I said a few minutes ago that the ISIS murders were not quite what we have in 1st Peter.

Here's the reason I said that.

It says, don't be surprised, brothers, when the fiery ordeal comes upon you. It's not there yet.

Which has a lot to say about when this book was probably written.

And I'll tell you what most scholars think, at least most evangelical scholars,

liberals tend to think Peter didn't write it and it's way later at the end of the first

century or beginning of the second century but the vast number of scholars would say

Peter wrote this.

Tradition from Eusebius says that Peter was crucified under Nero

in a conflagration against Christians that happened sometime late 8064 to early 65.

The reason we know it is because Rome almost burned to the ground in July of 8064.

The population suspected Nero set the fire so that he could rebuild a more glorious Rome.

To escape that accusation, he scapegoated the Christians.

Sometime late 64, early 65, and you've heard the stories, crucified some upside down,

poured oil over some, put them on poles, and lit the city with them as they burned alive.

It was a horrible, horrible persecution, broke and spread and

Peter was evidently, if the tradition is right, killed in that persecution, which means he could smell it coming probably, and that's why

First Peter sounds the way it sounds.

First Peter, when you read it, it doesn't look like there is wholesale civil persecution

like coming down from the emperor or coming down from the governors it it doesn't

look that way well you'll see as we as we move through. You could just it's just right there

It's in the structures the hostility is brewing and and now it's about to come, the fiery ordeal that is about to come upon you.

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