"An un-American Text"
1 Peter 2:18-25
September 20, 1998

I want to begin by saying that I love this text! And I want all of you to love it as well. And if it strikes you odd that we should love a text about slaves obeying their masters, hear me out. I have no doubt that non-Christians in general will be disappointed with Peter here, perhaps irritated, perhaps even contemptuous. In our "rights-conscious" age and culture, this is a text that cuts right across our conventions, our moralisms, our confident sense of right and wrong.

Peter is speaking here to slaves. No wonder the NT so often addresses the situation of slaves. Slaves were everywhere in the Roman Empire and in the fledgling Gentile church. They were not only the domestic help and laborers of the empire, they were the clerks, the teachers, the doctors, the professional people generally. Economically and politically the Roman empire was based on slavery and in some places slaves would outnumber freemen ten to one. It is quite possible, perhaps even likely, that more of the people in the churches to whom Peter wrote this letter were slaves than were not.

And it surprises and disappoints the modern reader that the NT does not take a more negative posture toward an institution we find so repulsive. And, that is all the more so, because we know that slaves then were like slaves of all other times and places, they longed for their freedom and for just conditions. The slave uprisings such as that under Spartacus are evidence of that. And, still more, there were voices being raised, even in Peter's day, on behalf of the equality of all men. Stoicism taught such a doctrine. But in the NT you find instead such a text as we read this morning.

What Peter should have said, we think, is something about the equality of all men, of the vicious evil of slavery, of the natural hope of all slaves for their liberty. Even if, in the present circumstances, the slaves to whom Peter was speaking could do nothing about their predicament, surely Peter should have comforted them by emphasizing the injustice of their plight and by deploring the right of a master to control another human being to that extent and to punish him at a whim. But, though Peter acknowledges the injustice of certain masters and cases in v. 19, he does not, nor does any other biblical writer, take the time to discuss the evil of slavery or even recommend its eventual abolition.

Instead, he has the temerity to teach, as Paul did, that Christian slaves should cheerfully accept their lot, serve their masters faithfully, even to go the extra mile to demonstrate their faithfulness as workers. [Now, to be sure, the NT also lays Christian masters under strict obligation to treat their slaves with dignity and respect, to treat them as they would desire to be treated themselves.] But, that hardly satisfies the modern American reader of the Bible.

We live in a culture that has been developing over hundreds of years an orthodoxy of the individual, a view of life that stresses the self-realization and personal fulfillment of the individual more than, and increasingly much more than, fellowship and self-sacrifice for others. It is, from time to time, tempered by impulses that call for very selective subordination of personal interests to the public good (e.g. national health care or gun control), but by and large our moral vision as a culture still concentrates on an expressive individualism and an emphasis on individual liberty. We hear this repeatedly these days, of course. What a person does in private is none of our business and matters not to his or her performance of public duties. It is under the onslaught of this orthodoxy that feminism has made its inroads into the Christian church and now the so-called "gay rights" movement. Everyone should be free to do whatever he or she desires, the culture may not put impediments in the individual's way.

Don't suppose that evangelicalism has somehow escaped the influences of our culture's orthodoxy of personal freedom. The late F.F. Bruce, an evangelical scholar of world-wide reputation, shortly before his death, published an article that seemed simply to cave in to the pressure to make personal freedom the fundamental ethical principle for Christians too. It was an article concerning the NT's view of the relationship between men and women and Bruce began his discussion by saying that in facing such texts as we face in the NT regarding the particular duties and callings of women or, as here, of slaves, we must separate the temporal husk from the enduring kernel of the Bible's teaching. And how do we know what is permanent? Bruce replies, "Whatever in Paul's teaching promotes true freedom is of universal and permanent validity; whatever seems to impose restrictions on true freedom has regard to local and temporary conditions." Amazing! For an evangelical to say that, which is tantamount to saying, "whatever strikes late 20th century folk in the West as unacceptable" must not be the enduring message of the Bible. And, certainly, Peter here must not be giving us the enduring message of the Bible. Such, my friends, is the power of a culture to make unbelievable things Christians have, in faithfulness to the plain-speaking of the Bible, believed and practiced for 2,000 years.

Whether this revolution of individual emancipation has brought good or evil, happiness or sadness to our culture is another question for another time. What is true is that this concentration on the rights of individuals to live as they please and to pursue their own personal fulfillment and self-realization cannot be found in the Bible. The Bible does present us with many wonderfully fulfilled people, but it did not produce this effect by teaching or emphasizing the importance of self-actualization, of freedom from constraints, or of the terrible injustice of confining human institutions, customs, moralisms, and so on. These happy fulfilled Christians found their life in one way only, by losing it first for Jesus' sake.

There is, in fact, nothing temporary, nothing merely local, nothing impermanent in Peter's argument here at all. I have no hesitation in saying that the principles of biblical ethics, if they take root in the life of people, must lead eventually to the end of slavery strictly speaking. But remember, the modern world has its own relationships that are very similar to slavery. Such is the human condition in this world of sin that none of the bondages into which men are cast by other men or into which they cast themselves are fundamentally different today than in Peter's day. It is true that slavery in the strictest sense does not exist in the United States, except illegally. It is forbidden for one human being to own another or to be completely subject to the authority of another. But how many multitudes of human beings know exactly what Tennessee Ernie Ford meant when he sang, "I owe my soul to the company store." Still today, there are a few in charge and a great many who do their bidding, or suffer the consequences: the dole or the streets. Tolstoy saw this very clearly.

"A thing that helps people today to misunderstand their position in this matter is the fact that we have, in Russia and America, only recently abolished slavery. But in reality the abolition of serfdom and of slavery was only the abolition of an obsolete form of slavery that had become unnecessary, and the substitution for it of a firmer form of slavery, and one that holds a greater number of people in bondage."

In other words, enslaving social orders have by no means disappeared in our modern world. [The above several paragraphs indebted to R. Yarbrough, "The Hermeneutics of 1 Timothy 2:9-15," Women in the Church, 155-196]

But, again, relevant as that makes Peter's remarks for us, Peter is not primarily talking about the nature of slavery and of right social relations; that is not his interest. What he is saying, rather, is that being a Christian invests life with wholly different interests, purposes, principles and motives than non-Christians have; that the Christian life is radically unlike the life of unbelief. And nothing points this out more starkly than this counsel to Christian slaves. There is nothing of the vanilla Christianity that so many in our culture think of when they think of what it means to be a Christian: go to church, be nice to people, visualize world peace, and, if you screw up in some way, comfort yourself with the fact that you're forgiven. Nothing to worry about in that; nothing so unconventional about that; nothing so controversial about that. And nothing so particularly difficult. Nothing that would take the Holy Spirit of God in the heart, nothing that would require one to take up his cross daily, nothing that would utterly demand that one repudiate the world and the love of the world, nothing that would bring down persecution and hatred upon one's head.

But Peter's Christianity is something starkly, bracingly different. It makes unbelievers angry, offended, bitter. Peter's Christianity is the fundamental repudiation of a worldly viewpoint about human life and its meaning and purpose. What is more, it requires more bravery, more concentration of mind and will, more willingness to endure the reproach of men, more heartbreak, more loss, more sacrifice than any human being is capable of apart from the gift of God and the work of God within his soul! But, and this is very important, I think you can see that it is perfectly obvious that Peter's view of the Christian life is exactly that view that is consistent with the Christian faith itself.

If you look at what Peter actually says to the slaves here, it is clear that what he is telling them to do is to live their lives, in their particular situations in a manner that is consistent with what they know to be true as Christians and with what they consider of the highest importance because they are Christians. I see at least three separate arguments that Peter uses to persuade these Christian slaves that cheerful submission to their masters -- even cruel ones -- is more important than their own deliverance from slavery.

First, he says, the obedience is really being offered to God and for God. Their slavery is only an occasion for their service to God. He speaks in v. 19 of them acting in a certain way, a very definitely unusual and unexpected way, "because they are conscious of God." There are some questions about precisely how to translate that phrase, but I think the NIV has got the right idea. And, then, in v. 20, he speaks of such behavior -- behavior the world might regard as servile, weak, or simply strange -- as being "commendable before God," or, as one commentator translates the phrase "a fine thing in God's sight."

The questions that determine the conduct of a genuinely Christian life is not what I want to do, what would bring me pleasure most immediately, what I think is fair, and so on. The question is this and this only: what does God himself want of me? What does he approve? What will please and honor him. Non-Christians do not think this way. Survey our culture from stem to stern and you will find hardly anyone making choices for this reason, especially making choices against the grain of our social thought for this reason. Whether it is abortion, or sexual purity, or taxes, or divorce, or what a woman should do with her life, or how a man should treat a woman, or how parents should raise their children, or how people should spend their money, or a thousand other things -- the world asks many questions, but not the only question the Christians asks: what would God have me do? What would be a "fine thing in his sight." A Christian, a true Christian, is someone who consciously lives and breathes and has his or her being in God. And if you cannot see how vastly different must be the life of one who is, at every turn, conscious of God, from the life of one who is not, then you are not reckoning with the holiness and glory of God.

And the living God, who is holy in ways far beyond our power to conceive, and whose law cuts right across the grain of our sinful tendencies and biases and prejudices and desires, very often wants, indeed commands his people to do things that unbelievers would never do willingly. Love one's enemies; bless those who curse you; give up many worldly pleasures and stations for his and the gospel's sake; and so on.

But a Christian is someone who has seen God! And he does not hesitate to accept that whatever the Holy One, the All-wise God, says is right and good and just whether or not I can see it; and, still more, as a sinner, does not hesitate to confess that the merciful God, the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, has an absolute right to command his children, saved by his grace, in whatever way he sees fit and we have an absolute duty, cheerfully, willingly, enthusiastically to obey! As C.S. Lewis famously says it: "I was not born to be free; I was born to adore and obey!"

Second, Peter argues, the obedience he is commending to these slaves is, after all, nothing else but an imitation of the life of Jesus Christ himself. This is the point of vv. 21ff. The only sinless man who ever lived; the one who loved us and gave himself for us, the one who saved us from sin and death and hell, the perfect teacher of what is a good life, lived in a certain way, and we are to live in the same way, not only because it is good, but because there is no more powerful way for us to honor the Lord than to strive to imitate him, especially in those ways that most demonstrated the majesty of his character.

And, in particular, the Lord suffered unjustly at the hands of many. He was falsely accused throughout his ministry, he was condemned by men at his trial who were eaten up by jealousy of him, he was cruelly tortured and then crucified though even his judge admitted publicly he had committed no crime. The Lord went to heaven with many wrongs that had been committed against him unpunished and unrighted.

All his life he blessed those who cursed him, blessed and cursed not. He loved his enemies and loved them to the end. "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do."

Is it then too much, could it possibly be too much, to ask the same of those who follow him, who trust him as the Son of God, who have received from him the forgiveness of their sins and a citizenship in heaven? God forbid that any Christian should ever think so. Remember the early Christians, those in Jerusalem after Pentecost. They too were treated unjustly for doing right but they did not complain, rather they rejoiced because they had been counted worthy of suffering for the Name. That is the Christian spirit and the Christian life -- a life so thoroughly dominated by Christ and his life and love and example that all that brings me into conformity to him is good -- however hard -- and all that takes away from my devotion to him and fosters the love of myself, however comfortable, however in other ways right and proper -- is bad.

And what power such a view of life gives to a man or woman. Listen to G.K. Chesterton on St. Francis, a man whose spirit was very much the spirit that Peter is after here in our text.

"It was the whole calculation...of that innocent cunning, that the world was to be outflanked and outwitted by him, and be embarrassed about what to do with him. You could not threaten to starve a man who was ever striving to fast. You could not ruin him and reduce him to beggary, for he was already a beggar. There was a very lukewarm satisfaction even in beating him with a stick, when he only indulged in little leaps and cries of joy because indignity was his only dignity. You could not put his head in a halter without the risk of putting it in a halo." [Saint Francis, 103-104]

After all, isn't that what Christ Jesus was for us and did for us? He loved to be abased because by that abasement he served his Father in heaven and saved his brothers! How can we then so strenuously object to injustices committed against us in the face of that? Especially when every opportunity to bear injustice cheerfully and meekly is an honor paid to the one who suffered injustice for our salvation, a chance, as Paul says, to enter into the fellowship of Christ's vindication.

And, then, in the third place, the obedience he commends here, so difficult, so much against the grain of natural desire, makes perfect sense in view of divine judgment and the certainty of a faithful Christian's eventual judgment. Is this not what Jesus thought? As we read in v. 23, in all of the injustices committed against him, in all of the terrible sacrifices his calling required him to make for others, "he entrusted himself to him who judges justly." It does not say that God judges immediately, only justly!

It is servile and weak to accept injustice, cheerfully to submit to others who are cruel or evil, when that acceptance and submission is simply surrender. However, it is brave and noble and heroic to accept a personal injustice (I am not speaking, of course, of injustice committed against others), cheerfully to submit yourself to cruelty or thoughtlessness committed against yourself, precisely as an act of faith in God and God's judgment and in imitation of Jesus Christ who conquered the world not by fighting but by suffering. What will the unjust master think, and what will the Christian slave who spent his life as a slave whining against the injustices of his life think, when they both together stand before the Great White Throne?

I fear that there are fewer and fewer Christians in America today -- I do not say that this is so in all countries -- who think much at all, who reckon much at all, who believe much at all in the last judgment or who willingly surrender themselves to sacrifice and difficulty in this life because of their certainty of vindication in the next! They are like the people in the Sistine Chapel a few weeks ago, when we were there -- chatting away -- having to be silenced by the guard -- while standing before that great painting of the Last Judgment on the front wall. No silence, no reflection, only the present moment is of concern to them. The divine judgment, the reality of it, the certainty of it, Peter says here, is what liberates a Christian to take such chances, to live a life of such daring self-surrender. The wicked will not get away with their wickedness because we bless them and do not curse them, and we will suffer no real loss, no lasting penalty for having lived before men the life of a man or woman who, instead of striving for one's own welfare, "entrusted himself or herself to him who judges justly."

Do you remember the Lord's trial, that sham and mockery of a legal proceeding. The witnesses lied about him, the judges conspired to ensure a guilty verdict, and Jesus himself -- remained silent. He submitted himself to his enemies. And what was the result of that? The salvation of men -- your salvation and mine. And what will be the result of your living as he did, of resisting the powerful urge always to vindicate yourself, to serve yourself, to resist and oppose those who, in any way, oppose you? Why, you will be more and more like Jesus Christ himself. And what will be the result of that? Only God knows what wonderful things will come of that for you and for others!

You don't want to live the least Christian life, the least Christ-like life you possibly can, do you? Tell me you do not! Not if you love God. Not if you have any inkling of Christ's love for you. Not if you have ever, in your soul, caught even a glimpse of heaven or of hell. Not if the Holy Spirit is astir in your heart. You want your life to amount to something for your Redeemer's sake.

I read this little paragraph in the most recent First Things. Editor Richard Neuhaus is commenting on a new series of books being published by an evangelical publishing house.

I think I understand what they're trying to do (aside from trying to sell books), but I am uneasy by a new series from Hendrickson Publishers: The Bible Made Easy, Bible Prophecy Made Easy, Bible Study Made Easy. Presumably Bible study is part of the Christian life. It's not supposed to be easy. It's supposed to be hard. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer said in The Cost of Discipleship, when God calls a man he calls him to come and die. I do hope there is not a book in the works titled Discipleship Made Easy. [FT (ct. 1998) 95]

What I hope we all want is not discipleship made easy, but true discipleship, true Christlikeness -- and that, believe me, will cost you something.

Listen, brethren. If it is possible to know God and to know what he thinks to be a "fine thing"; if it is possible to imitate the life of Jesus Christ, by which life the people of God were delivered from eternal wrath; and if it is possible to live now, in this world, in such a way as no one would live except someone who knew the truth that God will soon judge the lives of all men justly, then, surely, it isn't so hard to see why Peter should tell Christian slaves to submit themselves to their masters with all respect. Suddenly that makes all the sense in the world. Christians have very different lives to lead, for very different reasons, according to very different principles.

I said at the outset that I love this text. I want you to love it too and to embrace it for your life. After all, we are all slaves in many different ways. Life will make slaves of us in a hundred different moments, a hundred different ways. And then will we live as Christians or simply as human beings seeking something for themselves?

Woody Allen once said, "To be an American is to take God and carpet with equal seriousness." Peter's view is very different!

I don't want you simply to agree with this text, I want you to glory in it and look every day for ways to put it to work in your heart and life. To submit to others, even unjust others for the sake of your Christian faith and love. A Christian man or woman who always cleans up before he or she leaves the public restroom [that is what Francis would do because he wanted to be, for Christ's sake, the slave of every other man],a student who respectfully serves and honors a mean and unjust teacher...a friend to a very unfriendly person... and all because of God and Christ and the world to come. And nothing will keep those wonderful realities more to the front of the mind than just living for them and in the power of them every day. To do those things with enthusiasm that an unbeliever would resist doing with all his might. And, like Francis, looking for every new way to live as a slave for Jesus Christ. Is there, I ask, any way, in our rights-conscious culture, in our self-worshipping and self-serving culture, any way more powerfully to demonstrate that you are a Christian and that Christianity is the life of another world altogether?

For that is what Peter is really saying here. The unjust master recedes quickly from view. What he wants the Christian slave to do is to walk to the Savior's palace door, place his ear against the doorpost and have the Lord pierce his ear with an awl. If a man is Christ's slave for love's sake -- he can be anyone else's slave in the strength of that love.

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