Peter ends his letter with some simple commands that help us bring the hope of Christ into our everyday. Be humble. Stay alert. And keep your eyes on heaven.

Christian communities should be marked off by an unusual humility towards one another. Peter shows this sort of humble community has a lot to do with how elders and members relate to one another in the local church.

Peter says we should expect to suffer because we're Christians, and that we should rejoice when we do. But why? What makes suffering good news?

Peter says the end of all things is at hand. But what he tells us to do about it may surprise you.

How can you live with hope even when you're suffering and don't know what will happen next? Only when you know the Lamb who was slain rules all for his glory and your good.

Suffering has been behind a lot of what Peter has said to encourage his readers. Here that theme comes to the surface. Peter shows that for followers of Jesus suffering is intentional, it's inevitable, and it's hopeful.

This passage has been called the most obscure passage in the New Testament. It's notoriously difficult to understand. But it was given to encourage new believers who were suffering for their faith. So what does it mean, and how is it helpful?

What does it look like to engage the world around you as a Christian?

Peter's final example of alien living is aimed at the life of the church community. We show our hope in Christ, that our hearts our fixed on an inheritance he's promised us, by our otherworldly love for one another.

Peter's words to wives and husbands could be easily misunderstood, even rejected out of hand as a relic from another time. But if we listen carefully to what he says, we'll find a life-giving message that's rooted in the hope of the gospel.