What's the strongest stuff you can think of?
In the early 2000s, I remember seeing a really bad movie called The Core that feels very much like a rip-off of Armageddon. In the film, disaster strikes Earth when the planet literally stops spinning. The electromagnetic field the planet needs to live is gone. And so a team of scientists enters, able to save the world, with a plan that requires jump-starting Earth's core. The only problem: they need the world's strongest stuff, something so strong it can withstand the weight and pressure of the entire world for the vehicle they are going to drive into the planet's core. That strong stuff is called "unobtainium." It's a fictional metal, but it's the strongest substance on the planet, and it can withstand anything without breaking.
The core of the planet may not be dying in 1 Peter, but it definitely feels like the world has stopped spinning for the Christians Peter writes to. These are "elect exiles in the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia" (1:1). These saints are going through persecution and suffering, and they need their own "unobtainium" to depend on, and Peter offers it: the precious blood of Jesus. It's the strongest stuff out there.
The joke in the name, of course, is that unobtainium is the stuff you can't get. And that's just the point. What no one could obtain for themselves is exactly what God has given us in Christ.
Peter recognizes the situation. Things are bad; they are enduring a "fiery trial" (4:12). What are Christians supposed to do in the face of this persecution? Do they shrink back from their duties as the church? No, Peter reminds them of the strongest stuff they are covered in, and reminds them to hope in Christ. Remember, your salvation wasn't purchased with some wimpy material, but with the strongest stuff: "you were ransomed…not with perishable things such as silver or gold but with the precious blood of Christ" (1:18–19). As precious as silver and gold are, they might as well be Styrofoam when it comes to what we can trust and depend on.
We have been purchased with unobtainium. By faith in the Christ who paid that price, you can endure the fiery trials that are to come, no matter what they are, because our faithful Savior has already endured the trials we could not.
On the cross, Christ went where no one else could go, and he suffered a death that no one else could suffer. It's by faith in Christ that we are sprinkled with this strong stuff (1:2).
So what are you enduring right now that feels like the world has stopped spinning? What are you depending on?
Peter lovingly tells us, "Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial … as though something strange is happening to you" (4:12). We might be surprised, but the Lord is not, and being sovereign over all things, he is with us, and we have a hope that cannot be shaken because it's built on the strongest stuff.
Now we can entrust ourselves to the Lord in whatever trial, continuing to do good (4:19). Peter points us to the hope that this present struggle will end and that God "will himself restore, confirm, strengthen and establish you" (5:10).
Our church is reading 1 Peter together this term, and I've put together a listening guide to help you get the most out of it — who Peter was writing to, what to listen for as you read, and how this short letter fits into the bigger story God is telling. I'd love for you to read along with us.