A Good Testimony in a Bad World

1 Peter 2:11-17

Have you ever felt like you wore a target on your back? Like wherever you go at school, work, etc., your classmates, coworkers, teachers, or managers were suspicious of you, waiting for you to misbehave and finding ways to criticize and make your life miserable?

It’s not easy to live under that sort of scrutiny, to handle that sort of pressure with ease. Yet this is the very kind of pressure that Christ himself experienced, so we should not be surprised when we experience the same uncomfortable challenge.

That’s why when we choose to follow Christ, we don’t often receive an enthusiastic response from people close to us when we tell them what we’ve done. A wife tells her husband, or a girlfriend tells her fiancé that she’s put her faith in Christ, and it’s not uncommon for husband or fiancé to respond not only with an unenthusiastic grunt or general indifference, but with a sarcastic, snide remark or even with an expression of frustration or anger. “Why’d you have to go and do that?”

The same is true when sharing our newfound faith with colleagues, classmates, and friends. In fact, a good way to get people uncomfortable or uneasy with having you around is to let them know that you’re a follower of Christ.

As we face the scrutiny of a godless world, we cannot prevent nonbelievers from criticizing and scrutinizing our lives, but we can avoid giving them legitimate reasons to do so. As John Maxwell says, “Life is difficult – don’t make it harder for yourself.” And as others say, “You can’t stop a person from aiming at you, but you don’t have to give them ammunition!”

Knowing that nonbelievers are generally suspicious, uncomfortable, or upset with people who follow Christ, we should not be angry, agitated, or bitter against them. We should be motivated to live more Christlike, honorable lives before them instead.

In the passage we’re looking at today (1 Pet 2:11-17), Peter begins to talk about this very situation, and he will explore it for a while from various angles in the passages that follow. Overall, he challenges us to not grow frustrated or weary with being criticized, scrutinized, mistreated, or misunderstood by nonbelievers.

Instead, he challenges us to do better than accept this situation as the norm but rather to embrace it as an opportunity to represent Christ well and to encourage nonbelievers to become believers and to begin following Christ as well.

Let’s take a look at how we should behave towards nonbelievers even when they misunderstand and mistreat us for following Christ.

Every follower of Christ is an outsider in the world.

By calling believers “sojourners” and “pilgrims” (“foreigners” and “temporary citizens”), Peter drew attention to two realities that we have to accept:

• People of any nation are generally suspicious and unwelcoming to foreigners and temporary citizens from other nations. This is not a positive quality but one we can agree is true. If you want to empathize with how nonbelievers feel about us, it’s this way – like we don’t belong and that we are threatening their normal way of life.
• We are, in fact, temporary citizens of this life. This is not something we should deny, neither should we insist that we be treated otherwise, nor should we make feeling at home in this world and being accepted by this world a priority. We are permanent citizens in God’s future kingdom. So, nonbelievers aren’t all wrong when they feel as though we don’t belong. We’re outsiders like our Lord.

Because we are only temporary citizens in this world, we should “refrain” or “remain distant” from “fleshly lusts.” These lusts are “strong desires motivated by selfishness.” These are the very desires that this world appeals to and builds upon through its marketing strategies, social pressure, philosophies, and economic systems.

Peter tells us more about these desires in 1 Pet 4:3-4:

For we have spent enough of our past lifetime in doing the will of the Gentiles—when we walked in lewdness, lusts, drunkenness, revelries, drinking parties, and abominable idolatries. In regard to these, they think it strange that you do not run with them in the same flood of dissipation, speaking evil of you.

Since nonbelievers pay such close attention to us, we need to exhibit a good testimony. In reliance upon Christ, we must live honorable lives of integrity, honesty, responsibility, and kindness. Why? One good reason is because nonbelievers are looking for us to fail, to be hypocritical, and to prove their theory that Christianity is a farce.

Peter says, “they speak evil of you as evildoers.” Notice he says not if but when, indicating the general certainty and predictability of this response. Many of us know that Nero accused the Christians of burning down Rome. But did you know that nonbelievers commonly accused first-century believers of many bad behaviors, such as cannibalism, incest and immorality, poverty and low social class, self-righteousness, atheism, insurrection, being a cause of anger from the gods (explain)?

Though we cannot prevent false accusations (Christ himself was accused of insurrection), we can certainly aim to minimize the amount of true accusations they can make.

Our public behavior is our greatest outreach tool.

Our behavior should do more, though, than merely reduce the amount of true accusations of wrong doing or the examples of hypocrisy in our lives. Our behavior should persuade people to come over to the other side. Remember how Peter said in the previous verses that we are like priests and stones? As such, we are part of a bridge designed by God to bring people over from the sin-blinded, nonbelieving side to a close relationship with him.

We are not merely to defend, fortify, and protect ourselves from the world around us (“abstain/refrain from fleshly lusts,” -). We are to reach out into our world and into the lives of people around us (“good works,” +), tempting them with God – encouraging them to follow Christ as God and Savior as we have done. In other words, following Christ should not be characterized by what we don’t do only but by what we do do, by the good and godly way that we treat other people, behave when we’re around people, and help or serve other people in our church and world.

Furthermore, to “see” our good works indicates that people should be able to watch us doing good works, making a difference in our communities and world for Christ. True, saving faith is not a private, imperceptible faith. It is faith that does good works. Peter is not the only apostle who taught this. James and Paul did, too.

Someone will say, ‘You have faith, and I have works.’ Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.

James 2:8

Who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works

Titus 2:14

… I want you to affirm constantly, that those who have believed in God should be careful to maintain good works

Titus 3:8

One commentator says it well: “our behavior over the long haul should be so positive that it will dismantle the negative accusations.”[1]

What is the “day of visitation.” Some believe this refers to God’s final, future judgment when he passes a final verdict on the genuineness of our faith before granting entrance to the eternal kingdom of God on the New Earth or the Lake of Fire. Though this is a possible translation, it’s difficult to understand what this could mean in this context.

There is good reason to believe that Peter is talking about something else, about the day when God would visit each nonbeliever with the conviction of the Holy Spirit. If this is the case, then we should live in such a way that our lives could pave the way for the nonbelievers in our lives to believe on Christ when God convicts their hearts to do so.

This occurred for Paul as he traveled from Jerusalem to Damascus. That day, God reached out to him in a powerful way, so Paul believed on Christ as his God and Savior, the very Christ he had violently persecuted before. It was the good testimony of believers like Stephen, the first martyr of the church, who’s testimony had prepared Paul’s heart to eventually give in to Christ (“It is hard for you to kick against the goads,” Acts 9:5).

Our behavior towards government affects our gospel witness.

Moving on, Peter emphasizes a specific way that followers of Christ can harm their testimony for Christ – by disobeying and disrespecting government laws and officials. This is a difficult task because government officials are often corrupt nonbelievers with little to no respect for Christ or people who follow him.

• “For the Lord’s sake” teaches us that if for no other reason, we should obey government officials to uphold the innocent testimony of Christ who himself carefully obeyed the laws and officials of the government who governed him as he walked this Earth, even when they treated him harshly and unjustly.
• “Every ordinance” teaches us not to pick and choose the laws, policies, agencies, and officials that we will comply with and those we will not. The only exception to this is what Peter himself said to government officials in Jerusalem who ordered him to stop teaching the truth about Christ: “We must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29). In such cases, we should be willing to risk our comfort, lives, and reputations.
• “This is the will of God” teaches us that the laws, ordinances, and policies are what God wants us to follow. To follow Christ, we must not only follow his teachings but the laws of our government, too.
• “Kings” and “governors” upholds all levels of government. For us today, that includes local, county, state, and national authorities. “Those who are sent by him” does not refer to God as the one who sent them (this has already been taught by Peter, though). It refers to lower-level government officials who are assigned to their post by higher-ranking officials. This teaches us that all government officials should be obeyed and respected, no matter how they got their position, even if they were simply assigned and delegated by another government official.

Having all of this in mind, Peter now provides us with four simple guidelines which should govern the way we behave towards other people in our lives.

As we live out our Christian lives in the Fargo/Moorhead community, with our many relationships and obligations in both the church and the world, we might feel like a clown at the circus juggling a ball, few knives, and flaming torches thrown on a unicycle. Sometimes it seems very complicated.

With four small sentences, Peter gives some basic guidance that simplifies this challenge. If you embrace these four guidelines, you will also align more closely with God’s purpose for your life and will also make your church more God-honoring and spiritually healthy.

Peter wrote these four sentences as commands. He also wrote them in a customary way, intending them to be instructions from God for how to make regular decisions daily. He also arranged these instructions as a chiasm, as follows:

> Honor all people.

>>>Love the brotherhood.

>>>Fear God.

> Honor the king.

In a chiasm, the first and last lines are parallel in some way while middle two are also a pair. In addition, the middle two receive extra emphasis and “stand out” a bit more than the outer two. In this case, the outer two statements give guidelines for your relationships with nonbelievers, while the inner two do so for your relationships with believers.

Knowing this indicates that we should give special attention to our Christian relationships and by doing so, we will be better prepared for our other relationships. Let’s take a look at these four guidelines for navigating our relationships with the people in our lives.

Honor all people.

Honor means to show respect and place a high value on something. All means “all” and refers to all people or everyone, so we should show respect and give high value to every person we encounter regardless of any distinguishing characteristics: ethnicity, social class, financial status, skin tone, gender, age, handicap or disability, political affiliation, education level, nationality, marital status, outward appearance, or religious beliefs.

Every person descends from the same set of parents (Gen 3:20) and has the same kind of blood as every other person (Acts 17:26). SO, there’s no such thing as a superior gender, race, or economic or social status. All people are equally worthy of respect and value in God’s sight.

What’s more, every person is made in the image of God (Gen 1:27). That’s why the second most important command (“love your neighbor as yourself”) is essentially equal in importance to the first most important command (“love God with all your heart, soul, and mind”) (Matt 22:37-40). We show our love and respect for God by showing compassion and honor to our fellow human beings, no matter who they are.

Let other people go first in line. Speak politely and respectfully to other people. Look other people in the eye and listen to them when the talk. Defer to other people when possible.

Love the brotherhood.

This instruction is related to the first in that it is a subset of it. As we show respect to every person we interact with, we should do so to a special degree with our fellow Christians. We should not show love for one another to the exclusion of nonbelievers. Instead, we should express strong love and support for members of the Christian community in a heightened way that goes “above and beyond” our love to everyone else.

Brotherhood refers to all Christians in the world, emphasizing our common bond in Christ and our responsibility to support one another however we can. It also emphasizes the family-type affection we should have for one another, loving one another as brothers and sisters are supposed to do in a close family.

This word appears only twice in the NT, both in 1 Peter. The first (1 Pet 2:17) emphasizes our need to show love to one another, having one another’s back, meeting one another’s needs, being there for one another.

The second (1 Pet 5:9) emphasizes our need to empathize with and show strong support to one another through the experiences of suffering we face as Christians. Believers throughout the world and church history have suffered in all sorts of ways. What makes this suffering bearable is when other believers provide the strong support you need.

We show support to one another through:

• prayer / encouraging words (conversations, phone calls, text messages, notes in mail)
• time together (special planned church events, like the Thanksgiving pie fellowship)
• building friendships with one another (informal hangouts and recreational activities),
• serving together (SS teaching, the worship team, VBS, building setup)
• giving financial aid (deacons’ fund, personal gifts)
• offering acts of kindness (a ride to church, visit to the hospital, meal to the home, etc.)

Sadly, sports teams and soldiers, union leaders and block watch committees, even gang members and politicians, may do better at “having one another’s back” than Christians do. Paul corrects this problem in Gal 5:13-15, warning us not to “bite and devour” one another. As we live in a harsh and difficult world, we don’t need to live in fear of Christian cannibalism! We need to know that we stand together as “one for all and all for one.”

Fear God.

As we show unrelenting, strong support for one another and give respect and value to everyone we meet, we should show ultimate reverence and respect to God above all. He observes and will judge the way we treat other people and especially fellow believers, who are his children.

When we follow Guidelines 1 and 2, we are – in fact – showing both respect and love to God. Show respect to a nonbeliever, you are fearing God. Show love to a believer, you are loving God.

When we respect everyone and love one another, we’ll still make enemies and face hard times. Most importantly, when other people, political leaders, and even fellow believers, pressure us to disobey God, we should obey God rather than men – as Peter learned for himself (Acts 5:29). When religious leaders instructed him to stop talking about Jesus, he respectfully, politely replied that he must “obey God rather than men.”

Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: fear God and keep His commandments, for this is man’s all.

Ecclesiastes 12:13

Decisions like this are difficult intersections in life. The key in such instances is to fear God above all else. To fear him at the center of all we do. No love is true love that disregards God. And no respect is true respect that disregards God. Do what is right even when doing so is unpopular or inconvenient, and let the chips fall where they may. God will work out all things for his glory and your decision will be vindicated for all to see.

Don’t allow the criticism of fellow believers or pressure of nonbelievers deter you from doing right. Do right anyway, but in the most loving, respectful way possible.

Honor the king.

This is a tough. Peter uses the same word honor here as in the first guideline. When you consider your government, you should do so with an attitude of respect and high value, just as you should do for any person. You can read this as saying, “Respect everyone, esp. your government officials,” or, “Respect everyone, government officials included.”

Ultimately, this is the same guideline as the first one because your political leaders are just some of the many people included in the ‘all’ of the first line. You should honor your government officials because they are made in the image of God, equal members of the human race, and share the same blood as you do.

You should also respect them because they are government officials. Responding to government officials in an honorable, respectful way does not mean you must agree with their policies or appreciate their morals (or lack thereof).

Peter, Paul, and countless Christians disagreed wholeheartedly with the policies and morals of the Roman Caesars for sure and of the Pharisaical rabbis and Jewish religious leaders. Even so, they followed their laws (no matter how inconvenient), paid their taxes, and spoke of them in respectful terms. Christ himself did the same.

Conclusion

What from this study stands out to you today? How do these principles and guidelines give clarity to your day-to-day choices and relationships in the world and in your spiritual life?

• Do you show equal respect to every person that you meet?
• Do you show strong support in whatever way possible to fellow believers?
• Do you fear God above all else, making difficult but biblical decisions in a loving way when fellow believers criticize you and when people in the world persecute you as a result?
• Do you speak or and respond to political leaders in a respectful way, both as fellow human beings and as governing authorities in the world?

A Word from the Church Fathers

As you consider 1 Pet 2:17, it is helpful to also consider what an early church father also wrote, Clement of Rome. He converted to Christianity in the generation after the apostles and served as the lead pastor of the gospel-believing church at Rome.

After hearing the church at Corinth had dismissed their pastoral leader(s) for misguided reasons, he wrote a letter urging them to follow their pastoral leadership and behave in a Christian way. He said:

We have been somewhat tardy in giving attention to the matters of dispute that have arisen among you, dearly beloved, and to the repulsive and unholy sedition, so foreign and strange to the elect of God, which a few headstrong and self-willed persons have kindled to such a high degree of madness that your name, once respected and renowned and lovely in the sight of all men, has been greatly criticized.[2]

In the second chapter of his letter, he described their former testimony as how a church should behave towards one another (in contrast how they behaved in the present). This description shows the kind of love for the brotherhood that Peter urged believers to have:

You were all lowly in mind and free from arrogance, yielding to one rather than merely claiming to be submissive, more glad to give than to receive, and content with the provisions which God supplies. And giving attention unto his words, you stored them diligently in your hearts, and his sufferings were before your eyes. Thus a profound and rich peace was given to all, and an insatiable desire of doing good. An abundant outpouring also of the Holy Spirit fell upon all; and, being full of holy counsel, in excellent zeal and with a godly confidence you stretched out your hands to Almighty God, requesting him to be gracious, if unknowingly you had committed any sin. You had conflict day and night for all the brotherhood, that the number of his elect might be saved with a reverential and focused mind. You were sincere and simple and free from hatred/violence one towards another. Every sedition and every schism were repulsive to you. You mourned over the transgressions of your neighbors: you judged their shortcomings to be your own. You repented not of any well-doing but were ready unto every good work. Being adorned with a most virtuous and honorable life, you performed all your duties in the fear of him. The commandments and the ordinances of the Lord were written on the tables of your hearts.[3]

Does your behavior and relationships both in and outside the church resemble the kind of brotherly love that Clement describes? For a while, it became standard practice for early churches to read this letter to their congregations once a year (approx. 14,000 words, 34 pgs. long). It provided a helpful illustration of the way a church should behave towards one another as a brotherhood.

May Brookdale increasingly be a church like this and may we stay far away from becoming a church where we “bite and devour one another” and where “a few headstrong and self-willed persons” make us repulsive to the world at large and God in heaven.

And may this same sort of love for one another spill over into a gracious, active involvement in our community. I’m thankful for the ways that we’ve done this and are doing this as a church, but we can certainly do much better. May God enable us to be active in doing good works which build a bridge to bring skeptical people over to believing on and following Christ as well.

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[1] David Walls and Max Anders, I & II Peter, I, II & III John, Jude, vol. 11, Holman New Testament Commentary (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1999), 33

[2] Joseph Barber Lightfoot and J. R. Harmer, The Apostolic Fathers (London: Macmillan and Co., 1891), 57, updated into modern English by Thomas Overmiller.

[3] Joseph Barber Lightfoot and J. R. Harmer, The Apostolic Fathers (London: Macmillan and Co., 1891), 58, updated into modern English by Thomas Overmiller.