1 Peter 5:1-9
Peter is going to start wrapping up his letter this week. The majority of the letter has focused on how we relate to one another in the different kinds of relationships we have with people. Whether we like it or not, we have a relationship with every person on the planet.
There are easy relationships to define in the people we love and like, and even those we actively don’t like. We can be said to have a loving, friendly, or hostile relationship with these people. The goal in this letter has been to work on diminishing those hostile relationships and bringing them to a point of at least non-hostile respect. Peter specifically spoke here of the slave/master and ruler/subject relationships.
All of these relationships are with people with whom we have some level of knowledge or contact, but for the vast majority of people in the world, we do not have any contact. This does not mean we do not have a relationship with them. The kind of relationship we tend to have with them is one of apathy. We don’t spend time thinking or caring about what is happening to them.
This is not meant to sound harsh, but it is simply the reality of the situation. Underneath the surface of Peter’s argument is the idea that we should care about all people. This is why the mission of the church is to go into all the world. Each person can’t impact everyone in the world. That is why we support missionaries and other organizations that help those less fortunate, regardless of where they are.
Peter is now going to turn to how we relate to one another in our local community of believers, what we call the local church. There are a number of relationships in the local church, and Peter is going to address them here. There is a relationship between the elders, or leaders of the church, and the congregation. We have a relationship with God. We have a relationship with the wider Christian community. Maybe most surprising, Peter is going to address our relationship with Satan.
We can see from verse 1 that even early on in the Church, some held a different position. It was not just a free-for-all all and whoever wanted to speak did so. There are elders who guided the worship and held some level of authority. Peter introduces himself as a fellow elder, but in truth, he was much more than that. He was an apostle because he was a witness to the sufferings of Christ. Peter had first-hand experience with the risen Christ. But notice that Peter does not lord that over the people. His point is not that he is better than they are, nor is he more important. He is a fellow elder and, as such, has a responsibility to the people. Even though he witnessed the sufferings of Christ, all of them will share in the glory to be revealed.
That responsibility is found in verse 2. Shepherd God’s flock among you. Today we call this person a pastor. We could debate how accurate this is, but for the sake of simplicity today, we are going to say this shepherd is the pastor. What every pastor needs to understand is that whatever flock of believers they have been entrusted with, they remain God’s flock. You might be wondering how this part applies to you. You need to understand the pastor’s role so you can understand when a pastor is acting outside of their God ordained calling.
A pastor should shepherd out of a willingness to serve. It is important when someone expresses a desire for pastoral ministry to question why. The only acceptable answer is that God has called them to do it, and nothing else satisfies. They may take other employment to help pay the bills, but that is because of their deep calling to pastor.
Nobody should go into pastoral ministry for the money. Peter is not saying the person should not be paid, but that must not be the primary motivation. Sadly, for some, it is. Religious people can be seen as gullible and easily trusting, so some think ministry is an easy way to make money. In some cases, it is, but that is not a Christ-honoring ministry.
Finally, they are not to lord it over those entrusted to them, but are to be the example to God’s flock. As we have already seen, Peter demonstrates this in verse 1. Any reward will be given when the chief Shepherd appears.
Verse 4 subtly makes another great point. Christ is the chief Shepherd. Some go into pastoral ministry because it is seen as a profession where you get to be your own boss. The truth is, everybody answers to somebody. In the case of pastoral ministry, the pastor is always accountable to Christ.
In verse 5, Peter turns attention to the congregation. When he says “you who are younger,” he is not speaking of age. He is speaking to those who are younger in their faith. Even in that, he is not speaking of how long someone has been a Christian, but the depth of the faith. A pastor should not be someone brand new to the faith.
When he says be subject to the elders, he is not saying to blindly follow them in whatever they say. Some churches preach such things. Instead, the same things that apply to the shepherd apply to the congregation. We are to clothe ourselves with humility toward one another because God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. Peter quotes from Proverbs 3:34 here.
In verse 6, Peter turns towards all of our relationships with God. We must humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt us at the proper time. Notice we are to humble ourselves. The word humble means to bring low. We are not above God, but neither are we above other people. God gives grace to the humble, and when we willingly, not out of compulsion, make ourselves low, then he will exalt us. God can exalt us higher than we could ever dream of doing for ourselves. But the only way to experience this is to humble ourselves.
Furthermore, we can cast our cares upon him, because he cares about us. Part of humbling ourselves is to cast our cares upon him. When we refuse to do so, we are declaring we can handle it ourselves and don’t need God’s help. That is then the opposite of humbling.
Verses 8 and 9 are interesting because they remind us that we do have a relationship with the devil. It might not be a positive relationship; it might be an adversarial relationship, but we have a relationship. We cannot command the devil to leave us alone and not bother us again. We must deal with him because, in God’s infinite wisdom, He has allowed the devil some measure of authority.
The way we are to engage with him is to be sober-minded. We saw this word in chapter 1, and it means to be self-controlled. We also need to be alert to the devil’s schemes. The second we think he cannot do anything to us, we become vulnerable to his attacks. Peter tells us that the devil is prowling around like a roaring lion. I think Peter speaks from personal experience here.
Look at Luke 22:31-32. That was Jesus speaking, and he knows that Peter is going to fail because he did not stay alert. When you are truly walking with God, it’s probably easy to think you can’t be tricked by the devil, but Peter was. Notice, Jesus said “When you have turned back” and then instructed Peter to use that knowledge to strengthen the believers. That is what Peter is doing now.
Peter says to resist the devil by being firm in the faith and to know that all believers are experiencing the same kind of suffering throughout the entire world. Whether we know all the believers in the world or not, we have a relationship with them on the basis of our shared faith, as well as our shared struggles. What affects one affects all.