"The Brotherhood"
1 Peter 5:12-14
January 17, 1999

Text Comment

v.12     Silas may well have served in a similar role in connection with some of Paul's letters, where he is sometimes mentioned as a co-author. Here Peter means either that Silas took down the letter as Peter dictated it to him or that he wrote the letter under Peter's general supervision and with its final draft approved by the Apostle. It is clear that Peter is the one who stands behind the letter.

"This is the true grace of God" i.e. what Peter has told them in the letter, viz. that their suffering will lead them to eternal glory and that God is present with them in and through it; so that while they may not feel like their present circumstances are full of grace, they really are.

v.13     She who is in Babylon = the church in Rome, where Peter is as he writes the letter.

v.14     The "kiss of love", which Paul, in several places in his letters, calls the "the holy kiss" and, like Peter, urges it upon the brethren as a form of greeting, became, at least by the middle of the 2nd century a part of the liturgy of the Lord's Supper, for Justin Martyr mentions it in his description of the Christian worship service. This was a culture, as it is today, in which kisses were exchanged between parents and children, brothers and sisters, masters and slaves, even kings and their clients. This familial kiss probably forms the background to the practice as we find it in the NT, for Christians regarded themselves as brothers and sisters. Apparently it was normally given on the cheek, the forehead, or the hand. You find it in the Lord's teaching (Luke 7:45; 15:20) but, interestingly, there is no evidence of it as part of the service of the synagogue or temple. It is something to think about it, isn't it? Should we reinstitute the kiss of love as part of our worship? That isn't the same thing as turning to the one next to you, shaking hands, and greeting them. Many churches have turned the "kiss" into a way of seeming friendly. Not the same thing. Next week I'll tell you when it is time to kiss the person next to you and we'll see how it works out! We'll also see who sits next to whom!

One of the genuinely charming things about the Bible is the way in which it pays honor to ordinary and undistinguished people. And one of the genuinely wonderful things about the gospel of Christ is the way in which it gives very ordinary folk an extraordinary life to live and a legitimate sense of real human greatness. There are many great figures in the Biblical history, of course. The grace and the gifts of God regularly produce men of heroic mold. Abraham, David, Paul and Peter. But around them and among the them are also a large number, a very large number, of very ordinary people, as the world measures such things, who live, nevertheless, from the vantage point of God and the gospel, very noteworthy lives. You do not have to be a man or woman of extraordinary abilities or accomplishments to get mentioned in God's book, even to be singled out for praise in God's book!

Think of some of these people. Abraham's faithful old servant to whom the patriarch entrusted the responsibility of finding a wife for Isaac. Sad but praying Hannah, the mother of Samuel. The good woman who was so hospitable to Elisha the Prophet. Mary, the Jewish maid and mother of our Lord. The woman who anointed the Lord with very expensive perfume in the house of Simon the leper, of whom Jesus said that her act would be remembered wherever the gospel was preached throughout the world. And, then, there are these two mentioned by Peter here: Mark and Silas. And, in a way, no doubt many of the Christians in the church in Rome and the churches to which the letter was being sent, are represented by these two men.

Mark is a most interesting man and his story is, in a wonderful way, a most comforting one. You remember Mark. He was there, as a young man, perhaps even a teenager, in Gethsemane the night of our Savior's betrayal. No one can be sure, but many have wondered if he hadn't overheard something, learned of Judas' treachery, and had gone straight from home late at night to warn Jesus, which would explain why he was there and was wearing nothing but the single linen garment, as we read in Mark 14:51. In any event, when the soldiers came to make their arrest, they grabbed him too. Mark was terror stricken and forgot everything except his own safety. He ran, pulling out of his clothing as he made his escape, naked, into the night.

I've been reading lately Stephen Ambrose's history of the D-Day invasion with its account of those terrible first hours at Omaha beach, when men were being slaughtered by the hundreds and could find no protection anywhere from the machine gun and mortar fire. There were a goodly number of men on that beach that day who were simply paralyzed by fear. They couldn't move, in some cases they couldn't speak. Mark no doubt very soon thereafter wished he had shown more courage in Gethsemane, but he had been overtaken by fear.

Well, we are willing to be merciful. But, apparently, at another key juncture in New Testament history, Mark did the same thing. His cowardice made a fugitive of him again, this time from the difficulties and the dangers of Paul and Barnabas' first missionary journey. He had begun with them, had gone through Cyprus with them, as you can read in Acts 13, but as they made their way onward toward Galatia, he quit. We know that that is what happened because Mark's quitting later became an issue between Paul and Barnabas. Later Barnabas wanted to give Mark a second chance -- Mark was, after all, his relative -- but Paul, because Mark had deserted them once -- that is how it is put in Acts 15:38 -- thought it unwise to take the younger man. And, in what is surely one of the most surprising developments in the NT, these two great, godly, peaceable, brotherly, and gentlemanly men had such a sharp disagreement that they parted ways. Imagine that! Mark was the cause of the breakup of that first, fabulous Christian missionary team: Paul and Barnabas. We wonder if ever during that sharp discussion between Paul and Barnabas Mark himself urged them not to separate on his behalf, not to allow him to become the cause of such a tragic breach. It is all the more interesting a piece of history because when Barnabas went off on his own with Mark, Paul needed to find another partner, and he chose Silas, the very same Silas who is mentioned here in the same breath with Mark!

In any event, Mark's first two appearances in the New Testament are far from glorious -- two instances of cowardice, the latter the cause of a fateful split between two wonderful men.

But Mark is later found with Paul again as one of his assistants and, as much as we would love to hear the story of their reconciliation and Mark's rehabilitation as a worker in the entourage of the great apostle to the Gentiles, we are delighted to know that it happened, however it did. What is more, we know from the information of early Christianity that Mark also had a most important role in Peter's ministry, finally writing under Peter's supervision and with Peter's authority the Gospel that bears his name.

That, by the way, is itself an instance of Peter's remarkable magnanimity -- to allow his Gospel to go out into the world under Mark's name. It is possible, of course, that Paul has already been martyred at this time and that is why Mark is serving Peter instead of Paul.

And, then, there is Silas. His first appearance in the New Testament record is in Acts 15 where he is chosen to accompany Paul and Barnabas to Antioch, bearing the decision of the Council. He is there described as a leader among the brethren. He was also a prophet and was a great encouragement to the saints in Antioch through his preaching. He later, as we said, became a colleague of Paul and accompanied him on his missionary journeys, was jailed with him in Philippi -- must have had a good singing voice because he and Paul sang hymns that night in the jail --, was sometimes left behind in cities that Paul had evangelized in order to establish the work, and is mentioned by Paul as a co-author of some of his letters. We read in Acts 16:38 that Silas, like Paul, was a Roman citizen. And now, after years spent in the company and the service of the great Apostle to the Gentiles, we find Silas (or Silvanus, for that is the other form of his name), assisting Peter in his work and being given some credit for another letter that would find its place in Holy Scripture. What a man! What a life! What experiences! And, yet, there is no question that he lived it in the shadow of much greater men! He is a minor character in the Bible, like many others, but in that, surely, there hangs a tale.

For it has been so through the centuries since. The story of Christianity is also the story of its "minor characters." The great men have all had their assistants whose names are known to historians but to no one else. Augustine had his Possidius, Chrysostom his Palladius. The history of early Christianity especially is very much the history of its great men. We don't have enough information about individual, ordinary Christians. But it is the hero's history only as they were exemplars of the life that was being lived by multitudes of much more common, unexceptional folk, men and women, who served the Lord faithfully, loved the brethren, bore witness to the gospel, and added the immense weight that lay behind the assault on the unbelief of the Roman world by the great Christian thinkers, writers, orators, and church leaders. We have just a few names, the Marks and the Silases of early Christianity, that represent this vast multitude of ordinary Christians.

And so it has continued to be throughout the history of the church. Wherever you read in the history of Christianity in the world you come across a Mark or a Silas. Here is Thomas Boston talking about a godly elder in his church who "always had a brow for a good cause." Here is Alexander Whyte speaking of a late member of his church, James Stewart, who worked in the cab office at Dean Bridge, and who used to sit in the front row and to follow the sermon with great attentiveness, and who loved Walter Marshall's great Puritan classic on the Christian Life, The Gospel Mystery of Sanctification. Indeed, on his deathbed he told his pastor, "O! that Blessed Third Direction!" Do you know what the Third Direction is? That is the way Marshall wrote his great book. Each of its chapters is headed by a "direction" and the third one is this:

"The way to get these endowments [that underlie a holy life] so as to be able to practice [that holy life], is, to receive them from Christ's fullness, by union and fellowship with him."

A life lived in union with Christ, the actual daily practice of union with Christ, is what this man loved and in which had found his strength and hope and love. And many people remembered him for that and loved him for the life of love to Christ he lived.

Or, think of Joseph Passmore who met and became Charles Spurgeon's friend when they were both very young at the New Park Street Church, and remained Spurgeon's fast friend and became the printer of his sermons, a venture that eventually became a huge business all by itself, so many copies of those sermons were eventually made every week and sent to the far corners of the world.

Or, E.T. Rees, the secretary of the Mission Hall in Aberavon, Wales, who first asked a young doctor to come and preach for them on a November Sunday in 1926 and heard the young physician by the name of Martin Lloyd Jones, who had scarcely preached a dozen times in his young Christian life, say to him that Sunday morning, "I hope you don't expect anything great of me." From that time the older Rees was Lloyd-Jones' assistant in the work that almost immediately began to enjoy a great measure of blessing from God and, as well, a fast friend.

And I have known such people myself, as you have. I remember and will with great fondness to the end of my days, Mr. Gordon Ross, the organist for decades at Gilcomston South Church in Aberdeen, where Florence and I worshipped for three years in the 1970s. I can hear the thick Scottish accent. I can see the very thick eye-glasses through which he looked to see the music he played at that wonderful organ in the church. I can remember his fervent prayers at the Prayer Meetings on Saturday night, even a Bible study he once gave in the pastor's absence on a Wednesday night. I can't remember the subject, but I remember one line: "We are all made from the same mould; but some of us are mouldier than others!"

Or Edith Ingraham, the minister's secretary for so many years. Unmarried as so many of the women of her generation were -- having lost the men who might have been their husbands in the War. A Christian woman of grace and goodness who found it in her heart to be interested in anyone who was interested in the kingdom of God. Familiar with so many who were laboring in the gospel all around the world, keeping up with their comings and goings with a true interest of the heart. Faithful as much as anyone to that three hour long prayer meeting on Saturday night that had been going since just after the end of the Second World War. Long after we had left Scotland, when Parkinsons' disease made it necessary for her to leave her home of so many years to go into a nursing home, she sent us a gift, a lovely set of little forks, -- she was getting rid of her earthly possessions and wanted them to go to folk she loved. Her house was on Murray Terrace in Aberdeen, whence the name of our dog, Murray!

And I could go on and on. Telling you about the Marks and the Silases that I have known. And you could tell me your stories about such men and women. Not great as the world measures greatness; not even great as it is measured in the history of the church. But great nonetheless, great enough to get them mentioned in God's own book, had they lived in the right place at the right time. Great enough, surely, for them to be known as "a faithful brother" as Peter said Silas was, or great enough for any famous Christian of real spiritual worth, as Peter undoubtedly was, to want to call him "my son" as Peter called Mark.

You and I cannot aspire to be a Peter or Paul, a David or Abraham, a Jeremiah or a John the Baptist. These men are far beyond our reach. We haven't gifts or graces to make us like them. Perhaps we cannot even aspire to the place of Silas or Mark. Perhaps they would tell us that it was living in the presence of such men as they were privileged to know and serve -- Paul and Peter especially -- that made them so much more than they otherwise might have been. To live in the shadow of great Christlikeness and spiritual zeal is a magnificent privilege for anyone who has the grace of God in his or her heart!

But, my brethren, we ought to aspire to high and holy things. Those things may come to us in a measure appropriate to our station in life, but we have here and at many other places in the Bible the encouragement to believe that the true godliness and goodness and hard gospel work of even very ordinary people is pleasing to God and of great benefit to the kingdom of Jesus Christ.

I am glad to say that we have such people here. I am very grateful to God for them, a goodly number of them. People who are universally loved and appreciated for their cheerful labor for the Lord, for their kindly interest in others, for their support of the church's life and work. I want to urge them on and I want all of us to consider how we might ourselves be more like these ordinary folk, like Silas and Mark, whom the Spirit of God saw fit to include in his Holy Scriptures.

You will never be, I will never be, a great man like Paul or Peter. But, could you be someone others instinctively call "a faithful brother"? Could you be the kind of person another older, more experienced, more practiced Christian would want to call his son or daughter? Surely you could. The grace of God can make you such a person, as it has made a vast multitude of others such people. The question is: do you aspire to be such a person?

I suspect that many of us know what the problem is, the lack is in our lives that would keep us from the stature of a Mark or a Silas. They were men of like passions with us -- remember Mark's cowardice -- so it is not that we have sins and weaknesses and they did not. They surely did. They too had to go to the throne of grace daily to seek forgiveness for what they had done and failed to do. They too, like even Paul himself, knew the bitterness of Christian failure: "O wretched man that I am; who will deliver me from this body of death?"

No the difference, if there is a difference, lies here: that they aspired to be more and better for Christ. Mark left some things in his past behind because he was not content to be a coward all his life. They were willing to undertake challenges for the sake of Christ's name in their lives -- in Silas' case, even the risk of life and limb for the sake of spreading the gospel. Whereas far too many of us are not really, not honestly, not if the truth be told, following hard after what we know is not yet in our Christian lives. We are not seeking it with tears daily from God's hand. We are not practicing it with a vengeance in our lives. We are sullen and critical in spirit and we know we are, but we are not repenting of that pride and anger and putting on a cheerful spirit of compliment, appreciation, and kindness to others. We are lazy and indifferent to the work that lies before us to contribute to, but we are not repenting of that indolence and selfishness and applying ourselves to any and every Christian effort we can lay our hands on. We are lustful after the pleasures of this world but are not repenting of our lack of faith in a world to come and a judgment day and a very short stay in this world in which to love and serve our Redeemer. We are angry and hard in our relations with others, perhaps even our own children, but we are not repenting of all of those ways in which we exasperate others and, instead, devoting ourselves to spreading cheer and practicing kindness. We are glum and moody but are not repenting of our lack of Christian joy and seeking to be happy in Christ and to make others happy, which is virtually the same thing! And so on.

No, my brothers and sisters, there is more for many of you, much, much more for many others of you. Aspire to that "much more." And be a Mark, be a Silas, and have a name in the estimation of Christians who know what real goodness is and how to measure it. Be a Mark, a Silas. Aspire to be Mark or Silas, -- a faithful brother or sister, some wise, godly old Christian's son or daughter. And, then, who knows: in a church full of people aspiring to be Mark or Silas, perhaps the Lord will also find a Peter or a Paul!