12"Do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you." The word for surprised is *xenizo*, which appeared in 4:4 when old friends were surprised at how these believers lived. Now it turns around. The word for strange comes from the same root, stranger. Peter's exiles already live as strangers, and the fire should not seem strange to them. The word for fiery trial, *pyrosis*, picks up the image from chapter 1, where faith was tested by fire like gold. Peter prepared them at the start, and here it arrives. The fire comes to test, so the trial has a purpose.
13"Rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings." The verb is *koinoneo*, the word of partnership. Suffering for Christ's sake makes a person a partner in what he went through. Peter pairs suffering and glory everywhere in this letter and treats them as one pattern with a beginning and an end. Two joys are named, the rejoicing now inside the trial and the gladness that overflows when the glory shows. The first joy is the joy of knowing whose company you keep in the pain.
14"If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you." The insult is named as an insult, and the blessing is named beside it. Where the world sees only shame, God's own presence rests on the reproached.
Then Peter draws a careful line. Some suffering is earned, and he will not dress it up. 16"If anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed." The name Christian occurs only three times in the New Testament, and it was likely a label outsiders gave, meant to belittle. Peter asks them to wear it openly and give God glory in it.
Then comes 17"Judgment to begin at the household of God." The household recalls the spiritual house of 2:5, and God's judgment follows a prophetic pattern of beginning at his own sanctuary. The fire goes through God's family first, refining it, which makes the present trial a mercy that comes before the last judgment. The proverb Peter cites says the righteous are 18"scarcely saved." Scarcely means through difficulty, and since they are guarded by God's power, they arrive.
The passage ends with an instruction. 19"Entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good." The Greek verb for entrust is a banking word, a deposit left for safekeeping, and Jesus used it at the cross: "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit" (Luke 23:46). The word for Creator appears nowhere else in the New Testament. The one who made your life is faithful to it. Entrusting is resting and doing good is working, and Peter will not let either stand alone.
Ask where the fire is in your life right now, and whether it has felt strange.
Prayer
Father, when the fiery trial comes, keep us from thinking it strange. Let us rejoice in sharing Christ's sufferings, and keep us from shame in the name we bear. We entrust our souls to you, our faithful Creator, and ask that you keep us doing good until his glory is revealed. In Jesus' name, amen.