In his translation of 1 Peter, Craig Keener rendered 1 Pet 1:7 thusly:
These testings are
meant to prove the genuineness of your trust in God. Even though fire proves
the genuineness of gold, gold is perishable. But your trust in God is worth far
more than gold. The result of such unalloyed trust in God will be praise,
glory, and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed!
He provided the following commentary on
this passage:
The term rendered as genuineness
was often used for unalloyed metals; fire tested their genuineness, as it tests
that of believers. For believers, the figuratively fiery testing refers to sufferings
in the present age; as in 4:12, it probably envisions for Peter’s audience
especially persecution. The imperishable inheritance of 1:4 is worth far more
than perishable gold (1:7). Gold may endure testing by fire, but faith that is
tested by fire proves far more permanent and will be honored once Christ
returns. This is because believers were brought not with perishable silver or
gold (1:18), valuable merely outwardly (3:3), but with the far more precious
blood of Christ (1:19).
Scripture supplied Peter
and biblically informed members of his audience with comparisons affirming that
divine matters were far more precious than gold or silver, and Jewish tradition
elaborated this. For example (from the NRSV):
·
Psalm 119:127: “Truly I love your commandments / more than gold, more
than fine gold.”
·
Proverbs 3:14: Wisdom’s “income is better than silver, / and her revenue
better than gold.”
·
Proverbs 8:19: Wisdom’s “fruit is better than gold, even fine gold, /
and my yield than choice silver.”
·
Proverbs 22:1: “A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches, /
and favor is better than silver or gold.”
·
Tobit 12:8: “A little with righteousness is better than wealth with
wrongdoing, it is better to give alms than to lay up gold.”
·
Sirach 7:19: “Do not dismiss a wise and good wife, / for her charm is
worth more than gold.”
·
Sirach 29:11: “Lay up your treasure according to the commandments of the
Most High, / and it will profit you more than gold.”
·
Sirach 30:15: “Health and fitness are better than any gold, / and a
robust body than countless riches/”
·
Sirach 40:25: “Gold and silver make one stand firm, / but good counsel
is esteemed more than either.”
One may compare also a
Diaspora Jewish thinker writing before Peter’s time: knowledge of God and the
beauty of virtue are a treasure greater than gold and silver, which are
perishable (Philo, Cherubim, 48).
Fire tested and
refined metals, just as it tests even more precious faith here. Heating a
furnace sufficiently allowed ancients to extract precious metals from ore: lead
melts already at 327oC, and its main ore would be heated to 900 or
1000oC to extract silver. Gold remains long after lead, melting only
at 1063oC. Thus gold would remain after most other ore was removed.
This image of figurative refining, too, had plenty of precedent. God’s words
could be seen as tested and refined to purity in a furnace (Ps. 12:6); most
often, God’s people were also rested as if refined by fire (Ps. 66:10; Isa.
1:25; 48:10; Zech. 13:9; cf. Dan. 11:35; 12:10; Mal. 3:2-3). The Lord tests
hearts like refining (Prov. 17:3) as does praise (Prov. 27:21). Similarly:
·
Athenian dramatist Euripedes: “Let no success be so great that, it will
excite you to pride greater than is proper . . . Rather, stay always the same,
maintaining your own nature steadfastly like gold in fire” (Euripides, frg. 963;
from Plutarch, Mor. 102E).
·
Athenian orator Isocrates: “As we try gold in the fire, so we come to
know our friends when we are in misfortune” (Isocrates, Demon. 25).
·
Roman Stoic Seneca the Younger: “Fire tests gold, misfortune brave men”
(Seneca Y. Dial. 1.5.10).
·
Job: “But he knows the way that I take, / when he has tested me, I shall
come out like gold” (Job 23:10 [NRSV]).
·
Isaiah: “See, I have refined you, but not like silver; / I have tested
you in the furnace of adversity” (Isa. 48:10 [NRSV]).
·
Ezekiel: “The house of Israel has become dross to me; all of them are
bronze and tine and iron and lead in the furnace; they are dross of silver . .
. As one gathers silver and bronze and iron and lead and tin into a furnace, to
blow the fire on it in order to melt it, so I will gather you in my anger and
in my wrath, and I will put you in and melt you. . . . As silver is melted in a
furnace, so you shall be melted in the midst of it” (Ezek. 22:18, 20, 22 [ESV])
·
Zechariah: “I will put this third into the fire, / and refine them as
one refines silver, / and test them as gold is tested” (Zech. 13:9 [ESV]).
·
Malachi: “Who can withstand the day of his coming? . . . For he is like
a refiner’s fire” (Mal. 3:2 [AT]).
·
Sirach: “For gold is tested in the fire, / and those found acceptable,
in the furnace of humiliation” (Sir. 2:5 [NRSV]).
·
Qumran texts speak of the righteous tested in God’s crucible (1QM 17.1),
which is the time of the final battle (1QM 17.9): “ . . . by the fierce anger
of God among those who have been refined sevenfold. But God will consecrate
some of the holy ones for Himself as an eternal sanctuary; a refining among
those who are purified” (4Q511 frg. 35.1-3).
·
Wisdom of Solomon: After God has disciplined them for a short time (by
martyrdom), God will greatly reward them, “because . . . . like gold in the furnace
he tested them, / and like a whole burnt offering he has accepted them” (Wis.
3:5-6 [AT]).
·
4 Ezra: “Then the tested quality of my chosen
people shall be manifest, as gold that is tested by fire” (4 Ezra
16:73).
Later rabbis also
continued the comparison (E.g., Gen. Rab. 44:1 [regarding Abraham]; Pesiq.
Rab. 14:6 [quoting Ps. 12:7]). Believers who stand firm in testing prove faithful;
the language of “testing” can include the nuance of those who pass the test
being “approved.” Just as testing refines gold and improves the final product as
pure gold, so testing improves those who persevere through it. As Athanasius
notes about this verse, “Rather than being hurt by what they went through, they
grew and were made better, shining like gold that has been refined in a fire”
(Athanasius, Ep. fest. 10). (Craig S. Keener, 1 Peter: A Commentary [Grand
Rapids, Mich.: Baker Academic, 2021], 75-78)
