualize the congregations in Northern Asia Minor to which Peter is writing as heterogeneous groups of both Jewish and Gentile Christians. Selwyn points out:

It is doubtful, indeed, whether there were many Churches in the first century outside Palestine, at any rate in the larger centres of population, of which the members were wholly Jewish or wholly Gentile, though in most of them Jews were probably in the majority; and we know that in parts of Asia Minor there had been a syncretism of Jewish and pagan cults which in some cases may have provided the spiritual background of those who afterwards became Christians.1

Peter’s doctrine of the church is inseparably connected with other basic themes developed in the epistle. Primarily in connection with his Christology and his doctrine of the Christian life. The theology of the apostle is above all things Christo-centric. He begins with Jesus Christ, the Messiah, and then proceeds to develop an elaborate doctrine of the Christian life based on the person and work of Christ. His doctrine of the church then is the next step in the structure. He reasons from Christ to Christian behavior to the life of the Christian community. The elements of the primitive kērugma are abundant in 1 Peter and literally form his Christology. He speaks of prophesied salvation in 1:9–12; of blood redemption in ...

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