Q&A: I Peter 2
Transcript:
QA I Peter 2
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[00:00:00] Introduction
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Jason Harper: Thank you for tuning into our Q and A podcast for first Peter chapter two. We are Berean Bible Church. You can find out more about us at Berean.Church. I am Jason. I am the digital content manager here.
Jed Gillis: And I'm Jed Gillis. I'm the teaching pastor at Berean
Jason Harper: Jed, as we go into First Peter two. Could you just give us a recap of what happened first Peter one, and get us up to speed on where we are in the book.
Jed Gillis: Sure, as I've gone through this book, I see over and over, Peter is just blown away by the fact that God's people are His. That they belong to Him. And that means that God's people are loved as God's children. It also means that God's people are living as strangers in a fallen world because we don't belong to the world, we belong to God.
We belong to Heaven. So he starts the book with this just outpouring of praise for the mercy that God's people have been given, for the new birth they've been given, for the inheritance that they've been given, and the protection. And in all of those things, God's Those are because we are His, and Peter is amazed by that, but he knows then God's people face trials and suffering.
So, They must prepare themselves by placing their hope fully on Jesus, whose death frees us from the feudal ways of our forefathers, from all the earthly, natural patterns we could have. And he says, since we've been born again, by the truth of the gospel, we belong to God, not just individually, but we belong to God together, so we're to love one another with a sincere, brotherly love.
And that leads us into chapter two.
Jason Harper: Now, as we go into 1 Peter chapter 2, a number of questions were raised, and we tried to categorize them into different sections. The first set of questions is on Christ as the cornerstone and what does it mean for Christ to be the foundation of the church. The next set of questions is on the passions of the flesh and how do we avoid these and how do we guard our souls against the passions of the flesh. And then the last section is on our relationship to government and authorities.
[00:02:08] Jesus as the cornerstone of the church
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Jason Harper: So coming into chapter two, it starts off with that background of we are his people, it starts off describing Christ as the cornerstone first Peter two, four as you come to him, a living stone rejected by men, but in the sight of God chosen and precious, that you yourselves Like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
For it stands in Scripture, Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame. How do we practically make sure that Jesus is the cornerstone of the church? And what are signs we need to look for that a church might be deviating from this foundation?
Jed Gillis: It's a great question and it's hard because if you name specific things then It's easy to say.
Well, we met we match these few things, but all these other areas were maybe falling short in so I think the best way to get at that is to just ask some questions. I think diagnostic questions can be really helpful so I think one is to say You What gives us unity, really? The picture of Cornerstone is that the stone that really is the structure, it's the basis and foundation for absolutely everything.
If you could remove the cornerstone, the whole wall would tumble. And so that's what I mean. It's not just, We might be united around the fact that we do Communion every week. We might be united around a style of music. We might be united around different aspects or certain programs. But really, what's the foundation?
What gives us unity? Is our unity around the Gospel of Jesus Christ, or is it around something else? What really connects us? And another way to ask that, because I think, It's easy to say that and then not know what is it that actually gives us unity. One question would be, what would really shake the church?
Not just what would cause struggles, but I'm talking about if this thing happened, the church would nearly fold. And you can see it in a lot of different contexts. If you took out a certain program. Is the church no longer able to really function? If so, what was the church's unity built on? If you take out a certain leader or a certain few leaders and you say well, it's going to be difficult if a leader who served faithfully is no longer there.
But if you take that out and the whole church just shakes and falls, where was the foundation ultimately? It wasn't really on Jesus because Jesus didn't change. And you could point that to all kinds of things. You see it in our world where there's scandals in church leadership sometimes. And when that happens, if the church, it's difficult, it's hard.
But if the church's unity is shattered by that scandal, you have to at least ask the question, what really was the foundation for that unity in the first place? You could say another question would be, what is our righteousness based on? Do we think we're good or we're acceptable to God because we have certain external standards?
Do we think we're good or acceptable to God because we have a certain kind of outreach? Do we think we're good or acceptable because we live in a missional way? Or do we think we're good and accepted before God because of Jesus Christ? And that's a different question. Those other things can be good.
But to say, is Jesus really the cornerstone or is my own righteousness, my own performance, really the cornerstone that I'm functionally based on? Or where is our worship directed? Are we, what do we really think is good? What's the best treasure? Is it Jesus or is it something else? And you could ask the questions and practically getting down to it would require knowing the specific situation and probably a very nuanced view of a lot of things in the church.
But I think, it struck me, thinking about this picture, there's a big difference between Jesus as foundational, or Jesus being assumed. We don't want Jesus to be assumed, like, of course we believe in Jesus, now let's have unity around everything else. That's a different perspective. Instead, we want to say, our true unity is in Jesus, and he's the foundation for missional living.
He's the foundation for pursuing holiness. He's the foundation for all these other things. So I think Jesus as foundational is good, and that doesn't mean that everything we say has to be directly about Jesus. But we want to make sure we don't take Jesus for granted, or assume him. In the church, he is truly the foundation of our unity, the foundation of what empowers us, the foundation of our righteousness in all of those things.
And you could probably come up with more questions. He really is the foundation, the bedrock on that, all of it's built on.
[00:07:23] Is "the rock" Peter, the apostles, or Christ?
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Jason Harper: In your sermon, you pointed out that Jesus and Peter had a conversation involving the word picture of stones. In Matthew 16 Christ says upon this rock. I'll build my church and you brought up that Peter likely had that conversation in mind as he was writing this there's different interpretations of that and a common one is that the church was being built on the Apostles is that wrong and why or why not?
Jed Gillis: Sure. I want to 16 I'll read a little bit of it to put that conversation in our minds. Jesus comes, he asks his disciples, Who do people say that the Son of Man is?
And they respond with various answers. John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah, one of the prophets. But then he looks at the disciples and says who do you say that I am? And Simon Peter replies, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered him, Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.
And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Really, it's this statement, on this rock I will build my church, is the question. What does he mean by that? And there are really four main options to identify the rock. It could be Peter.
And if you say the rock is Peter, that could lead you to something like a succession of popes coming from Peter, or it could not lead you to it. You could still say that Peter was a foundation, was a rock on which the church was built, without having a succession of other people who fit that same category.
You could be the apostles, could be the rock. And if you do that, then, functionally, the scriptures become the rock on which the church is built because the apostles are accessed now through scriptures, through their writings. You could say that Peter's confession is what's referred to here, so when he says, on this rock, he means on the confession you just made that I am the Christ.
That's really close to building on Jesus, ultimately, because if you're confessing who he is, That's a truth about him. Or you can say, on this rock, that means on Jesus, I will build my church. Which is like the confession, but it's more focused on the person of Christ. So instead of, my church is built on a doctrinal statement, my church is built on a person.
It's a different focus. And so you say how do we know? How do we know which one's there? We could go down Matthew and there's some arguments from grammar and there's some textual reasons, but I find it striking that the parallel of I Peter 2 is there. In 1 Peter 2, Jesus is a living stone, actually the cornerstone, the foundational stone. And it's interesting, it calls him a living stone, the same way Peter says you are the Christ, the son of the living God.
That same word, living, is in both places. And so I think, these are just reasons why in 1 Peter 2, I think he's thinking about Matthew 16. In both cases, God's people, the church, is being built on something. In 1 Peter 2, it's referred to as the cornerstone, which is described as Jesus, and specifically on faith in the cornerstone, which is described as Jesus.
In Matthew 16, the church is built on the rock because God reveals it to them. That's what has to happen. The Father has to open his eyes. Flesh and blood can't show this to him. In 1 Peter 2, you have the same context there. They believe. because God has opened their eyes to see this, as opposed to others who stumble through disobedience.
Immediately after this section in Matthew, Peter stumbles because he didn't believe that Jesus should die in Jerusalem. And yet, Peter was setting his mind on the things of man, not the things of God. That's what Jesus tells him. In 1 Peter, right after he describes the church being built on this cornerstone, He says, you're supposed to put your mind on the things that are God's.
You're supposed to proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. The next section in Matthew says, what good is it if you gain the whole world but lose your soul? Peter, right after this in verse 11 says, you need to abstain from the passions of your flesh which wage war against your soul.
So it seems like Peter's just tracking through this whole conversation. God built his church on something, and then right afterwards, Don't do like I did and stumble, instead set your mind on the things of God, proclaim his glories, and then guard your soul. So there's a parallel running through that, and if you take all those parallels then, I believe what Peter's doing is giving us an inspired commentary on Matthew 16 and saying when Jesus said on this rock I will build my church, he meant on the cornerstone.
I will build my church. And so there's some truth in all of the answers. If you were to say, is the church built on Peter? Well, In a sense, in the sense that Peter was a foundational apostolic authority who testified to Jesus, yes, but most foundationally it's Jesus as the cornerstone. If you were to say, is the church built on the apostles?
Kind of, in that they testify to Jesus, but really Jesus is the more foundational answer. And if you were to say, is the confession, is the doctrinal belief, again, you'd point to, the person of Jesus is the cornerstone and the truth about him is the way that we believe and the way that we anchor to that cornerstone.
So I think all of these, it's not that it's wrong to say there's a sense in which the church is built on the apostles. It's that I think the best, most foundational answer is that the church is built on Jesus. And the others all kind of point to, ultimately, the church built on the person of Christ.
[00:13:05] The Church vs. the Gates of Hell
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Jason Harper: In Matthew 16, it said the gates of hell will not prevail against us. I'm noticing that there's two structures. There's a church and the gates of hell. I was wondering if you could expand on that.
What is, What is that picture of the church versus the gates of hell? And what am I supposed to be thinking when I think of that contention?
Jed Gillis: Yeah, it's, it is an interesting thing that you have both structures there. And from Matthew, there's I will build my church, so there's a structure being built as that structure is built in the metaphor.
The gates of hell can't stop it. So it really drives us, and we'd have to draw different passages to get all of this, but it drives us to the fact that God building his church is not literally God building a building, it's how does God build his church? Through spiritual maturity for people who are already believers and through conversion of people who are unbelievers.
So it's like the gates of hell are trying to defensively guard people that are unbelievers and keep them from God. God will build his church and he will go straight through the gates of hell to build his church through conversion. It's like the gates of hell want to keep believers from growing in their ability to worship and glorify God, and God's gonna build his church and bring people to growth despite Satan's opposition in that.
So I think, it's all metaphor, obviously, but you could say the sense in which God is building his church is that it is, as he builds it, he is taking over territory from hell or people who are built into a system right now that glorifies not God but themselves or Satan, and he is taking those over and putting them building them on the structure of his church built on the foundation of Christ.
[00:14:57] What does it mean to be a “living stone?"
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Jason Harper: Along the same vein, what does it mean for us to be a living stone in the spiritual house of God?
Jed Gillis: I think living is giving us the picture, one, saying, hey, this is a metaphor, you're not rocks, you are, you're humans you have energy, there's a sense of growth, so living stones, say, what does that look like?
We're not static, it's not that God takes a person, says, you are who you are, now I'm gonna put you in my church, you're never gonna grow spiritually, but you're able to do whatever you can do now. Living stones can grow, living stones can act, you So I think that's part of it. It also means you're part of the structure of the church.
It's a fascinating picture because if you think of the metaphor, Jesus is the cornerstone and then living stones are built on top of him. That means that all the stones are part of the overall structure. So , Every member is important. We can say the foundational cornerstone, of course.
That's the one thing that if you take it out, the whole system falls. But, if you're going to build a building, every brick in the wall is important in the overall building. And there's a, every member ministry that's important. It's foundational to remember that, as living stones, we aren't passively staring at the foundation stone only.
We are part of what God is building up. I think even Paul uses this metaphor somewhat in, in 1 Corinthians. He talks about no other foundation can be laid except that which is already laid, Jesus Christ. But he says, be careful how you build on that foundation. So when you are building yourself up in spiritual growth, when you're helping other living stones to be more mature, you are part of what God is doing in building his church, building up those living stones, who are all crucial parts of what God is doing overall.
[00:16:53] What are passions of the flesh?
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Jason Harper: In the pursuit of Being built on the cornerstone and being a living stone and taking that responsibility Peter calls us to Abstain from the passions of the flesh in verse 11. He says beloved I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh which wage war against your soul He doesn't list anything here when he says passions of the flesh, what should we be thinking about?
Jed Gillis: I love how you connect the flow there that the reason we guard ourselves against the passion of the flesh, it's partly here for the guarding of my own soul, of course, but it's also because I am a living stone that's part of the church being built up. So there's a corporate responsibility. I guard my soul and pursue worship of God, not only for myself, but for all of God's people around me, and for God's glory, which is displayed as the church is built up.
With that in mind, what are the passions of the flesh? The word passions just means desires. It's a neutral word. Passions by itself is not a problem. The phrase, passions of the flesh, is the problem in this section. So when scripture uses flesh, it can just mean physical, like your physical body. So this could be passions about physical things.
But, Jesus had a physical body, and scripture doesn't present the idea that the physical is automatically bad. In fact, it's the opposite. God is the God who created the physical, and it was good. So there's some ancient There's some ancient philosophies that would teach that whatever is physical is automatically bad and whatever is immaterial is automatically good.
And scripture doesn't present that. If it's not just physical, you say well, what is the flesh? The other way scripture uses the word flesh is to contrast it with the spirit, with the Holy Spirit. And so that the, in this sense, the flesh is like a natural sphere of thinking without any reference to God.
If that's what it means, passions of the flesh means desires that are used or considered without any reference to God, then you could take any desire, and you could take desires that we automatically think of as bad, say like the desire to hate, the desire to kill, the desire to steal. Why are those bad?
The desire to kill is bad because it's only considering humanity without considering that person is valuable as made in the image of God. If you don't consider God, it becomes a passion of the flesh and it's one we think of as bad, but it could include more neutral desires. And we could list a lot, but I think there's four big categories that are helpful for us.
The desire for comfort, the desire for approval, the desire for control, and the desire for pleasure. So we said comfort, I want to avoid pain. Approval, I want others to think well of me. Control, I want to be able to have power to bring about the circumstances I want in my life or to keep bad circumstances from happening.
Or pleasure, I want this positive sense. So comfort's avoiding pain, pleasure is I want good feelings. Those desires are not sinful in themselves. But if pursued apart from a right understanding of God, they become sinful. So it fits with his use of saying there's passions, a neutral word, and then they're of the flesh.
There's a sinful modifier. So you could say comfort is a neutral thing. It's a desire. But if I pursue comfort apart from a right understanding of God and a right worship of him, it becomes a passion of the flesh. I think the context gives us two other clues. Obviously, we could just work through that and say that might be what he means.
But I want to ask Peter, as I look at his text, is that what you really are saying? I think there's two clues. One's in verse 12, he says, the Gentiles are to see your conduct and glorify God. If you merely act according to natural desires, you say, I pursue comfort, I don't think about God, they have no reason to glorify God.
They might look at you and think you're disciplined, they might look at you and think you've got your life put together, But if you don't pursue those things in light of who God is, they have no reason to glorify him. If instead you take your desires, your natural desires, and you put them underneath your love and worship for God, then when they see you living that way, they have a reason to glorify God.
And also his commands in the next section tell you, really throughout the next, end of chapter 2 and end of chapter 3, the commands tell you, do good, even if it brings discomfort, or disapproval, or a lack of pleasure. In other words, as he points to that, he says, you're going to suffer sometimes, rather than letting the passion of your flesh, which would say, if I suffer, I'm going to make sure I get revenge.
Instead of that, you're to do good without letting that passion rule your life. Your desire for comfort is underneath your worship for God. So I think as he goes through, you can see these examples. Doing good means in verse 16, you live as God's servant. You give up your control, your desire for control, which if considered without God says, I have to rule my life.
And instead we say, I would love to be able to control things in my life where I can. But I'm ultimately God's servant, and so I don't have ultimate control. So it seems like what Peter does as he moves forward is tell you, avoid passions of the flesh, here's how you do it. By considering God, by bowing to him ultimately, and not by bowing to these other desires.
[00:22:35] How does avoiding passions guard your soul?
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Jason Harper: With passions, I like comfort, and I like good things. And we live in a day and age that tells us , as long as you're not hurting anyone else, it's fine. How does avoiding the passions of the flesh guard our souls?
Jed Gillis: That's a great question and it's crucial for the way he's thinking through these passages. He says that when you approach desires without reference to God, it will bring a kind of sickness or damage. It will wage war against your soul. And I think if we think about it this way, if you think, imagine a person who is ruled by a desire for approval.
I think we all know that's not a real healthy situation. We can imagine people who are. We call them control freaks, if you will. People who are ruled by a desire for control. We know that doesn't produce this amazing soul of peace and joy and love. And really, down the list, you could do that.
Nothing wrong with the desire in itself. Now, there's something wrong with a desire when we think of a desire to hate, or a desire to kill, or a desire to steal. That's a separate question. But these neutral kind of desires, the ones that really drive us, there's nothing wrong with a desire to control what I can rightly control in my life.
There's something wrong with saying, I'm going to control it, and I'll go against what God has said in order to get my control, or I'll go against God's ways, I'll worship something other than God in order to get my comfort or my pleasure. So the desires themselves aren't bad, but when we elevate them, when we either view the desire as greater than my desire to worship God, or when I just think of comfort apart from God at all, and I just ignore him and ignore what he said, Then it creates within me, not a healthy soul, but one that is suspicious, one that is not full of peace or joy, but one is anxious, worried, one that often it will create self loathing.
You go, if I desire approval more than anything else and I realize I've blown it, I can't live up to this approval. Then I hate myself and it's an unhealthy place to be in your soul and so he points to these things and says basically, if I could paraphrase, if you pursue natural desires without thinking of God or without putting those desires in their rightful place, it will eat you alive.
And I think we see this over and over. We don't really think about it every time. But that's what brings anxiety, that's what brings hatred, that's what brings all of these negative states in our souls. They come from that. And if instead I pursue God above all else, trusting Him, worshiping Him like He describes here, and then instead of using those passions in that way, I say, not, I'm going to abstain from, the desire from comfort because Jesus promises comfort, but instead I'm going to abstain from the desire from comfort as it is a desire of the flesh without considering God.
That's what harms my soul. And I think it becomes then a challenge for us because he drives us back to worship. Proclaim God's glory. That's how you are going to guard your soul. You proclaim his glory. That's how you turn from desires of the flesh. You see all your desires in light of the beautiful mercy and love that you've been given and that transforms your soul.
[00:26:34] What about the world's systems of ethics?
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Jason Harper: We can, I think we all have pictures in our head of what a life ruled by passions looks like and we can easily see the negatives, if you've got someone who's a succumbed to addiction or alcoholism or whatever. But, I think The world has systems of ethics and the world has developed all sorts of systems Of putting down the passions of the flesh.
So How is a Christian idea of avoiding passions different than a worldly idea of avoiding passions?
Jed Gillis: Sure,
I think two examples help us here to say this isn't a Buddhist kind of system or a stoic system of ethics that says avoid all passions It says, avoid misuse or wrongly applied passions. So it's, there's one distinction there.
It isn't saying don't desire anything. It's saying place your desires in their correct orientation under your worship of God. So that's one contrast. A second one would be more of an atheistic system of ethics where you only consider the horizontal relationships of person to person. And that one's interesting because atheist systems always have to battle between what is good for others and what is good for me.
So one ethical principle becomes do whatever you want as long as you don't hurt others. But sometimes it seems that protecting yourself requires harm to others, so you go how do you apply that principle in every situation. Whereas Christianity says, you guard your soul through a right relationship to God, and that overflows in love for one another.
It's not the same thing as viewing the highest principle as a horizontal one. Do I treat others well? The highest principle is God, and as I proclaim his glory, I am guarding myself. I'm guarding my soul. And therefore, that overflows in love for others. So it's a distinction, it's a subtle one, But it makes a big difference when you then start trying to deal with the dirty and difficult situations in life.
The times where you say, this person has treated me wrongly. Now since they've treated me wrongly. How do I both love them and guard myself and atheistic systems have a hard time answering that question without either exalting self or others above the other one. Christianity says. guard yourself through your worship of God, and that overflows in love.
So there's distinctions and you could do this with every system of ethics. You could dive down to the roots and find differences between the two so that while there's similarities sometimes in what happens on the surface, the root cause is very different.
[00:29:30] How do we respond to bad governments?
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Jason Harper: One of the reasons we abstain from passions.
It says, keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation. I find it interesting that immediately Peter goes into examples of that. And sometimes, when you start getting into the nitty gritty, sometimes it's hard to wrestle with this with what it's like to be a Christian in the world.
Verse 13 says, be subject. For the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether it's to the emperor or supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and praise those who do good. And then later in verse 18, servants be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the unjust.
As we go through this passage when governments or authorities contradict God, what's our responsibility? Doesn't this text encourage injustice and oppression?
Jed Gillis: Well, it's certainly been accused of that from time to time. I think that the thing to keep in mind throughout this text, throughout this next chapter and a half, over and over, Christians have the responsibility to bow to God first.
Our worship is always to God. He defines what's right and wrong. Where his definition of right and wrong contradicts government or another authority, we always, as the apostles said, we obey God rather than man. So in this, when government contradicts God, the quick answer is, if government says that I have to obey them instead of God, that's not true.
I obey God rather than government. But I want to give two caveats to that. One from this text, one from history. The one from this text is the way that we obey God rather than man is important. When he says be subject to governments, he's not saying blindly obey what they say even if it's against God.
He's saying your attitude, your posture is to be inclined to follow government, to not be a rabble rouser, to not be a revolutionary who goes, I'm going to tear down the system and bring anarchy. We're not supposed to be that. We're supposed to be the kind of people who say, I want to follow government.
I want that attitude and peace in my soul that says, I trust God, I'll follow government unless government asks me to obey man rather than God, and then I won't do that.
The second caveat, not only is the way we obey God rather than man important. But, many times, government will ask us or tell us to do things that we don't like.
That doesn't necessarily mean they're telling us to obey them rather than God. This requires discernment for specific situations. But there are many things that a government could say, I don't particularly love paying taxes on certain things, but I'm not disobeying God to pay taxes. And there are other things like that where you say, Here's something I may not like, but it's not against God, so I will do it.
Even to say, government may do some things that are against God, but they're not asking me or telling me to do something against God. Now we have to wrestle with, in our government, in America, you say, what's my responsibility to try and reform government, to try and bring about change, and I think we have some more questions that will address that more directly.
But especially, it's worth noticing that the goal is how do I obey God rather than man, not how to make sure my government obeys God. That's a separate question. It can be a good one, but it's a separate one. And, there are many things that I don't like that aren't actually sinful. My posture should be if government tells me to drive 25 miles an hour in a section that I might wish I could drive faster.
I still say I'm inclined to follow what the government says. I don't just go, I don't like that. It's a dumb rule. So I'm just going to shake my fist in the face of the government and do something else. And I think that's the big point is obey God first, but the way you obey God first matters.
[00:33:55] How do we balance living as free people and submission?
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Jason Harper: So in this personal responsibility that you mentioned to government, to authorities, verse 13 says be subject to the government.
Amen. Verse 18 says, be subject to masters and right in between there and verse 16 says, live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover up for evil, but living as servants of God. How do we balance the call to live as free people with a command to submit to authority? And what does true Christian freedom look like when you're under the subject of governmental rule?
Jed Gillis: I think that we have some great pictures of this in the life of Christ, and we don't have as many as I wish we had, but we do have when government comes and says, have you paid the tax? And Jesus says, I'm free from that, but let's go catch this fish and pay the tax. He is free. He's not acting like he's a slave to government, but he respects authority.
And he says, okay, I'm going to do that, even when he's tried by Pilate. So he's sitting under human authority by all appearances, and yet you read, especially you read John, and you sit there going, Jesus is really the authority in this context. Yes, Pilate has all the human authority, but Jesus really has the authority.
He's not slave, he's not bound under Pilate. And so I think that freedom of Jesus to say, you really can be free as a citizen of heaven, to say, Jesus I'm going to submit because I'm free, not I'm going to submit because I'm a slave of government. I'm a slave, I'm a servant of God. I'll submit because of that.
And I think Jesus gives us that picture, even where he had that authority. Or I think of when they come to arrest him, and he says, I could have called down angels that would have stopped this whole situation. Say, that's freedom. And yet he submitted to what the governmental authorities were doing at the time.
And so I think that kind of context We don't have that same freedom because we can't call down angels. But we do have the freedom to say, God is really my master, am I going to thumb my nose at earthly authorities, or am I going to pay the tax like Jesus did and I think he gives us those pictures. Applying it to individual situations would require just nuance and carefully thinking through those but he gives us the big principles to work with
Jason Harper: it's interesting I think of the picture has been done a few times of a superhero or You know in the superman movie.
He Allows himself to be handcuffed even though he could easily break them. It's interesting to think through If you live as if you're free, but then you're still subjecting yourself to governmental rule, it becomes a choice and it's not under compulsion, but you're choosing to serve the government.
You're choosing to serve your authorities.
Jed Gillis: Sure.
[00:36:48] What about civil disobedience?
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Jason Harper: With that thought in mind, we've seen in history when people have made decisions to go against the government and it's led to good things. There's civil disobedience like Gandhi in India or the civil rights movements in the United States that led to positive change. Or even Sometimes it was violent like the American Revolution. How should Christians respond to laws or regulations that promote injustice and does civil disobedience play a role in the Christian life?
Jed Gillis: Yeah, we could do a whole podcast on that one. Probably I think the short answers would be this. First, we have to be careful to not build morality based on the ends justifying the means.
So the fact that there was good that came of it is not enough to say, therefore it is good. Therefore we should do it. And we could work through that scripturally, but I think that one is, It's easy enough to spot, you can say, good came from Joseph's brothers selling him into slavery. That didn't mean it was the morally right action.
And I think that's first step is make sure we frame the question correctly. The second step is, this text doesn't, it gives us principles around it, it doesn't give us an easy black and white answer for it. If civil disobedience is needed to live as servants of God. then it's clearly allowed in this text because we're told to live as servants of God.
If civil disobedience is needed in order to do good, it's clearly allowed in the text because he says that's what you're to do even if you suffer for it, do good. He says that in, with governments, with servants, every case in this chapter he points to it, do good, and you're allowed to do that even if you suffer for it.
So even if the authority tries to punish you for it, you're still allowed to do good. So we could say that, but we'd also have to say the way you pursue civil disobedience must be done in a spirit of, verse 17, honor everyone, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the emperor. So The way that you would do civil disobedience must be showing honor for all people. So if it's the civil rights, you have to wrestle with, how do I show honor to people of racial minorities? And how do I also show honor to leaders who are putting these laws in place that seem to contradict showing honor to racial minorities?
There's a challenge there, but we're told, honor everyone and honor the emperor. So you say, how do I do that in the best way? How do I show real love for God's people, even throughout civil disobedience? How do I show ultimate worship of God? Overall, he gives us principles, but he doesn't directly say it.
And I think the other, maybe the harder one that you mentioned specifically, the American Revolution question, one of the issues that you have to bring up there is which authority? You had state authorities, you had a king across the ocean. So which authority am I supposed to obey? That doesn't solve the question for the people in state authority who had to decide what they were supposed to do, but for your average Christian living in New York at the time, you had a separate question that this text really doesn't address, which is, if two different human authorities claim authority over you, what do you do then?
That's And 1 Peter doesn't really help us with that, so there's some complexity around it, but overall I think you can say, this text doesn't call you to blind obedience, so therefore civil disobedience where you're obeying God rather than is allowed. How that works out in all the specific situations gets really complex, but the big principles are there.
[00:40:35] Healthy versus harmful submission
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Jason Harper: Okay. So when you're in those tricky situations of For whatever reason, if you're being called to do something that you feel like you shouldn't do as a Christian, or there's a governmental authority or an authority in your life that is causing problems, or you have multiple authorities, how do you discern when submission is healthy and when it might be harmful?
Jed Gillis: The way I work through this for myself is to say, God, in Scripture and in this text, He tells me what to do and He tells me how I'm supposed to do it. I'm supposed to do good, and I've got a whole Bible that tells me what do good means. I'm supposed to worship God, and I have a whole big section that says that.
I'm supposed to show honor and love to people around me. That's what I'm supposed to do. He also tells me, though, how I'm supposed to do it. When he says, be subject, that's more of an attitude term than an action term. In other words, if I were to conclude, like, Daniel, that I can't eat this meat offered to idols, the way that I come back and say I can't eat this meat offered to idols, which was an act of civil disobedience, the way I come back and say that matters.
So he doesn't come back and say You terrible pagan idolater king, I'm not interested in anything you have to say. He comes back and says, hey, can we try eating vegetables here? I want to follow your leadership, but I think this will be best for us, and it's against my religious conviction to eat this meat, so let me do this.
And he tries that. So there's a civil disobedience and there's a sense where he's, he's clearly not following, but it's in a submissive kind of attitude. He's not obeying, but he's not thumbing his nose at him either. So I think to say, when is submission healthy? When submission is shaking your fist in the face of an authority, it's not healthy.
When submission is, I follow God rather than man, it can be healthy. And I think that question helps me get to it. You'd have to go through, again, like all the specific situations. That's where we're just limited on how much we can talk about in one podcast. But all the specific situations get difficult.
The point is, though, that attitude of your heart, because remember, his point is how do you guard your soul? He's saying it's harmful to your soul if you were in Daniel's situation and you walk in cursing out the king because he's an idolater, you go no, there's a problem there. Your attitude's wrong.
And your actions are wrong. Instead, he's saying, guard your soul. Daniel was guarding his soul by following God rather than man in the right way.
[00:43:15] What about when Jesus threw tables?
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Jason Harper: So Peter seems to be focusing our attitudes towards almost a quietness, a passiveness, a submissive attitude. But Jesus didn't always display that. Jesus you know, I mean,
he did display that when he was on the cross , like you say, he could have called out angels and he submitted to the authority's then.
But on the other hand, he quite forcefully threw the money changers out of the temple with a whip.
Jed Gillis: Sure.
Jason Harper: So how do we know which response is appropriate when Jesus or Christianity is threatened or mocked in our culture?
Jed Gillis: Yeah, the money changers or when he looks at Pharisees and says you brood of vipers and he's got harsh words there for sure.
I think that the simplest way to make sense of those two things in Jesus is where unbelievers obviously mocked Jesus, so like at the cross, he entrusted his soul to one who judges justly. And he blessed instead of repaying evil for evil. And you have that in the cross. You have that throughout his life.
All the situations where he's really angry, if you will. And he was angry. Where he's angry, where he's more, we'd say, harsh. Those were situations where professing believers claimed to worship, but are actually making a mockery of Christianity. They weren't. overtly mocking Christianity. They were saying, Oh, yes, we believe in Yahweh, and so we're going to take advantage of poor people in the process.
Really, I think, recently we had questions about Olympic opening ceremonies mocking the Lord's Supper. In that case, you had unbelievers, depending on what you listened to, you had unbelievers mocking the Lord's Supper. And that seems to be a repay good instead of evil for evil kind of situation.
On the other hand, to give an example of when people are teaching the prosperity gospel, give more money to this ministry and God is going to give you more money as a result. And that's a one to one, it will happen every time. That's a professing believer taking advantage of someone that's really making a mockery of what God promised.
And I think there's a rightness in responding with more of a strong response. There's room for a stronger response because of our worship for God when you have a professing believer who is actually making a mockery out of Christianity versus when you have an unbeliever who you expect to mock Christ.
That's what Jesus said. They hated me, they'll hate you. So I think those things can help us put it in the right category. I also said there's room for a stronger response. I don't think we have to respond that way every time. This is not a call for all believers to go find the nearest Prosperity Gospel Church and go flip some tables over.
But there's room for the conversation. There's room for a harsher response to say, This is wrong. This professing believer is actually doing something that mocks Jesus. That's different than this unbeliever is mocking Jesus. And we see that even in the way Jesus responded, Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.
He looked at the Pharisees and said, you ought to know. You're teachers of the law. You ought to know this. So there was a different response because they were professing believers in Yahweh.
[00:46:45] How do we respond to wrong Christian authorities?
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Jason Harper: Huh. That's a, that's an interesting distinction of, this chapter seems to focus on submission to. outsiders to non Christians. Part of the problem, when the spiritual authority goes astray, it affects our view of God.
Jed Gillis: You're exactly right. Our view of God is often impacted by the way God's people act towards us, which is sobering, and we should say, I need to make sure I am representing God well in the way that I act towards others. But we have to remember that God's, God is not great because His people are great.
God is great, and He transforms His people. He's the foundational one. When he describes in chapter 2, verse 9, he says God's people are a chosen race. What makes them special there is that they're chosen.
It's something God does. And we have been shown, verse 10 says, at one point we had not received mercy, but now we've received mercy.
So if we can remember that anything good about us as believers is because of God and who he is, and he's shown us that mercy even though we've done wrong, even though we've hurt other people. If we remember the mercy that we've been shown and remember that God's people don't define God. It's the other way around. Then that gives us a framework to work through and come back. So when you read these promises, it is legitimate to say, once I had not received mercy, but now I have received mercy. And you might stop and think I have not received mercy from the spiritual authorities in my life, but the next thought should be, but I have received mercy from God.
And as you go through all of these different things, you say, God is the shepherd and overseer of your souls. Sometimes it's, you've been hurt by a pastor, a shepherd. And you think, how can I trust the shepherd of my soul when the human shepherd abused, or was negligent, or was in any way harmful? And that's a very difficult situation, but what has to come back to there is that it's not that. The human shepherd defines who God is. It's the other way around. God is the real shepherd of your soul. And the human shepherd steps into that as a fallible human who will sin, who will make mistakes, but God is ultimately the shepherd. He's where your hope is ultimately anchored. So the more we can think that way, which is difficult, the more we can start to say, okay, the promises of God still stand, even if God's people don't always live them out as they should.
[00:49:38] Closing
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Jason Harper: Thank you, Jed. This was a helpful conversation for me. To our listeners, I hope that this was a helpful conversation for you all.
We invite you to check out more about our church at berean. church. Or if you want to search for us on YouTube, you can listen to the whole first Peter series there.
We are currently, as of this recording, towards the end of 1 Peter chapter 3. If you have any questions feel free to email Jed directly at jedgillis@berean.me. Jed, do you have any final thoughts as we wrap this up?
Jed Gillis: I think I'd like to just pray briefly to close what we're doing this time.
Jason Harper: Alright.
Jed Gillis: God, you know all of the challenges that we faced. You know the struggles, the hurts that are there. And I pray that you would use your word. That you would open eyes to the truth of who you are. I pray especially for those who feel hurt and wounded by spiritual authorities, or by governments, or masters, or all of these different relationships that can feel oppressive and unjust.
I pray for the grace by your spirit. to trust you with our souls, and I pray for your healing, because you died on the cross, and this text says, by your wounds we have been healed, and you guard our souls. So I pray that you would use the truth of your word to accomplish that in the lives of all who hear it.
May you receive all the glory forever and ever. Amen.
Jason Harper: Amen.