Random Thoughts on First Peter

Growing up in private Christian High School, I had to memorize my fair share of memory verses, including 1 Peter 5:8, "Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour." I was always taught that it was only the old, toothless lions who roared, and this 'fact' was used by extension to belittle the real threat that the Enemy can sometimes pose to those who are not prepared. Now, I'm not here to argue how much Satan can or cannot harm us, I would just like to dispel the information I grew up with based on the Old Testament's own witness.

Today I was reading Proverbs 28, and I was struck by the couplet that verse 15 presented roaring lions with: As a roaring lion, and a ranging bear; so is a wicked ruler over the poor people. What struck me is that here a roaring lion did not seem be a harmless thing at all. To the contrary, it seemed to be grouped with some pretty threatening stuff. So I wondered what else the Old Testament had to say about roaring lions. Were they harmless as I had been led to believe, all bark and no bite? Or were they something worth being wary of?

The most interesting thing I found was that oftentimes roaring lions were more completely described as young, roaring lions (Judges 14:5, Psalm 104:21, Isaiah 31:4, Jeremiah 2:15, etc). Additionally, like the parallelism of Proverbs 28, the couplets I found in the Old Testament did not present roaring lions as nonthreatening, but rather as intimidating (e.g. Proverbs 19:12, "The king's wrath is as the roaring of a lion... "; also Hosea 11:10, " He [the LORD] shall roar like a lion: when he shall roar, then the children shall tremble from the west.").

So, contrary to what I had heard growing up, the concept of a roaring lion in the Bible is not one of an enfeebled attacker devoid of ability to do real harm, but rather one of real intimidation and consequence.

Well, that wraps up today's required dose of nerdiness. :) Not a complete treatise on Hebraic perceptions of roaring lions, but I hope the point is made well enough to dispose of the apocryphal information handed down to me.