Stay watchful, not afraid

This verse gets used to make people nervous about everything. Heiser puts it back in its setting: the context for Peter's picture of Satan as a devouring lion is persecution and suffering. He is writing to people under real pressure, and naming what is behind it.
Which changes what watchfulness means. Not scanning the room for demons. Recognising that the hard thing you are enduring has an adversary's interest in it - and then doing what Peter actually says. Resist, firm in your faith. And he immediately adds the least mystical comfort imaginable: the same sufferings are happening to your brothers and sisters everywhere. You are not singled out.
Scripture links:
- 1 Peter 5:8-9 - "Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion... Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world."
- 1 Peter 5:7 - The verse immediately before: "casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you."
Watchful is not the same as frightened. One of them is a command.