1 Peter seems to be written particularly for believers going through experiences of `exile`; of being away from our `home`, of going through all kinds of challenges and sufferings. And an especially difficult part of that is our wilderness relationships – when work relationships, marriage relationships, church relationships go wrong. What does God say to us through Peter about this?
2:11 opens this section by reintroducing the concerns for holiness of 1:14-15: `Dear friends’ (`Dearly beloved’ in the warmer earlier translations!), `I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against the soul.’ And then, we saw in ch.1 that Peter’s prime interest with regard to this holiness had to do with the transformation of our relationships. So it is as he continues here; holiness is expressed especially in our loving each other.
So this next section is particularly concerned with handling relationships that have gone wrong; that have become wilderness relationships. How do we set about that? It’s advice we will all need from time to time.
The first example is our relationship is with the authorities (2:13-15). We may be `aliens and strangers’, but we have a God-given role in the land of our exile, as Jeremiah reminded the Jewish exiles in Jeremiah 29. Our attitude is the issue here. Peter calls us to a stance of (uncontemporary?) respect for our rulers, rather than Spiitting Image-style scorn or hatred; because if a community loses all respect for its leaders, the result will soon be loss of respect for its laws, and then anarchy. Of course the need to `submit to’ and `honour’ the authorities did not prevent Peter challenging them prophetically in Acts 4:19, any more than it did Amos or John the Baptist. So for us too: the `heavenly vision’ that we don’t belong here, and are on our way home, must not preclude active concern about abortion, about two-thirds-world poverty, the arms trade, the degradations of media pornography and consumerism, the needs of the inner cities, or the destruction of the environment that God has set us to steward.
But Peter’s readers’ relationship with the authorities of their time was clearly a `wilderness relationship’, judging by the persecution they were undergoing (eg 4:12). `Wilderness’ also marks the other relationships he addresses. Wrong working relationships characterised by slavery and the `pain of unjust suffering’ (2:19), by insults and threats (cf 2:23); marital relationships with unbelievers, marked not by love but by fear (3:1,6); relationships within the church itself that are not free from evil and insult, where `living in harmony’ with the other brothers and sisters has to be a matter of deliberate choice (3:8-9).
I have to say that, for myself personally, these include some of the more difficult passages in the Bible. It is true, as Davids observes in his NICNT commentary, that for Peter to address himself directly to slaves would have seemed `remarkable’ to his contemporary readers, and that to address wives directly was `revolutionary’. (`The church was drawn from the disenfranchised levels of society`, says Davids, `and it offended society by appealing to these people directly rather than through their masters/husbands. It was this adoption of an independent lifestyle that as much as anything brought on persecution.’ Jewish and stoic writers on similar topics don’t do anything of the kind. Paul does, of course.) Yet in its `non-liberationist’ stance, its apparent lack of critique of slavery or dominated marriage, it runs against our deep-rooted (and indeed biblically-shaped) instincts.
But to say this about this passage is probably to raise the wrong question. Peter is not presenting a broad theology here either of social justice or of marriage. (God gives us these elsewhere; it was that input that historically brought the slavery system down, see eg https://petelowmanresources.com/latest-slavery-and-the-bibles-attitude/ ; or on marriage, that astonishing (alarmingly challenging?) command in Ephesians invoking the crucifixion, `Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her`...) Rather, he’s guiding his readers in handling specific `wilderness relationships’ that have very clearly gone wrong. Secondly, the issue here is in fact the overall `problem of suffering’, raised in a specific context: there really is an enormous amount of evil in the world, and yet God seems to allow it to continue, for the time being at least. God gives us no simple `answer’ to this question; for the time being we’re called to live by faith in his goodness (cf 1:7). But, perhaps the partial answers we do have to that overall problem may have some relevance here also: that such domination has resulted from our rebellion at the Fall, plus people’s ceaseless attempts since to run our relationships in our way not his (see Gen 3:16); that Christ himself has entered totally into our situation at Calvary, and dealt with its root causes; that now God really is in the anguish with us, working there secretly for our good, showing us how to live radically differently, and in the end making us like Jesus (cf Rom 8:28-29); that also, total deliverance really is coming…
Here too we perhaps find an issue that may be as challenging for men as for women. What God develops in women through these `wilderness experiences’, says Peter, is the `unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight’ (3:4). That `unfading’ takes us back to ch.1; here is something else that is of eternal value, in a wilderness of transience and decay. But what should catch our attention is surely the potential to attain a quality `of great worth in God’s sight’. Not that that is ever of concern to the male sex – or, is it? Patience, goodness and gentleness are `fruit of the Spirit’, precisely what God most wants to shape in us (Gal 5:22-23). They run counter both to the spirit of egoism intrinsic to the Fall, and the lures of power and status in the classic temptation of Matthew 4. Might it be that the serious pain women far too often undergo in a fallen society (and I can’t help thinking of my own parents’ unfortunate marriage as I write this) does create environments where such fruit do actually develop; while men – in fact to their lasting (eternal??) impoverishment – have fewer such experiences? We might recall Christ himself spending thirty years living out a `gentle and quiet spirit’, entirely out of the limelight. Psalm 131 comes to mind: `My heart is not proud, oh Lord, my eyes are not haughty… I have stilled and quietened my soul; like a weaned child with its mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me. Oh Israel, put your hope in the Lord…’ Are there factors here as to how God has brought so many more women than men into his church? Does our male experience make it harder to develop Christlikeness, to our profound loss? If it’s `of great worth in God’s sight’, may men have to learn it by passing through other `wilderness experiences’? And what are the implications for men seeking a truly Christlike spirituality?
But then: what more do we find in this section to help us `journey through’ these `wilderness relationships’? Peter gives us at least four further `life-sustaining’ insights to apply in our own situation.
Firstly, the thought-provoking phrase in 2:19: someone bears up under the pain of such unjust suffering `because they are conscious of God‘. (Lord, how do I train myself to be `conscious of God’?– in Brother Lawrence’s famous phrase, always `practising the presence of God’? Is a deliberate, regular mental focusing on Christ as Lord the point also of 3:15?) Second, there is the emphasis on seeking to maintain hope (see 3:5,15, and 9: `Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing’.) (Lord, how am I `maintaining` this hope?) Third, there is a recurring challenge to keep the evangelistic vision burning through these dark experiences: thinking what will cause pagans to glorify God when the right time comes (2:12), thinking how unbelieving husbands can be `won over without words’ (3:1), being prepared always to explain our hope (3:15). As Jesus emphasised (Matt 5:16), some crucial tools in evangelism are behavioural: Peter summarizes them here as `purity and reverence’ (3:2). To that end he reverses his (and our) culture’s priorities of image against character, of looking good against doing good (3:3-4) – with all the expense of time and effort that our choice of priorities involves.
(Attempting to resource that `readiness to explain our hope` is why the Foundations-2 course on this blog contains a lot on the evidence for our faith: https://petelowmanresources.com/category/foundations-course/foundations-2/ . However, it’s also noticeable in this present cultural moment that the way forward with many not-yet-Christian friends is not firstly about giving evidence, but rather about hope and other such things that we all desire, and what credible foundations we might have for these. I attempted that in my book A Long Way East of Eden, exploring how faith in God, or the loss of it, makes a huge difference to our experiences of self-worth and identity; to purpose and hope in life (especially in the areas of maturity, suffering, ageing, and death); to justice and ethics; to truth; and to love. How do we make sense of these without God? Most of this material is now in https://petelowmanresources.com/category/literature-and-culture/ .)
But most obviously, life comes to us for these phases of the journey through the grasp of Calvary, where Christ suffered beyond our imagination. Twice in this section, Peter turns our minds carefully to the Christ who took the form of a slave (cf Phil 2:7): `Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps’ (2:21). `It is better, if it is God’s will, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil. For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous’ (3:18; cf 4:1,13). The cross was how God responded to the evil of the wilderness; and Calvary becomes, somehow, our example in wilderness relationships (cf also Hebrews 5:7-8 and 12:2-4). At the cross, says the French Christian sociologist Ellul, God absorbed the evil out of the world as with a sponge; and that pattern is repeated as the people of the cross in turn `forgive each other, just as in Christ God forgave you’ (cf Eph 4:32). Instead of responding to evil with evil (3:9) and prolonging a repetitive vendetta, forgiveness means letting go of the evil, handing it over to God, confident in his loving sovereignty. (`He made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him that judges justly’ (1 Peter 2:23).) And thereby, incidentally, becoming freer from evil ourselves. (Lord, this is all so easy to write, and to read. Please help me see, and give me your grace to act, when the times come to do it…)
John F Alexander was a leader in the left-wing `radical evangelical’ movement that developed a strong evangelical politics in the 1970s. His book The Secular Squeeze is a powerful statement of the church’s central calling to be a community of forgiveness. He makes his point by presenting what Peter might have written in 2:20-24: `What credit is it to you if you suffer unjustly and don’t rebel? For to this you have been called, because Christ also fought for his rights, leaving you an example that you should follow in his steps. When he was abused, he returned abuse; when he suffered, he fought back; he didn’t simply entrust himself to the one who judges justly. By his rights campaign you have been healed.’ (The idea of submissiveness to bad masters is `outrageous to any right-thinking, freedom-loving American’, Alexander adds wryly; Peter `actually says that God approves of people suffering patiently, though to us it’s clear that people have not just a right but a duty to defend themselves…. His evidence is that Jesus did it, and he’s our example. Suppressing these teachings is the root of the failure of the church… We have no intention of living the way Jesus did. And without that, we can’t live in reconciliation.’)
We understand here why communion, `remembering the Lord’s death’ in worship, has a central place for spirituality. It is our model for understanding our experience, and for deciding our response. Sharing in his suffering in wilderness relationships is central to our calling (2:21, 3:9). We are called to participate in Christ’s ministry of absorbing evil from the world; to Christlikeness, and so, ultimately, to enormous resurrection glory. `I want to know Christ’, said Paul, `and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings’ (Phil 3:10)…
Quite enough for this post. Next time we’ll explore how to handle five of the most difficult verses in the new testament…
