The apostle Peter writes this letter to believers who are living in a hostile world—hostile to those who desire to live for Christ.

Even though they are scattered across the region, Peter wants them to realize their position in Christ. He calls them pilgrims, meaning those who do not belong, who are only passing through, who are not home but are in a foreign land. He wanted them to be aware of the fact that their “citizenship is in heaven” (Phil. 3:20), and that this citizenship is to come first. They may be citizens of the Roman Empire, but they are really God’s pilgrims, spiritual foreigners looking for a “city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God” (Heb. 11:10). This implies that their earthly citizenship is secondary. They were to see themselves as living temporarily in an alien environment (cf. 1 Pet. 2:11–12).

Peter does not tell them to retreat from the world, into a monastery, isolated from the hostile world they lived in. Instead, his desire was to insulate them with the teaching that would fortify and strengthen them to resist the devil (5:7), and “to be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear” (3:15). The believer today is constantly swimming upstream against the current of this world. If we lose sight of our position in this world, we will be discouraged. We must keep our eyes on the heavenly hope, seeing it afar off, embracing it, and confessing that we are “strangers and pilgrims on the earth” (Heb. 11:13).