Hey Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble and I'm your host for the Bible Recap.

If you're doing our New Testament plan, we've finished our 19th book today, and if you're doing the whole Bible, we've finished book 58.

We had an hope from Peter in a while, but last time we saw him was in Jerusalem helping lead the church

that was comprised mostly of Jewish Christians.

But since then he's expanded his ministry to include Gentiles and that's the primary

audience for this letter, specifically Gentile believers who live in what is now Turkey.

Rome is still running the show and Nero is probably the emperor at the time.

He's a renowned persecutor of the church. In fact, he uses Christians as torches at his parties. The Roman

Empire is so wicked that Peter nicknames it Babylon, which was an evil

empire from back in the Old Testament days. Rome is Babylon 2.0.

Put a pin in that.

We'll come back to it in a few days.

Peter writes this letter to churches who are under severe persecution in the midst of a culture

openly rebelling against God in his kingdom.

How would you feel if you were those Christians?

You'd probably feel confused and frustrated and maybe even lean toward despair.

Let's see how Peter addresses them.

He starts out by reminding them that God has chosen them. This is probably

important to hear if you're at a place where you question God's love. They are gods, Peter says. Right out of the

gate he's aiming toward comfort and hope.

This also connects them to the language used about the Jews in the Old Testament,

and Peter spends a lot of time reinforcing that theme.

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