1 Peter 4:12

Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial among you, which cometh upon you to prove you, as though a strange thing happened unto you:

In this verse the third and final major division of the epistle begins, and in it Peter gives the climax of his urgent warning and strengthening of the church against the terrible persecution, already under way, but soon to issue in the death of countless numbers of the faithful.

First of all, this verse says, in effect, it is natural for the world to hate you; do not think there is anything strange or unusual happening to you. All of the apostles had already discovered the truth of the Saviour's warning:

If the world hated you, ye know that it hath hated me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love its own: but because ye are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you ... A servant is not greater than his lord. If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you (John 15:18-20).

Just before giving this warning, Jesus said, "I command that ye love one another"; and significantly Peter prefaced these warnings of impending persecution with the same admonition that the Saviour gave in his warning (1 Peter 4:8).

The fiery trial ... The literal word here is "burning,"[19] as in Revelation 18:9,18, suggesting perhaps that those shameless burnings of Christians to illuminate the gardens of Nero might already have begun. As Mason said, "The fiery trial was not future but present; already the Asiatic Christians are enduring a fierce persecution."[20] Thus the words "cometh upon you" would be better rendered as "coming upon you."

To prove you ... Earlier in this letter, Peter had already established the principle that such trials were for the purpose of testing the faith of Christians, and that such a testing was very precious in the eyes of God (1Pet. :

[19] A. J. Mason, op. cit., p. 429.

[20] Ibid.