The Mandates Keep Coming!!! - 1 Peter 3:13-17

 

Hearing this word over the last couple of years brought about many different emotions and actions.  As more mandates came, it was soon hard to follow which mandates where in effect.  Is this mandate to replace the last mandate?  Is this a mandate to add to the other mandates?  For many of us, our information bank in our minds reached the point of overflowing and some of those mandates probably got lost in the spillover.  

It has been a risk to use this word in our study of 1 Peter.  Peter is giving the 1st century Gentile Christians who are being heavily persecuted some mandates for those who believe Jesus is the Cornerstone that God has placed in Zion, Chosen and Precious, as the Messiah even though man rejected Him as so.  The mandates are building with a count of 4 at this point with probably a couple more in chapters 4 and 5 but these are mandates that don't negate other previous mandates.  The mandates Peter gives build upon each other for the Christian living in a very hostile world to those who hold that Jesus rose from dead and is coming again.

#1 - "...so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light;..." - 1 Peter 2:9b (LSB)

#2 - "...leaving you an example that you should follow in His steps,..." - 1 Peter 2:21b (LSB)

#3 - "...but giving a blessing instead, for you were called for the very purpose that you might inherit a blessing." - 1 Peter 3:9b (LSB)

#4 - "...always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account from the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and fear,..." - 1 Peter 3:15b (LSB)

This week we learn that Peter saw "harm"(v.13) and "suffering"(v.14) in two different lights.  God's people being (living out the above mandates) God's people will suffer in the physical realm but will not come to harm in the spiritual realm.  This long view of the Christians allows them to respond differently which keeps pointing to a God who is not only in control but the One they keep following in the midst of persecution.

This "odd" response sometimes brings about a question to the "hope" that is in them.  Their holy conduct has brought about an opportunity to speak what they can't see.  It is their opportunity with gentleness and respect and with a good conscience (thinking and loving the one who is asking) to tell them of their salvation planned and provided by God, purchased and paid for by Jesus, and continually being polished by the Holy Spirit.  (My rendition of 1 Peter 1:2)  Their defense is not themselves or what they have done but rather their Jesus and what He has done.

Keeping in the context of the time, Peter is saying these mandates to those who are persecuted on each side for holding onto the proclamation that Jesus is Lord because He rose from the dead; to those who are striving to walk in His steps of His words and His ways; to those who respond to slander and reviling with continued truth (a blessing) in a way that shows their love for the slanderers and revilers; and to those who keep quickly pointing to Jesus rather than themselves.  Peter ends with, "For it is better, if God should will so, that you suffer for doing good rather than for doing wrong." (1 Peter 3:17, LSB)

You are going to suffer either way but one (doing good) will just be suffering in the temporal physical realm but the other (doing wrong) will be harm in the eternal spiritual realm.  

I finished with a contemporary thought in the modern church that we need to relate or identify to our world but I keep reading from the Scriptures that we need to be radically different than the world.  The contemporary thought is that if "they" see we are really just like them but maybe a little different then maybe we can tell them about Jesus.  The Bible is saying something very different.  The people came to Jesus because He was so different.  He is still so different so lets keep being like Him so we can keep pointing questioners to Him.

Adam