1 Peter 4:17

Note

Peter tells a church in the middle of a fiery trial that what they are suffering is judgment beginning with God's own household. Then he asks a question: if it begins with us, what will the end be for those who disobey the gospel of God?

From verse 12 Peter has been telling his readers not to be surprised "at the fiery trial that has come upon you" (1 Peter 4:12). If they are insulted for the name of Christ they are blessed, and "if you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but glorify God that you bear that name" (1 Peter 4:16). This verse looks at the same suffering from God's side. It is not random hostility; it is God attending first to His own house. Peter has already called the church a house, living stones "being built into a spiritual house" (1 Peter 2:5). The thought that judgment starts at the sanctuary is an old one: in Ezekiel's vision the command is "Now begin at My sanctuary" (Ezekiel 9:6).

The noun euangelion appears as "the gospel of God," the good news that comes from God. It is the object of a present participle of apeitheō, to disobey. The gospel, then, is not only news to be admired but a summons to be obeyed. Paul writes in the same way of those who "do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus" (2 Thessalonians 1:8), and Peter has said that believers purified their souls "by obedience to the truth" (1 Peter 1:22). The present participle points to a settled refusal, not a single hesitation.

The versions are close. The KJV has "judgment must begin at the house of God" and "them that obey not the gospel of God." The BSB turns "house" into "family of God," which makes plain that the house is a people, not a building. The LSV keeps "the house of God" and "those disobedient to the good news of God." The Korean Bibles both say the house of God (the 흠정역 하나님의 집, the 개역한글 하나님 집), and both render the verb as not obeying (순종하지 아니하는, 순종치 아니하는); the 흠정역 adds 반드시, "must," from the KJV.

Wesley reads the verse as both warning and comfort: "God first visits his church, and that both in justice and mercy" Wesley. Matthew Henry joins it to the next verse, the proverb about the righteous being scarcely saved, and draws the conclusion: "if the way of the righteous be so hard, then how hard shall be the end of the ungodly sinner" Matthew Henry. He ends where Peter does, that the only way to keep the soul well is "to commit it to God by prayer, and patient perseverance in well-doing" Matthew Henry.

The letter is addressed to believers in Pontus and Bithynia, among other provinces. Some decades later, around AD 112, the governor of Bithynia and Pontus, Pliny the Younger, wrote to the emperor Trajan asking whether Christians should be punished for the name itself Pliny, Letters 10.96. The suffering "as a Christian" that Peter speaks of went on in those very regions.

The first to stand before this verse's question is not the world outside, but the church that has already received the gospel and lives by its answer to it.