'Peter, an Apostle of Jesus Christ, to the strangers
scattered ...'--1 Peter i. 1.
The words rendered 'strangers scattered' are literally 'sojourners of
the Dispersion,' and are so rendered in the Revised Version. The
Dispersion was the recognised name for the Jews dwelling in Gentile
countries; as, for instance, it is employed in John's Gospel, when the
people in Jerusalem say, 'Whither will this man go that we shall not
find Him? Will he go to the Dispersion amongst the Greeks?' Obviously,
therefore the word here may refer to the scattered Jewish people, but
the question arises whether the letter corresponds to its apparent
address, or whether the language which is employed in it does not almost
oblige us to see here a reference, not to the Jew, but to the whole body
of Christian people, who, whatever may be their outward circumstances,
are, in the deepest sense, in the foundations of their life, if they be
Christ's, 'strangers of the Dispersion.'
Now if we look at the letter we find such words as these--'The times of
your ignorance'--'your vain manner of life handed down from your
fathers'--'in time past were not a people'--'the time past may suffice
to have wrought the will of the Gentiles'--all of which, as you see, can
only be accommodated to Jewish believers by a little gentle violence,
but all of which find a proper significance if we suppose them
addressed to Gentiles, to whom they are only applicable in the higher
sense of the words to which I have referred. If we understand them so,
we have here an instance of what runs all through the letter; the taking
hold of Jewish ideas for the purpose of lifting them into a loftier
region, and transfiguring them into the expression of Christian truth.
For example, we read in it: 'Ye are an elect race, a royal priesthood, a
holy nation'; and again: 'Ye are built up a spiritual house, to be a
holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices.' These and other
similar passages are instances of precisely the same transference of
Jewish ideas as I find, in accordance with many good commentators, in
the words of my text.