Peter addresses Christians as foreigners and exiles, while Ephesians says they are no longer foreigners. The statements fit together when we ask in relation to whom they are strangers. Belonging to God’s household changes how they inhabit the world without removing them from its ordinary responsibilities.
The Word
πάροικος (paroikos) means sojourner, resident alien, or someone living in a place without the full standing of its citizens. It can describe an actual social position or serve as an image of belonging.
The related noun παροικία (paroikia) names a temporary residence or period of sojourning. First Peter 1:17 uses that noun when describing the time believers are to live in reverence.
Range of Meaning
Acts 7:6 uses paroikos in recalling God’s announcement that Abraham’s descendants would live as foreigners in another country. The setting concerns a people who would experience enslavement and mistreatment.
First Peter 2:11 uses the word alongside another term for exiles when addressing Christians. Their identity as God’s people shapes their distance from sinful desires and their conduct among their neighbors.
Ephesians 2:19 moves in the other direction: former outsiders are now fellow citizens with the saints and members of God’s household. The difference lies in the relationship described, not in a contradiction about Christian identity.
Where You’ll Meet It
Paul tells his readers:
“you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of God’s household” (Ephesians 2:19, NET)
The passage goes on to describe the church built on the foundation of apostles and prophets, with Christ as cornerstone. Those who once stood outside now belong through him.
Peter’s appeal to foreigners and exiles immediately leads to good conduct among unbelieving neighbors. It does not call the church to contempt for the people among whom it lives. The language of sojourning serves holiness and witness.
What Confessional Lutherans Hear
The church’s ultimate belonging is in Christ, yet Christians remain responsible for the real neighbors and communities in which God places them. A pilgrim identity does not cancel duties of care, honest work, or public service.
Neither does citizenship in a country confer membership in God’s household. Ephesians locates that belonging in Christ and in the church he builds. Political loyalties must not take the place of the gospel’s promise.
These passages can help illuminate the distinction between God’s spiritual and temporal rule, but the Greek noun does not contain a complete doctrine of the two kingdoms. That teaching must be drawn from Scripture’s wider account of God’s work and our callings.
The image also invites care toward actual strangers. We should not use their social vulnerability as a religious illustration while ignoring their concrete needs.
So What
Live faithfully where you are, remembering whose household receives you. You can contribute to your community without asking it to provide the final security only Christ gives.
Welcome the neighbor who lacks familiar connections or support. The people God has gathered to himself know what it means to receive a belonging they could not establish on their own.