Stewards and Suffers 1st Peter 4: 7-19
Contextual Outline
I. Our Relationship to God. 1:1-2:10
II. Our Relationship to the World. 2:11-46
III. Our Relationship to the Church. 4:7-5:11
A. We are Stewards. 4:7-11.
B. As Christians we Suffer. 4:12-19
C. Exhortation to the Shepherds. 5: 1-4.
D. Exhortation to the Sheep. 5:5-11.
Conclusion: 5:12-14.
I. The idea of STEWARDS is found in 1st Peter 4:10---"as good stewards of the manifold grace of God."
"Stewards" is from the Greek oikonomoi, which means "house-steward, manger" (Gingrich-Danker,p. 560). It refers to the city treasure in Rom. 16:23 and to bishops (Elders) in Tit. 1:7. It means one who manages the house of another (Lk. 12:42). God's house is the church, 1st Tim. 3:14-15, and we as stewards in God's house are to distribute God's goods or God's grace according to God's plan. This section concerns the Christian's relationship to other Christians who are in the assembly, as steward of God's grace.
We are Stewards 1st Peter 4:7-11.
A. Prepared Stewards: “the end of all things is at hand: therefore “ 1st Peter 4:7.
What is the end of all things? Are we speaking about the end of the world? Or is this some other event?
I think here also Peter keeps the history of the deluge before his readers, finding a parallel to the state of the Jews in his own time in that of the antediluvians in the days of Noah. In Gen. VI. 13, God said to Noah, "The end of all flesh is come before me." This was spoken at a time when God had decreed the destruction of the world by flood. Peter says, "The end of all things is at hand;" and this he spoke when God had determined to destroy the Jewish people and their polity by on of the most signal judgments that ever fell on a nation or people. The end of the Temple, the end of the Levitical priesthood, the end of the whole Jewish economy, was then at hand. (Adam Clarke, 1983,p. 1383).
3. Since the end of all things is at hand we must "be of sound judgment and sober spirit."
a. Sound judgment is healthy thinking (sophroneistate).
b. Sober spirit: nepsate the root word means to abstain from drinking wine. Thus, we must have a unclouded serious mind.
4. Prayer Stewards: "for the purpose of prayer."
a. Stewards must be in constant communication with the master. 1st Thess. 5:17.
b. Christians especially need the strength and wisdom of prayer during persecution. Jas. 1:2
5. Loving Stewards: "Above all, keep fervent in your love for one another because love covers a multitude of sins."
a. The Priority of Love: "Above all" ---"the greatest of these is love" 1st Cor. 13:13.
b. Quality of love: "fervent." means, stretched out love, 1st Peter 1:22.
c. Object of Love, "for one another." A must in the family of God.
d. Power of love: "it covers a multitude of sins."
(1) Love forgives sin. Ps. 85:2
(2) Love Overlooks sin. Prov. 25:2
(3) Love seeks to restore the sinner. Jas. 5:20.
(4) Love shows mercy for the sinner. Matt. 6:12
6. Hospitable Stewards: "Be hospitable to one another without complaint." 4:9
a. Means "love for strangers" who are in this case traveling brothers from place to place (Heb. 13:12).
b. "without complaint" because, a good work with a complaint is not a work of love.
c. Our hospitality must be done in cheerful love,for God loves a cheerful giver. (2nd Cor. 9:7).
d. Murmuring and complaining spots and defiles the gifts of God's service. Phil. 2:4
7. We must be gifted stewards (oikonomio=house managers,those who execute the law of the house). God's house is the church; and we as stewards are to execute the law of Christ in the house of God. (1st Tim. 3:14-15).
8. We are Privileged Stewards: "as each one has received a special gift."
All of God's children are stewards and everyone has a gift of some kind. In Eph. 4:11 the gifts that God gives men are:( apostles, prophets, evangelist, pastors [elders] & teachers).
a. Nature and Source of the gifts: "as good stewards of the manifold grace of God."
(1) "Manifold" means multi colored; which means that God's grace is varied and abundant.
(2) God's grace is the source of all gifts, both natural and miraculous. "What do you have that you did not receive?" 1st Cor. 4:7
(3) Some gifts are received from birth; when one becomes a Christian these gifts are sanctified by the Holy Spirit to be used for the glory of God.
(4) Some gifts are learned and developed through our environment. These also belong to God.
(5) In the 1st Century miraculous gifts were bestowed until the full revelation of God's will had been completed.
8. Purpose of Gifts: "employ it in serving one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God."
a. God has shared His grace with us so we might share it with others.
b. No one may keep their gift to themselves. They are to be used to save the lost. Eph. 4:11-16.
9. The kinds of Gifts:
a. Gift of Speaking: "whoever speaks let him speak, as it were, the utterances of God" (utterances or oracles", Heb. 5:12; speak not your own wisdom but speak the wisdom of God.
b. Gift of service or ministry: "whoever serves, let him do so by the strength that God supplies." This includes service of all kinds. See Acts 6:1ff, Acts 20:24; 2nd Tim. 4:5; and much more.
10. The Use of Gifts: "by the strength which God supplies"; it is God who supplies the gifts; and God who gives the strength to use the gifts. That is; God working through us. Phil. 2:13.
11. The Ultimate Goal of Gifts: "so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belongs the glory and dominion forever and ever."
II. We are Sufferers 4: 12-19.
A. Expectant Sufferers: "Beloved, do not surprised at the fiery ordeal among you"
1. Christians ought to expect to suffer (not be surprised). 2nd Tim. 3:12; 1st Thess. 3:4; John 15:20. "as though some strange thing were happening to you."
2. Christians ought to consider it a privilege to suffer for Jesus. Phil. 1:29.
3. The specific suffering facing the readers of 1st Peter: "fiery ordeal: probably refers to the Neroian persecution in 64 A.D. followed by the Domitian persecution in 96 A.D. It was much like being thrown in a fiery furnace. Dan. 3
B. Tested Sufferers: "which comes upon you for your testing"
1. The fiery tests gold to purify it (1st Peter 1:7).
2. One of the main purposes of persecution is to purify and test the Christian. Jas. 1:2-3.
3. Suffering test the love of God's people. Do they want to do the will of God bad enough to suffer for it (Deut. 8: 2-6).
4. Suffering strengthens the soul like strenuous exercise strengthens the body of an athlete. Heb. 12:11-12. Trout who fight a current stream in a river have firmer and better meat than lake trout who have it easy. (So they say)
C. We should be Joyful Sufferers: 4:13 - "but to the degree that you share the suffering of Christ keep on rejoicing: so that also at the revelation of His glory, you may rejoice with exultation."
1. Privilege to share Christ's suffering. Col. 1:24 and Phil. 1:29.
2. Sharing Christ's cross is conditional on sharing His crown of glory. Rom. 8:17-18.
3. Suffering marks us as worthy of sharing His glory. Matt. 5:11-12.
4. Knowing that we are glorifying Christ one day will share in that glory by suffering that enables us to suffer with joy. Matt. 5: 10-12.
D. We are Blessed Sufferers: 4:14--"If you are reviled for the name of Christ you are blessed because the Spirit of glory and of God rest on you."
E. We are Christian Sufferers: 4:15-16.
1. Suffer not for doing evil: "By no means let anyone of you suffer as a murder, or thief, or evil doer, a troublesome meddler." The last expression is from the Greek word allotriepiskopos. Notice, the last part of the word is episkopos which translates "bishop or overseer." The first part of the word means that which pertains to another. In other words, overseeing things that do not pertain to you.
2. Suffer for being a Christian: 4:16 - "but if any suffers as a Christian let him not feel ashamed, but let him glorify God."
a. The name Christian was given by divine revelation through Paul and Barnabas in Antioch. Acts 11:26 and also Acts 26:28.
b. The name Christian is derived from Christ, which means the anointed one. We are anointed ones by being in Him. Priest, Kings and prophets were anointed in the OT and we are the the representatives of Jesus as king (2nd Cor. 1;21).
c. The OT predicted that God's people were to be called by a new name. Isa. 62:2.
d. The name Christian is the name God wants His people to us in order to glorify Him. "in that name let him glorify God."
e. We suffer as a Christian when we suffer because we are doing what Christ commands us to do. 1st Peter 3:17.
F. Judged but Vindicated Sufferers: "For it is time for judgment to begin with the household of God."
1. The relation of the "judgment" to the suffering in the preceding verses.
a. The "for" is Greek hoti, meaning "because," and thus shows that the judgment coming on God's people is related to their suffering as Christians.
b. The word "judgment" can refer to final judgment or it can refer to a temporary judgment such as discipline, chastisement and testing. This is the meaning in 1st Cor. 11:31-34.
c. God's judgment thus begins with God's household (the church, 1st Tim. 3:15), through persecution and suffering.
2. How the judgment ends with the wicked: "and if it begins with us first, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God?"
a. Christians are vindicated when God's judgment ends in the final condemnation of the wicked which will be a greater punishment than any persecution. Heb. 10:28-29 ff.
b. A good parallel passage of thought is 2nd Thess. 1:4-9 where Paul says that persecution and suffering are a "plain indication of God's righteous judgment so that we may be considered worthy of the kingdom of God for which indeed we are suffering."(v.5) but then Paul goes on to say that God's judgment will then fall on the wicked who have persecuted Christian's "when the Lord shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angles in flaming fire, dealing out retribution to those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus." (vs. 7-8).
3. The Difficulty of the Righteous being saved. "And if it is with difficulty that the righteous be saved...."
a. This does not mean that the righteous will "Scarcely be saved as the KJV expresses it.
b. The term with "difficulty" as Paul's ship was saved only after passing through great difficulty. Acts 27: 7,8,16.
c. The context is that the righteous can be saved only by passing through much suffering and tribulation as in Acts 14:22.
"Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God." Rom. 8:17says we are heirs of glory only if we suffer with Christ.
d. This is not a reference to Matt. 7:14. "Few are those who find it." In the context the righteous are the few and and many are the wicked.
4. The Greater Difficulty of the End of the Wicked: "and it is with difficulty that the righteous be saved, what will become of the godless man and the sinner?"
a. If God will allow his own people to be judged and to suffer the difficulties of being reviled or slandered, to have their possessions confiscated and beheaded, what will happen to the wicked who perpetuated the crimes against his people?
b. With the same certainty that the righteous be saved, though with much difficulty and suffering (Mk. 10:30), the wicked shall not escape even greater judgment on the final day. (Rom. 2:9-10).
5. Judgment begins with persecution of God's people and ends
with the final punishment of the wicked.
G. Committed Sufferers: "Therefore let those also suffer according to the will of God entrust their souls to a faithful creator in doing what is right."
1. Responsibility and Need of Sufferers: commit your souls to the Creator who can care for you, protect and reward you.
a. The word, commit is defined as "to entrust something to someone to care and protect."
b. When suffering, the Christian must entrust their souls and bodies to God.
2. The means of entrusting our souls and bodies while suffering: "in doing what is right." Do not let up on your service to God while suffering.