A Living House in a World That Rejects Its Cornerstone

The list moves from singulars to plurals, “all malice, and all guile” and then “hypocrisies, and envies”, as if naming the vices and then their many forms. “Guile” is dolos, and it returns twice: Christ had none in his mouth (2:22), and the one who loves life speaks none (3:10). “Evil speakings” is katalalia, talking others down.

“Sincere” is adolos, “without guile”, a pun on the dolos just put away in verse 1. “Of the word” renders logikos, an adjective that can mean rational or spiritual, the word Paul uses for “reasonable service” in Romans 12:1. The Latin of this verse, Quasi modo geniti, named the Sunday after Easter, and Victor Hugo’s Quasimodo was found on that day.

In the Greek of Psalm 34:8, “gracious” is chrestos, pronounced in Peter’s day almost exactly like Christos. Roman writers themselves confused the two; Suetonius writes of a “Chrestus”. Peter will quote Psalm 34 again at length in 3:10–12, so the psalm frames the whole middle of the letter.

“Coming” is proserchomai, to approach, the verb used for worshippers drawing near to God. “Disallowed” is apodokimazo, rejected after inspection, the verb Jesus used when he said he would “be rejected of the elders” (Mark 8:31). A man whose own name meant “stone” is writing about living stones, a connection the letter never draws aloud.

“Priesthood” is hierateuma, a collective noun, a body of priests, not a set of individual priests; it comes from Exodus 19:6 in its Greek form. “Offer up” is anaphero, to carry up onto the altar, the verb Peter uses in verse 24 of Christ bearing sins. The verb “are built up” can also be read as a command, “be built up”.

Isaiah 28:16 was spoken to Jerusalem’s rulers, who boasted they had “made a covenant with death”. Where the Hebrew says the believer “shall not make haste”, the Greek reads “shall not be put to shame”, and Peter follows the Greek. “Chief corner stone” is akrogoniaios, the word Paul uses in Ephesians 2:20.

The Greek says “to you therefore which believe is the honour”, time, rather than “he is precious”: the believers share the stone’s honour. Psalm 118:22 was a verse Peter had already thrown at the Sanhedrin: “This is the stone which was set at nought of you builders” (Acts 4:11).

In Isaiah 8:14 the stone of stumbling is the LORD himself, who will be “a sanctuary; but for a stone of stumbling and for a rock of offence to both the houses of Israel”. Peter applies a line about the LORD to Christ. “Offence” is skandalon, originally the trigger stick of a trap.

Two passages are woven together. Exodus 19:6 gives the royal priesthood and holy nation; Isaiah 43:20–21 gives the “chosen generation” and the people formed “to shew forth my praise”. “Praises” is aretai, excellences or mighty deeds. The darkness and marvellous light recall Isaiah 9:2, the people who walked in darkness.

Hosea named two of his children Lo-ammi, “not my people”, and Lo-ruhamah, “not pitied” (Hosea 1:6–9), and then promised to reverse both names (2:23). Paul quotes the same reversal in Romans 9:25–26. Readers from pagan homes find themselves inside a promise made to northern Israel.

“Dearly beloved” marks a new section, as it will again at 4:12. “Strangers and pilgrims” echoes Psalm 39:12, “I am a stranger with thee, and a sojourner, as all my fathers were.” “War against” is strateuomai, a campaign; desires are pictured as an army besieging the soul.

“Honest” meant honourable or seemly in 1611; the Greek is kalos, fine, good to look at. About fifty years later Pliny, governor of Bithynia, one of the five regions of 1:1, wrote to the emperor Trajan asking how to try Christians, and admitted he found no crime in them but a “perverse superstition”.

“Ordinance of man” is literally “human creation”, ktisis, the word for creation itself: government is a human institution. “King” is basileus, the title Greek-speaking provinces used for the Roman emperor. If the letter comes from the 60s, the emperor in view is Nero, a point the text itself does not make.

“Governors” is hegemones, the title given in the Gospels and Acts to Pilate, Felix and Festus. “Sent by him” means appointed by the emperor. “Praise of them that do well” fits the custom of Greek cities, which set up inscriptions honouring benefactors for public generosity.

“Put to silence” is phimoo, to muzzle, the verb of “Thou shalt not muzzle the ox” (1 Corinthians 9:9) and of Jesus silencing the Sadducees (Matthew 22:34). “Ignorance” is agnosia, not-knowing. Accusers are to be muzzled by conduct, not answered by argument alone.

“Cloke” is epikalymma, a covering or veil, found only here in the New Testament. The paradox is compact: free people who are God’s slaves, douloi. Paul says the same in 1 Corinthians 7:22, “he that is called, being free, is Christ’s servant”, and in Galatians 5:13, “use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh”.

Proverbs 24:21 reads “My son, fear thou the LORD and the king.” Peter splits the line: fear goes to God alone, and the king gets the honour owed to all men. The first command is an aorist, perhaps summing up the three that follow; the other three are present tense, standing duties.

“Froward” is skolios, crooked, the word Peter used at Pentecost: “Save yourselves from this untoward generation” (Acts 2:40). “With all fear” most likely means fear of God, as in 1:17 and 2:17, not terror of the master. The household servant, oiketes, lived under the master’s roof.

“Thankworthy” is charis, literally “this is grace”, and verse 20’s “acceptable with God” is the same word. “Conscience toward God” means awareness of God, what he sees even when no one else does. “Endure” is hypophero, to bear up under a weight.

“Buffeted” is kolaphizo, to strike with the fist, the word used of the men who struck Jesus in the high priest’s house (Mark 14:65), a night Peter spent in the courtyard below. “Glory” is kleos, fame or credit, found only here in the New Testament.

“Example” is hypogrammos, the model letters a teacher wrote for a child to trace over when learning to write, a word found only here in the New Testament. “Follow his steps” is ichnos, footprints. The pupil traces the letters, the follower walks in the prints.

The words come from Isaiah 53:9, “he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.” The Greek of Isaiah reads “lawlessness” where the Hebrew has violence, and Peter changes it again to “sin”. The chapter of the suffering servant runs through this verse and the next three.

The verbs are imperfect tense, a repeated refusal: while he was reviled, he kept on not reviling back. Isaiah 53:7 says “he opened not his mouth”. “Committed” is paradidomi, to hand over, the verb used of Judas handing Jesus over; here Jesus hands his cause to God.

“Tree” is xylon, wood, the word Peter used for the cross in his sermons: “whom ye slew and hanged on a tree” (Acts 5:30, 10:39), after Deuteronomy 21:23. “Stripes” is molops, singular, the welt a lash raises. Household slaves hearing the letter knew exactly what the word looked like on skin.

Isaiah 53:6 has “All we like sheep have gone astray.” In Ezekiel 34:11–12 God promises to search for his scattered sheep himself. Peter, told three times by the lake “Feed my sheep” (John 21:15–17), now calls Christ the Shepherd; “returned” is epistrepho, to turn back.