Almost Home

September 10—seven months ago—we opened up the book of 1 Peter together and began to explore these chapters and verses together.

And I think it’s meaningful that we’re ending on grad Sunday, making this Sunday not just a wrap-up but a send-off. And we didn’t plan it that way. At first we thought we’d be done about nine weeks ago. But we all found Peter to be a lot richer and denser than we expected. And I don’t mean “dense” in a bad way. I mean “dense” like a thick piece of cheesecake. It’s so good, but it just takes you a bit longer to enjoy it than you planned on at first.

There’s just three verses left for us to hear from today as Peter concludes his letter, and they come in two halves. First, Peter gives us a summary purpose statement for his whole letter. Then, as letters in the ancient world often did, he ends with a series of greetings.

1. Purpose Statement

Let’s begin with the purpose statement, looking at verse 12: “By Silvanus, a faithful brother as I regard him, I have written briefly to you, exhorting and declaring that this is the true grace of God. Stand firm in it” (1 Peter 5:12).

Silvanus

There’s three points we want to note here. The first has to do with Silvanus, which is a different form of the name “Silas.” It’s very likely that this is the same Silas who travelled with the apostle Paul and who co-authored the Thessalonian letters with him.

Peter’s language here suggests that that Silvanus, or Silas, was his messenger, who brought the letter from Peter to these people. That’s how this phrase is used in the book of Acts, for example. And Peter commends him, describing him as a “faithful brother,” encouraging his readers to receive him and respect him when he comes to them with this letter.

If this was the same Silas who travelled with Paul, then no doubt this was a faithful brother—a brother who for years had been putting into practice the truths Peter wrote about in his letter. A brother who had been beaten and thrown in jail with Paul and been by his side through many journeys and many sufferings.

He’s not just the mailman for this letter—he was a living example of what it looked like to live it out.

Summary

Peter next gives a summary of his entire letter. In case we were wondering what the goal is, here it is: “I have written briefly to you, exhorting and declaring that this is the true grace of God.”

His comment that he wrote “briefly” is interesting, given that this letter is much longer than the typical letters that were exchanged in the Roman world. For some context, the shortest letters in the New Testament, like 2 and 3 John, were fairly average, if not a tiny bit longer, than typical Roman letters.

So 1 Petter is not brief by that standard. But it is brief in terms of everything Peter could have said. The true grace of God is so rich and deep he could have written something as long as Romans or 1 Corinthians, and even that would have seemed brief.

Note the two words Peter uses here: exhorting and declaring. “Declaring” has to do with speaking the truth, bearing witness to what is real. “Exhorting” means “strongly urging” and is about calling people to respond to that truth. In many ways, that’s what preachers should be doing every week. We declare the truth and then we strongly urge, or exhort, people to respond to that truth. And that’s what Peter has been doing here.

What he has been declaring is the “true grace of God.” Everything he’s written in his letter here is an accurate declaration of the grace of God. The grace that has appeared in Christ, is sustaining us in the present day, and will be manifested when our Lord returns.

And he’s been exhorting us is to stand firm in this grace. “Stand firm in it,” he says at the end of verse 12. Peter does not believe that God’s grace means we can chill out. We must respond to God’s grace by heeding the call and standing firm in it.

And yet, never forget that what we stand firm in is grace. We stand firm in something we did not earn or become worthy of. It’s all undeserved grace. And the call is that we would stay put in this grace. That we wouldn’t move on or shrink back, but stand fast.

That’s what this letter has been about, and that’s what Peter reminds us of one last time as he closes this summary.

Final Greetings (vv. 13-14)

And now, finally, as the letter concludes in verses 13-14, Peter gives final greetings. This was a common feature in letters in this day, and yet, we’re going to see that these aren’t just neat formalities. There’s some beauty here to be seen, which we’ll sum up in four points.

Greetings From Babylon

First, we see greetings from Babylon: “She who is at Babylon, who is likewise chosen, sends you greetings.” “She who is at Babylon.” Who might that be?

Is Peter talking about a real woman who is living in the real city of Babylon? That’s fairly unlikely. Babylon was in ruins at this point in history. Nobody lived there.

What we need to remember is that, throughout the Bible, Babylon is more than just a literal place. It’s also a symbol, a representation, of the powerful structures and systems of this world which are opposed to God.

From the Tower of Babel, all the way to the book of Revelation, Babylon symbolizes the world powers opposed to God. And in Peter’s day, where did you go to find that? What was the capital city of the world powers that were opposed to God? Rome. So it’s likely that Peter is using “Babylon” as a code word for “Rome,” which is something we see again in Revelation 17.

Now there’s another important layer to this Babylon language. Babylon was where the people of Jerusalem were brought when they were taken into exile. The Babylonian Exile was one of the most significant events in the history of the people of Israel and it casts a shadow over much of the Hebrew Scriptures. Babylon was where the exiles had to spend decades, away from their homeland, right in the middle of the wicked empire that hated the God of Israel and burned his temple.

“By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion” says Psalm 137:1.

So when Peter refers to Rome as “Babylon,” this isn’t just a symbol for human power and wickedness. It’s also a symbol for a place of exile, where God’s people dwell, far from where they belong, waiting to be brought out of exile into their heavenly home.

And so “she who is at Babylon” almost certainly refers to the church in the city where Peter is. A church in exile.

But not just in exile. They are also chosen. As Peter goes on to say, “who is likewise chosen.” We see very similar language to this in 2 John, where he refers to a church as “the elect lady” (2 John 1) and another church as “your elect sister” (2 John 13). “Elect” and “chosen” come from the same word, and show us how John and Peter fundamentally think of Christians: those who have been chosen by God. Those who choose God because first He has first chosen us (John 15:16, Ephesians 1:4).

And the word “likewise” brings us all the way back to the beginning of this letter, where Peter introduced his recipients as “those who are elect exiles.” Peter’s readers were chosen exiles, and here, as the letter concludes, they receive greetings from another group of chosen exiles. “She who is at Babylon, who is likewise chosen, sends you greetings” (1 Peter 5:13).

Greetings from Mark

Next, Peter gives greetings from Mark. “And do does Mark, my son.” Very likely this is the same John Mark that we read about earlier in the New Testament—the John Mark who abandoned Paul and Barnabas, but later came around and was a fruitful ministry partner of the apostles.

Early church history tells us that Mark spent time with Peter in Rome, and that Mark the Gospel of Mark based on Peter’s eyewitness account. This verse would certainly give support to the idea that Mark was with Peter and that they had a close relationship, much like Timothy and Paul.

I think it’s also just beautiful to see the reconciliation here. When Barnabas wanted to bring Mark on their second trip, and Paul refused, Paul and Barnabas split ways and Paul took who instead? Silas (Acts 15:37-40). And here, Silas and Mark are now working as ministry partners with Peter.

We’ve had our share of painful partings here in the past few years, and when we see reconciliation like this in the Bible, it’s a reminder to us that the end of the story hasn’t been written yet, and God is able to reconcile His children even after they’ve split ways. And proof of that is Mark sending greetings in a letter carried by Silas’ hands.

Greetings to each other

Now third, Peter encourages his readers to greet each other. Verse 14: “Greet one another with the kiss of love.” As I thought about this verse, I realized that applying it would be really easy. So, everybody turn to the person next to you, and…

I don’t think we should do that. And here’s why: in the ancient world, a kiss on the cheek was a common form of greeting, just like it is in some countries in Europe today. And this was especially true among family. This is how family would have welcomed each other home and greeted each other when they gathered. We read multiple times in the Scripture about family and close friends kissing each other as they met or as they parted.

And Peter tells the Christians to greet each other like this—in other words, warmly; like family.

I do not believe that this means must literally kiss each other, because in our culture, a kiss doesn’t have this same meaning. This isn’t how we greet one another. If someone greeted you at church with a kiss, it would communicate the opposite effect from what Peter intended.

The principle here, that crosses cultures, is that we must be warm and welcoming with each other, as if we were family.

I saw this verse lived out last night when we went to the grad banquet at NBC last night. Aimee and I walked up to our table, where Brad and Christina and Charles and Ellie Schmidt were already seated. And Brad didn’t know that we even knew the Schmidts, let alone that we’re actually connected through marriage. But then he saw Charles and I exchange a warm handshake, and the ladies exchange a hug, and Brad sayid, “you guys must know each other.” Because you typically don’t see people acting that way when they’re meeting a stranger, unless they’re trying to sell you something.

The idea here in this verse is that we we would act like family and not strangers when we meet each other. That might mean greeting with a hug, or an arm around a shoulder. Sometimes you see people placing their hands on someone’s arm or shoulder as they say hi. Or maybe it’s just a good old handshake.

The big idea here is that we greet each other warmly. When we gather it shouldn’t be like strangers filing in to watch a performance. We gather as a family and we should greet each other that way.

And if you don’t like the thought of people touching you, you might want to ask God to help you grow in that. And when someone reaches for your hand to shake it, just remember that if you were in some European countries, it could be a whole lot worse.

Peace to all

Finally, and seriously, Peter ends with these wonderful words: “Peace to all of you who are in Christ.” This is a prayer, spoken in the form of a blessing. Through Christ, we have peace with God. We have peace with each other. We have peace even in the midst of a turbulent world. And given all that they’ve faced and will face, Peter blesses his readers with a prayer for peace for all who are in Christ.

Did Peter know what was ahead? Did Peter know that, just a few short years after writing this letter, Nero would kick-start mass persecutions of Christians, killing and slaughtering them in mass numbers? That Peter himself would die because of Nero’s hatred of Christians? That over the next centuries, all of the might of Rome would be employed to try and stamp out Christianity once and for all?

We have pages and pages and pages of records of all of the Christian blood that was shed in those centuries. And yet, as an early Christian testified, the blood of the martyrs was seed: the church grew the more they were killed for their faith.

It’s no doubt that Peter’s letter was a massive source of encouragement to those Christians over those coming years, even though he himself may never have known how bad it was going to get. God did, and He used Peter to give the message to these Christians at just the right time to prepare them for what God knew was ahead.

Here we are, living in a time when it’s getting more and more uncomfortable to follow Christ. And who knows how bad it’s going to get in the years ahead? God does. Could it be that God, in His wise timing, has led us to spend these months in 1 Peter at this time to prepare us for intensified suffering in the years ahead?

Only God knows the answer to that question. But I know that, whatever form it takes, we will all taste suffering in some form or another in the years ahead—whether that’s persecution or a plague, the criminalization of Christianity or cancer. And that means we need to believe Peter’s declaration that this is the true grace of God, and we need to heed his exhortation that we stand firm in it.

This exile is not going to last forever. We’re almost home. So stand firm in this grace.

And as a final encouragement to do that, as we conclude this series, we’re going to end by experiencing 1 Peter in much the same way that Peter’s first readers would have encountered this letter.

They didn’t each get their own copy of this letter. They would have had Silas come to their church and him, or someone else, stand up in their gathering and read this to them. And that’s what we’re going to do now.

Knowing what we know, having heard all of the background and the context and the meanings of words, we are in a spot that’s a lot closer to the understanding that Peter’s first audience had. And what we want to do now is finish this journey by hearing it, all together, from start to finish, before we celebrate and respond in song.

So let’s hear these powerful words together and receive them as the very words of God.