Final Greetings and the Letter in Review
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Read 1 Peter 5:12–14, and then read the whole letter through once more.
I have written briefly to you, exhorting and declaring that this is the true grace of God. Stand firm in it.
— 1 Peter 5:12
The Letter Ends
We have reached the end of Peter’s letter. After ten weeks of walking carefully through his pastoral counsel to the scattered Christians of Asia Minor, we come to his brief closing greetings and his parting exhortation. By Silvanus, a faithful brother as I regard him, I have written briefly to you, exhorting and declaring that this is the true grace of God. Stand firm in it. She who is at Babylon, who is likewise chosen, sends you greetings, and so does Mark, my son. Greet one another with the kiss of love. Peace to all of you who are in Christ.
The greetings feel modest after the theological weight of everything that has come before. But they matter. They remind us that this letter was a real piece of correspondence, sent through real channels, from a real community to real communities, passing through the hands of specific individuals we can name. The Gospel does not float disembodied through history. It travels through people — Silvanus carrying this letter, Mark co-laboring with Peter in Rome, the church in Babylon sending its greetings, each congregation receiving and passing on what Peter had written. This is how the Word of God moves across the world. Not through abstractions, but through faithful brothers and sisters who carry it to one another.
This session has two parts. First, we will walk briefly through these closing verses, paying attention to what they tell us about Silvanus, about Babylon, about Mark, and about the customary Christian greeting Peter asks his readers to extend. Second, and more substantially, we will gather the threads of the whole letter. We will look back across the ten sessions we have traveled together and see how the pieces fit into a single coherent vision of Christian life — the vision Peter wrote to give elect exiles facing hostile circumstances, the vision that the Church has carried across centuries as Scripture for the suffering faithful. This is the letter in review, and it is the fitting way to close our study.
By Silvanus
The phrase by Silvanus is one of the most important details in the letter’s closing, and it answers a question that has puzzled students of First Peter for generations. How could Peter — a Galilean fisherman with limited formal education, writing in rural Greek — have composed a letter of such literary sophistication, with careful Greek style, elaborate rhetorical structure, and skillful use of the Septuagint? The answer appears to be that Peter wrote by Silvanus. The phrase is debated. In ancient letters, writing “by” someone often named the one who carried the letter, and Silvanus surely did that. Many interpreters think he also served as Peter’s secretary, with a hand in its composition.
This practice was common in the ancient world. A letter’s author provided the content, the ideas, the theological substance, and the pastoral direction. But the actual drafting was often done by an amanuensis — a trained secretary or scribe — who took the author’s thought and put it into polished literary form. The author would then review the result, perhaps make adjustments, and authorize the letter as his own. This is how Peter could be the genuine author of a sophisticated Greek letter even though his own spoken and written Greek may have been less polished than what we encounter on the page.
Who Was Silvanus?
Silvanus — whose name appears in Acts in the shorter form Silas — was one of the important early Church leaders. He traveled with Paul on the second missionary journey, was with Paul and Timothy in Thessalonica and Corinth, and is named as a co-sender of both Thessalonian letters. He appears to have had the gift of being a trusted co-laborer with several apostles, carrying responsibility both as a preacher in his own right and as a secretary and representative for the apostolic witness. Peter calls him a faithful brother, and the testimony of the New Testament suggests the designation is accurate. He was a man whom both Paul and Peter trusted with their words.
Peter’s use of Silvanus reminds us of how the early Church actually operated. It was a network of relationships, a fabric of trust extending across the Mediterranean world. Letters passed along these relationships. The apostolic witness was not delivered as individual solo performances but as collaborative work among brothers who knew each other, traveled together, and carried the Gospel in concert. This is a helpful reframing of how we think about the New Testament itself. It came to us through a community of faithful co-laborers, not through isolated geniuses working alone.
She Who Is at Babylon
Peter’s next greeting is cryptic. She who is at Babylon, who is likewise chosen, sends you greetings. Several questions. Who is she? What is Babylon? What is meant by likewise chosen?
The consensus of the Church across many centuries has been that she refers to a local congregation — Peter is personifying the church as a sister congregation greeting the churches of Asia Minor. And Babylon almost certainly refers to Rome. The actual city of Babylon in Mesopotamia was by this time a small, declining town of no significance in Christian history. Rome, on the other hand, was the imperial capital, the heart of the empire that was beginning to persecute Christians, and the place where Peter seems to have ended his life. Early Christian writers across several traditions commonly used Babylon as a code word for Rome — we see it again in the book of Revelation, where Babylon stands for the imperial power hostile to God’s people.
Peter’s use of this code is consistent with the caution he has been urging throughout the letter. Christians under the Roman state had reason to be careful in their written correspondence. Naming Rome explicitly, especially in connection with Christian activity the state did not approve of, could create risks both for the writer and for the recipients. The use of Babylon as a veiled reference allowed Peter to communicate what his readers would understand while offering some cover. And the reference itself was theologically rich. Rome was, for the first-century Christian, Babylon — the great world-power that set itself against God, the city of man opposed to the city of God. Peter’s readers would have felt the weight of the image even as they recognized the specific reference.
Likewise Chosen
The phrase likewise chosen connects the church at Babylon to the churches of Asia Minor. Peter opened the letter calling his readers elect exiles. He closes by reminding them that the church in Rome — the center of the empire, the place of the Church’s earliest martyrs, the congregation gathered at the heart of the world that rejected their faith — is likewise chosen. The elect scattered across the empire are not isolated communities. They are one people. They belong to one another. The church in Pontus, the church in Galatia, the church in Cappadocia, the church in Asia, the church in Bithynia, the church in Babylon — all are chosen. All are elect. All greet one another across the distances, bearing with each other through the common suffering of the age.
Mark, My Son
Peter names one more person. And so does Mark, my son. This Mark is almost certainly the evangelist John Mark, who appears in the book of Acts as the traveling companion of Paul and Barnabas, the young man whose defection from the first missionary journey caused the sharp disagreement between those two great apostles. He was restored to Paul’s confidence later, as Paul’s own letters show. And by the time of this letter, he is with Peter in Rome, serving as a trusted companion.
The relationship Peter describes is familial. Mark is my son. This does not mean literal biological sonship. It describes a spiritual paternal bond — Peter’s care for Mark as a son in the faith whom he has mentored, whose growth he has watched, whose ministry he has supported. Early Christian tradition reports that Mark’s Gospel was composed in close consultation with Peter, effectively serving as the written record of Peter’s own eyewitness preaching. Whatever we make of the details, what is clear is that a deep bond of spiritual kinship existed between them, and Peter passes Mark’s greetings to his readers as part of the same family that he and they share.
This is the shape of the Church. Spiritual fathers and sons. Brothers and sisters. Kinship that transcends biological family and creates a new kind of relationship — the relationship of those born again of the imperishable seed, who belong to one another because they belong to the same Lord. Your own congregation has these relationships, though they may be less visible than they were for Peter and Mark. Spiritual fathers and mothers who mentor the younger. Brothers and sisters who bear each other’s burdens. Spiritual kinship is real, and the letter’s closing reminds us that it is one of the Lord’s gifts to His people.
The Kiss of Love
Peter asks his readers to greet one another with the kiss of love. The holy kiss — or the kiss of love, as Peter names it here — was the customary Christian greeting in the apostolic Church. Paul refers to it at the close of several of his letters. It was a physical gesture of familial affection, appropriate among those who had become spiritually kin through Baptism. It marked the congregation as a family whose members were bound to one another in Christ.
The practice continues in some liturgical traditions today, in the form of the passing of the peace during the service. Even where the literal kiss has been replaced by a handshake or an embrace, the theological meaning remains the same. Members of Christ’s body greet one another as family. The passing of the peace is not merely a social nicety; it is a visible expression of the unity Peter has been describing throughout the letter — the unity of the one family gathered from every nation, the one flock under the Chief Shepherd, the one people who were once not a people but have now been made God’s own.
When your congregation passes the peace on Sunday morning, you are doing, in slightly different form, what Peter asked his readers to do in the first century. You are greeting fellow members of the Body, recognizing the spiritual kinship that the Spirit has created through the Gospel. This simple act is a small liturgical reflection of the reality this letter has been describing. Take it seriously. The person next to you in the pew is your brother or sister in Christ, born of the same imperishable seed, bound by the same Baptism, looking to the same Chief Shepherd, waiting for the same unfading crown.
Peace to All of You
Peter’s final words of the letter are a benediction. Peace to all of you who are in Christ. The simple word peace — eirene in Greek, shalom in Hebrew — carries the full weight of biblical blessing. It is not merely the absence of conflict. It is the comprehensive flourishing of life under God, the right ordering of all things, the wholeness that reflects the character of the God who gives it. Peter invokes this peace on all his readers, with the qualifier who are in Christ. The peace is for all who belong to the Savior — which is the same group he has been addressing throughout the letter, now gathered one last time in the closing blessing.
Peter ends where he began. The opening of the letter asked for grace and peace to be multiplied to the elect exiles. The closing invokes peace on all who are in Christ. The whole letter has been framed by this benediction of peace. Between the opening and the closing has come everything we have studied together — the living hope, the holiness, the royal priesthood, the vocational faithfulness, the suffering, the Baptism, the fiery trial, the Chief Shepherd, and all the rest. And all of it has been carried within the frame of peace from the Lord — peace that is not dependent on circumstances but that rests on what Christ has accomplished for His people.
Gathering the Threads
We come now to the review of the whole letter. Across ten sessions we have traveled from the opening greeting to the final blessing. Let us gather the threads and see the fabric they have woven together.
The Frame: Elect Exiles
The letter opens and closes with the same framing. Its readers are elect exiles — chosen by God, but scattered and sojourning in a world that is not their home. This frame runs throughout everything that follows. The Christian is always both chosen and exiled. The chosenness is the secure ground on which he stands; the exile is the ongoing condition in which he lives. Neither cancels the other. Peter writes to a people who need to remember both. When they are tempted to be anxious about their situation, they remember they are chosen. When they are tempted to be complacent with the surrounding culture, they remember they are exiles. This is the double identity from which everything else flows.
The Living Hope
Peter’s opening doxology established the second great theme of the letter. The Christian has been born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The inheritance is imperishable, undefiled, unfading, kept in heaven. Faith is being tested like gold through fire, and the result will be praise, glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. The living hope is not wishful thinking; it is the confident expectation of what Christ has already accomplished and what He will bring to completion at His return. This hope runs through every chapter. It is what sustains the Christian in suffering, what orders the Christian’s priorities, what makes it possible to face the fiery trial without being destroyed.
Holiness and Ransomed Life
Peter’s third great theme, from the middle of chapter one, is the call to holiness rooted in the ransoming work of Christ. The believer has been ransomed, not with perishable things like silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, the spotless Lamb. This ransoming reaches into the ordinary life of the believer, calling him to holiness, to the putting away of the passions of his former ignorance, to earnest love for his brothers and sisters, to growth through the imperishable seed of the Word. The ethical life of the Christian is always grounded in the Gospel that created him. Gospel first, ethic after. Indicative before imperative. This is the deep Lutheran structure Peter models throughout his exhortation.
The Royal Priesthood
Chapter two opened with the magnificent identity statement of the Church. A chosen race. A royal priesthood. A holy nation. A people for God’s own possession. This is the deep ecclesiology of the letter. The Church is not a collection of individual Christians who happen to gather occasionally. The Church is a people, with a shared identity rooted in Christ the cornerstone, with a shared calling to proclaim the excellencies of Him who called us out of darkness into His marvelous light. Once not a people, now God’s people. Once without mercy, now flooded with mercy. The whole reversal of Hosea has come to pass in Christ, and the Gentile Christians reading the letter are the living testimony to it.
Vocation in the Structures of Life
The second half of chapter two and the first part of chapter three applied the priestly identity to the specific structures of ordinary life. Christians live as sojourners, with honorable conduct among the Gentiles. They submit to civil authorities for the Lord’s sake, while maintaining the apostolic limit of obedience to God first. Servants submit to masters even when unjust, following the pattern of Christ who suffered for us without retaliation. Wives are called to inward adornment and the gentle and quiet spirit, while husbands are called to live with their wives in an understanding way, honoring them as fellow heirs of the grace of life. This is the Lutheran doctrine of vocation, grounded firmly in Peter’s text. The ordinary callings of ordinary life are the places where Christian faithfulness takes visible shape, and every faithful act within them is priestly service offered to God through Christ.
Suffering and the Gospel
The Christological heart of the letter, in chapter two’s closing verses, gave us the deepest meaning of Christian suffering. Christ committed no sin, neither was deceit found in His mouth. When reviled, He did not revile in return. He bore our sins in His body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By His wounds we have been healed. The straying sheep have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of their souls. This is the Gospel at the heart of the letter. Christ’s suffering is both substitution — the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring us to God — and example — so that we might follow in His steps. Both are true. And the two together give suffering its meaning for the Christian. We suffer because our Lord suffered. We suffer because we belong to Him. And our suffering is never isolated from His, but always a sharing in the pattern that goes through the cross to resurrection glory.
Apologetics and Baptism
Chapter three’s third section gave us the charter verse of Christian apologetics — always being ready to give a reason for the hope that is in us, with gentleness and respect. It gave us the great affirmation of the baptismal theology of the Lutheran Church — Baptism now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And it closed with Christ having gone into heaven, at the right hand of God, with all angels, authorities, and powers subjected to Him. The Christian who is baptized into Christ stands, quite literally, on the solid ground of what Christ has accomplished, what Christ now reigns over, and what Christ will bring to completion at His appearing.
The Fiery Trial and the End of All Things
Chapter four gathered all these themes into eschatological focus. The end of all things is at hand. Christians are to be sober-minded and self-controlled for the sake of their prayers. Love is to be earnest, covering a multitude of sins. Hospitality is to be offered without grumbling. Spiritual gifts, whether of speaking or of serving, are to be used for the glory of God through Jesus Christ. And the fiery trial, when it comes, is not strange. It is participation in the sufferings of Christ. The Spirit of glory rests on the one who is insulted for the name of Christ. The Christian entrusts his soul to a faithful Creator while doing good, because judgment begins at the household of God, and the God who is refining His people through their sufferings is the same God who will bring them safely home.
The Chief Shepherd
And then, in chapter five, Peter turned to the pastoral office. Elders are called to shepherd the flock of God willingly, eagerly, and as examples — always looking to the Chief Shepherd whose appearing will bring the unfading crown. All members of the congregation are called to mutual humility. All are called to cast their anxieties on a God who cares. All are called to resist the devil firm in the faith, knowing the brotherhood throughout the world shares the same kinds of suffering. And the God of all grace, Himself, will restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish them after they have suffered a little while.
A Pastoral Letter for Pilgrims
What emerges from the whole is a letter for Christians who are passing through. Peter does not write to Christians at home in their world; he writes to Christians on their way somewhere else. The language of exile, the language of inheritance kept for them in heaven, the language of the Chief Shepherd yet to appear — all of it orients the Christian life toward a destination not yet reached. The Christian is a pilgrim. He walks through the age of suffering toward the age of glory, carrying in his Baptism the promise of the future, sustained by Word and Sacrament along the way.
For Lutherans, this letter has been especially treasured. Luther himself, who famously called James an epistle of straw, loved First Peter. He called it one of the noblest books of the New Testament and one of the finest of the apostles’ epistles. The reasons are clear. The letter preaches the Gospel with unmistakable clarity. It holds Christ as the crucified Savior who bore our sins and rose for our justification. It holds Baptism as the means by which we are joined to His death and resurrection. It grounds the ethical life of the Christian in what Christ has accomplished, not in what we must achieve. It holds the priesthood of all the baptized together with the pastoral office. It takes suffering seriously as the shape of Christian life in this age, without despair, because the Chief Shepherd is coming and the unfading crown is coming with Him.
For Christians in every age — including ours — this letter speaks directly. We too are sojourners. We too are elect exiles. The culture we live in is not our home. Its values are not our values. Its hopes are not our hopes. And yet we are not withdrawn from it; we live within it, bearing witness, serving our neighbors, fulfilling our vocations, loving our families, enduring what must be endured, rejoicing in what is given. Peter’s pastoral vision matches our actual lives. It is a letter we can live with, a letter we can live from, a letter whose word continues to be the Word of the imperishable seed planted in the soil of our hearts by the preaching of the Gospel.
Stand Firm in the True Grace of God
We close with the summons Peter himself gives us in the closing verse. This is the true grace of God. Stand firm in it.
The true grace of God is what Peter has been describing throughout the letter. The grace that elected us before the foundation of the world. The grace that bought us with the precious blood of Christ. The grace that made us a people who were not a people. The grace that gave us Baptism and the Word and the Supper. The grace that sustains us through the fiery trial. The grace that will restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish us after we have suffered a little while. The grace that is coming in fullness at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
And the summons is to stand firm in it. Not to drift from it. Not to trade it for a cheaper version. Not to add to it or subtract from it. Not to become spectators of it rather than participants in it. Stand firm. Keep your feet on the ground of the true grace of God. Let your whole life — your hope, your holiness, your vocations, your sufferings, your joys, your witness — be lived within the frame of this grace. When the world pulls at you, stand firm. When the devil roars, stand firm. When the fiery trial comes, stand firm. When your earthly life is drawing to its close, stand firm. This is the true grace of God. It will not fail you. It will bring you safely home.
For Discussion
The following questions are for group discussion or personal reflection as we close our study together.
Looking back across our ten weeks together, which teaching from First Peter has most stayed with you? Which one do you find yourself returning to in your own life?
The frame of elect exile runs through the whole letter. Has this frame changed how you think about your own situation in the world? How?
First Peter has been especially treasured by Lutherans for its clear presentation of the Gospel, the Baptism, and the Christian life. Which of its distinctive Lutheran emphases has meant the most to you in our study?
Peter writes to Christians facing suffering. For those in your class who have been suffering during our study, has the letter given you anything that has helped? What specifically?
Peter closes the letter with the exhortation, ‘This is the true grace of God. Stand firm in it.’ What does it look like practically for you to stand firm in the true grace of God in the coming weeks and months?
What is one specific thing you hope to carry forward from this study into your continued Christian life? How will you remember it?
Looking Ahead — Beyond This Study
This is the end of our study of First Peter, but it is not the end of our journey in the New Testament letters. The apostolic writings give us a rich inheritance of pastoral wisdom, theological depth, and spiritual formation. A natural next step would be another New Testament letter — Second Peter continues the themes of the first with particular attention to false teaching and the delay of the Lord’s return. The letters of John give us some of the most tender pastoral language in the New Testament, with clear teaching on assurance of salvation. Paul’s shorter letters — Philippians, Colossians, the Pastoral Epistles — each bring their own gifts. And we have not yet touched Hebrews or the Book of Revelation, both of which repay serious study.
Whatever you study next, take with you what Peter has given you in this letter. The living hope. The imperishable inheritance. The royal priesthood. The faithful vocations. The Baptism that joins us to Christ. The pattern of the Suffering Servant. The God of all grace. The unfading crown. These are not one-letter insights. They are the shape of the whole Christian life, spelled out in Peter’s pastoral voice for Christians in every age.
Above all, continue to gather with your congregation under the Word and Sacrament. Continue to receive the preaching of the Gospel and the administration of the sacraments that are the very means of grace Peter has been pointing us to throughout the letter. Continue in the ordinary rhythms of Christian life that the letter commends. Peter has written. His words have been preserved. His teaching is part of the Scripture the Spirit continues to speak through. Stand firm in it. The grace is true. It will not fail.
Closing Prayer
God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to Your great mercy have caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, we thank You for the letter of Your servant Peter and for all that You have given us through it. Grant that we may continue to stand firm in the true grace of God — the grace of election, the grace of Baptism, the grace of the Word and the Lord*’*s Supper, the grace that carries us through every trial and brings us safely home. Keep us faithful as elect exiles in a world that is not our home. Sustain us in our ordinary vocations as priestly service offered to You through Christ. Make us bold to give a reason for the hope that is in us, with gentleness and respect. And when the Chief Shepherd appears, bring us with all Your saints to receive the unfading crown of glory. Through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.
Peace to all of you who are in Christ.