The Living Hope of Easter

I Peter is a letter written to encourage Christians who were under severe pressure to renounce their faith. They were arrested or imprisoned, held without bail or rights, physically abused by their captors, subjected to seizure of property, exiled, and even killed. Peter’s letter offered living hope in a world that seemed to have none. For that reason, I Peter is relevant to our lives today. Though our freedoms are not challenged or abused in the same way as the early Christians, the world around us offers little in the way of hope. It promises that one more distraction, one more relationship, or more achievement will fulfill us. And every time those promises fail. Peter’s letter was a refreshing contrast to what the the first Christians were experiencing. The words in his letter gave living hope for Christians in a hopeless world. If it offered that for them in those circumstances, it certainly can offer the same living hope to us!