Der Erste Petrusbrief

Reading the First Epistle of Peter is particularly relevant for contemporary Christian communities as well as for individual Christians simply because they are increasingly sharing diasporal experiences. When assessing the situation in this way, the focus is less on a denominational diaspora term and more on the situation of believers in the world. Therefore, the observations on the text of the First Epistle of Peter can also be useful for the self-assurance and identity creation of contemporary churches. With its sober self-assessment of the preliminary state of mind of believers in Christ at the end of the 1st century and its theological interpretation, the letter was always helpful in accepting one's own - sometimes particularly challenging - situation and coping with it constructively. This can encourage and strengthen attempts to evaluate diasporic realities of the church today - with regard to individual Christians as well as to congregations (however small they may be); above all by providing identity-creating offers. In many places today, believers in Christ are faced with the task of accepting minority situations or experiences of being foreign and at the same time being open to the respective societies in which they find themselves, but above all remaining willing to talk - certainly also about the content of their faith and the resulting life practice. This commentary appears 43 years after the EKK volume (1979) presented by Norbert Brox and, following this groundbreaking work, takes up the international research of the past decades, whereby, in addition to the philological work, perspectives of social history, metaphor research and of the impact history receive special attention.