1 Peter 4:12

1 Peter 4:12. Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial. So far the translation of the A. V. is a very happy one. The same verb is used here as in 1 Peter 4:4 (which see), and with the same sense. The affectionate address, ‘Beloved,' which has been used already at a serious turning-point in the Epistle, is repeated here in token of the writer's sympathy with the readers, and to conciliate their attention to what he has yet to say on a painful subject. What he says first of all is to deprecate their looking on their trials as things beyond understanding or expectation. The heathen thought it strange that Christians adopted a manner of life so different from what prevailed. And they were wrong in so thinking. Christians themselves were equally wrong in yielding to the sense of mere bewilderment at their persecutions, however strange it might seem at first that they, who were taught to regard themselves as God's elect ones and His heirs, should be left to suffer as they did at the hand of His enemies. The trial itself is expressed by a term which is well represented by the ‘fiery trial' of the A. V. In the Classics it means a burning, or a firing, and is used of the material processes of cooking, roasting, etc., but also at times metaphorically of burning desire, proving by fire, etc. In Proverbs 27:21 it is rendered ‘furnace,' and the cognate verb is used of the trial of character as being like the smelting of metals (cf. Psalms 65:10; Zechariah 13:9). The only other passages of the N. T. in which the noun occurs are Revelation 18:9; Revelation 18:18, where it is rendered ‘burning.' This ‘burning' is said to be among you, a clause which is overlooked by the A. V., and which represents the fiery process as not remote but already at work in their midst

which comes upon you with a view to probation (or, as the R. V. paraphrases it, to prove you). The ‘which is to try you' of the A. V. makes that future which Peter gives as present. The trial was then taking place, as the terms imply, and that with the object of proving and so purifying them. The idea, therefore, is so far the same as in chap. 1 Peter 1:7.

as though a strange thing were befalling you. The ‘some' of the A. V. is uncalled for. Tyndale's rendering of the verse deserves notice ‘Dearly beloved, be not troubled in this heat which is now come among you to try you, as though some strange thing had happened unto you.' The picture is that of sufferings already in operation or immediately impending. As to the apparent strangeness of such a lot Jeremy Taylor says: ‘Jesus made for us a covenant of suffering. His doctrines were such as, expressly and by consequent, enjoin and suppose sufferings and a state of affliction; His very promises were sufferings; His Beatitudes were sufferings; His rewards, and His arguments to invite men to follow Him, were only taken from sufferings in this life and the reward of sufferings hereafter.'