1 Peter 2:4-17

We’re exploring how we are to be counter-cultural for the common good.  This week’s passage starts with a series of who-we-are statements, pivots to talking a bit about who-we-aren’t, and finishes with several how-we-ought-to-live commands.  (Please take a few minutes to read 1 Peter 2:4-17.)

Who we are: Notice that Peter can’t talk about who we are without first grounding us in who Jesus is.  We are who we are as we come to him (verse 4) – and who is he?  Jesus is the Living Stone, the human-rejected but God-established cornerstone, the stone over which we will either stumble and fall, or upon whom we will build a whole new way of life (verses 4-8).

So because of who he is, we can be living stones joined to the Living Stone, being built by the Spirit into a spiritual house or temple.  We are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God.  We have been called out of darkness and into God’s marvelous light.  We didn’t used to be a people; now we are God’s people; we hadn’t received mercy; now, in Christ, we have (verses 9-10).

And: we are aliens and strangers in the world (verse 11).  Therefore,

We are not primarily Jews or Gentiles, Romans or Greeks, or Americans, Koreans, Chinese or Italians.  Yes, we all live and move and have our being within various cultures.  God plays no favorites: when it comes to God’s Kingdom, it is not better to be an American or a Greek or a German.  The Kingdom welcomes “immigrants” from every tribe, nation, race and tongue.  In fact, the only way to become a citizen of the Kingdom is to “migrate” from your home culture.

Every human culture is a complex mix!  There are aspects of most every culture that God views as good or positive, aspects that are bad or evil, and quite a number that are neither here nor there (is pickleball more godly than badminton, or Mexican cuisine more spiritual than British?).

But in Christ, we are immigrants into the Kingdom that calls all kingdoms and cultures to account before God (beginning with our own!).  And as we learn the ways of the new culture of the Kingdom, we are to represent our King and his Kingdom ways in our local cultures.

We are to live in such ways that, even though our neighbors are hostile to all this “Jesus stuff,” they nevertheless see something in us that offers good to them and to the world.  We gladly submit to the local authorities and governments: we are indeed revolutionaries, but not of the kind with which the world is all too familiar.  Our King has set us free—not to “do our own thing,” but to faithfully represent him (verses 13-17).  

Before we love ourselves or our home cultures, we love our brothers and sisters in Christ.  Instead of fearing the powers the world may bring against us, we fear God.  And, as much as we can, we honor those in secular authority (verse 17).

So we are not who they say we are, or even who we think we are.  We are the glad and grateful servants of our King.  

Reread, slowly, verses 11-17.  What does the Spirit highlight for you … and how will you respond?