Jesus is either the chief cornerstone or he is the stumbling block (vv.7–8). Last time we focused on the Cornerstone Today we need to give attention to the stumbling block. Many today still find Jesus a stumbling block. But if you make him the cornerstone of your life and put your trust in him, you ‘will never be put to shame’ (v.6)
A lot of the rest of this letter addresses aspects of life that are real stumbling blocks to people. Things that are of deep concern: prejudice, slavery, authoritarian rule, inhumanity and well … just being nasty!
You are a Chosen People, a Holy Nation, a People belonging to God – that’s all very well but what about the real world?
Peter isn’t saying anything new about the reality of trying to life by faith in a fallen world. Don’t forget he was Jewish! He was living in a time and area that was ruled by a foreign power. And the Jews had a long history of being ruled by foreign powers.
For centuries the people of Israel had to learn to live out their faith, hope and communal life while being ruled over by non-Jews, ‘pagans’ as they were called. ‘Pagans’ cared for nothing for the Jewish faith, they certainly didn’t share their hope, and they either mocked their communal life or tried actively to disrupt it. It’s no wonder that Peter addressed these early Christians as exiles in a foreign land, a foreign culture even if they were still living in their own land they were subject to foreign ways of doing things. Everything was strange everything was out of order, very little was how they would desire it to be.
We are not ruled by a foreign power, we are not a conquered people we are not in slavery, people are not actively trying to disrupt our living – despite what you might think about government regulations concerning covid!
But we are in a foreign land. We are, when you consider that we are kingdom people living for both a future when the kingdom of God will come fully to this earth and the here and now where we actively seek to bring God’s kingdom into the here and now.
Sensual desire and gratification is not a new thing, we certainly share that temptation in our day as the early church did in its day.
Peter is not being a killjoy here he is emphatically not saying there is anything wrong with food, drink or sex in themselves. Everything in its proper time and place: but we humans seem to have desires that, left to themselves, will lead us into all sorts of stupid and dehumanising practices and places. Think of people who, today, eat and drink themselves into an early grave, or hurt and damage one another when we use one another as playthings rather than honouring and working at relationships that should be so precious to us.
In this section Peter is telling the early church and us – ‘okay you are a holy nation, a people belonging to God, this is what it looks like to be God’s holy people in the world in which you find yourselves. If you don’t pay attention to this, then everything that God has called you into and all that he’s done for you counts for nothing.
The world was not as it should be and nor is our world, but change comes as the people of God stand up for and demonstrate what kingdom life is really like showing it to be far more attractive than the standards and objectives and desires of the world around them and indeed the world around us. This is not about a ‘holier than thou’ attitude, it’s not about a separation from the world, it’s not about detachment from everything that is around us. Rather it is the recognition that we are very much living in this world but we are kingdom people living in this world and as we live as kingdom people we transform this world into the kingdom world.
As much as we would love to pray ‘your kingdom come your will be done’ and there it is instantly transformed the reality is that this transformation takes place inch by inch, bit by bit as Gods’ people take seriously what living in this world is about.
Peter is advocating a way of life which by particular behaviour you shame those who out of ignorance want to criticise you. This is how God is establishing his presence and rule on earth as in heaven. Oppressive tyranny and violent revolution are not the only options. Serving the true God by living a peaceful, wise, visibly good life is, in the end, far more revolutionary than simply overthrowing one corrupt regime and replacing it by… Well, most likely by another, as history shows.
As the letter goes on, we realise that Peter is not imagining for a moment that this will be easy, or that the authorities will always and instantly respect the followers of Jesus. Far from it. The Christians will be called to suffer, to suffer greatly, to suffer unjustly – after the pattern of Jesus himself.
Christians are to respect all people. They are to love the family – in other words, to share with other Christians anything that is needed. They must always put God himself first in everything. And – they must pay respect to the Emperor
Respect does not mean, of course that you agree with everything the Emperor says and does. But God has appointed him as a ruler for the moment.
We are living in a completely different climate and culture. It’s easy to misunderstand what Peter is saying here, to imagine that he is advocating an easy-going collusion with tyrants and then to mock him for his naivety. This letter continues we will be shown how wrong the attitude would be. Rather just as this early church had to face up to the implications of life in the kingdom, life in their surroundings so must we. There are many challenges awaiting us, we need to think right outside of our usual boxes of social and political ideologies.
As much as there are many similarities between our world and the world to which Peter writes there are too many differences.
Imagine there was a fuel shortage so that no one could use their cars no trains running no planes flying. No electric power at all. No motorised transport and no electric gadgets and no communication devices. We now find ourselves in a very different world to ours.
My survival would now depend on my ability to fend for myself, on my skill and strength to find and chop wood for warmth to grow and harvest vegetables to eat. However if I had wealth of some sort and I was inclined to pursue other things then I would get someone else to do these necessary things for me. In a world of such scarce resources, there might be plenty of people willing to work in return for their keep.
In the ancient world, more or less everything that today is done by electricity gas and motorised engines was done by slaves. That is not, of course, a defence of the system of slavery. Slavery was a form of systematic, legalised dehumanisation. A slave was the property of his or her owner who would provide enough board and lodging to enable asleep to work the next day and the one after that. But as property the slave could be ill treated physically and sexually abused, exploited in 1000 different ways.
We look down her noses at such a world – without realising that in many parts of the world today there are many people actually the same position or in virtually the same position. Often hidden from view they work long hours for minimal wages, cannot take time off, or look for another job. They may have families to support, and to lose even a single days wages, and perhaps their job as well could be disastrous. They are stuck. They are slaves in all but name if we want to sneer at ancient society for being so barbaric, we should be careful they might just sneer back.
We may be tempted to think that Peter is just colluding with unjust systems, all that fear prevents him from making a stand. In reality I am sure that Peter along with others agonised over the situation in which they found themselves in. They cried out to God, they wrestled in prayer, they recalled all the words and actions of Jesus and most particularly remembered his actions in the final week of his life on earth. More than that they had come to an understanding of what his suffering and death meant for them and how joining in that suffering and death was the way to bring Gods kingdom reality on Earth.
The crucifixion of Jesus was the most unjust and wicked act the world has ever seen. He was the one man who deserved nothing but praise and gratitude, and they rejected him beat him and killed him. To understand this, Peter goes back to Isaiah this time to the famous chapter 53 where the Royal figure of the ‘servant’ called to carry out God’s worldwide saving purposes, does so precisely by being unjustly treated, being insulted, abused, but not in any way retaliating.
Somehow his wounds have brought us healing and somehow our wounds bring healing to the world. Now we see how important it is for Peter to say what he does about slaves and masters and about other situations later in the letter.
He isn’t simply recommending that people remain passive whilst suffering violence. He is urging them to realise that somehow, strangely, the sufferings of the Messiah are not only the means by which we ourselves are rescued from our own sin. They are the means, when extended through the life of his people, by which the world itself may be brought to a new place.
This is not easy to understand, and it’s even harder to live up to. It may just look like a clever way of not confronting the real issue. But Peter believes that the death and resurrection of Jesus was and is the point around which everything else in the world revolves. Somehow he is saying, we must see all the injustice and suffering in the world being caught up in the injustice and suffering of God’s Son on our behalf.
It is very unlikely that we will face the same kind of suffering that these people to whom Peter wrote were experiencing every day, but we are sometimes overcharged, sometimes overlooked for promotion, sometimes viewed as being odd, we are sometimes look down on for our naive unworkable faith. We may even be viewed as dangerous and need to be opposed.
None of this is to say that God is OK with injustice. He hates it and so must we, but His way of dealing with it, was and is, not by further injustice, getting back at people. When you oppose Christ and turn your back on Him he loves you in return. When people oppose us we love them in return. This is hard but He loves through us, He suffers with us.
In light of this, live differently to the world around you – ‘friends, this world is not your home, so don’t make yourselves cozy in it’ (v.11, MSG).
We are the people of God. You have received mercy (v.10). Now you have a battle on your hands. It is very real. You have to abstain from sinful desires that war against your soul (v.11).
Do not be surprised at the accusation of wrongdoing (v.12). Seek to live a life that glorifies God. This will include respect for authority (v.13, MSG), doing good (v.15), treating everyone you meet with dignity (v.17, MSG), love for your spiritual family (v.17, MSG), non-retaliation (v.23), suffering for doing good (v.20) and trusting ‘in him who judges justly’ (v.23).
How is this possible when we are sinful human beings? Peter’s answer is to point to Jesus: ‘He used his servant body to carry our sins to the Cross so we could be rid of sin, free to live the right way. His wounds became your healing’ (vv.24, MSG).
Jesus changes everything. He has died in your place. This is what it meant for the cornerstone to be rejected, this is the foundation stone of your faith, and this is how you are brought back into the presence of God. At the cross, the place of suffering has become the place of salvation.
Group Notes
Read – 1 Peter 2:11–25
Focus on the Theme
1. Who do you respect for the positive difference they’ve made in the world, and why? It might be someone from the past or present, it could be somebody famous or obscure, perhaps someone in your family or a person you work with.
What Does the Bible Say?
2. 2:11–12 are key verses for understanding the whole of 1 Peter and help to make sense of the instructions he gives in 2:13–20. How would you explain his point in your own words?
3. The Roman Empire was powerful. Nevertheless, according to 2:13–20, who was ultimately in charge?
How might knowing this have boosted the confidence of Christians who felt marginalised and under threat?
4. Bearing in mind the new identity these Christian slaves had in Christ (you can read about first-century slavery below), how did Peter’s radical instructions to slaves in 2:18–20 provide them with a new way to view their situation and respond?
How might viewing themselves as God’s chosen and holy people, and as royal priests, have enabled them to live out Peter’s instructions with confidence?
5. In 2:21–25, what does Peter highlight about the purpose of Christ’s death?
How does this shed light on the life of a Christian slave?”
Slavery
Estimates of the prevalence of slavery in the first-century Roman Empire vary wildly – the most conservative being 25% and some suggesting it could have been as high as 90%. Whatever the exact figure, slaves accounted for a significant chunk of the population. The roles they performed and the way they were treated varied enormously too. They worked as housekeepers, farm labourers, construction workers, doctors, teachers, cooks, and estate managers, and more. Some fared well and many went on to buy their own freedom. For others, conditions were atrocious: cramped and squalid living quarters, meagre rations, barely clothed, sexually exploited, regularly beaten.
Being a slave didn’t just affect how you were treated, your living conditions, or your autonomy – it went even deeper. Being a slave was an identity, or perhaps more accurately, a non-identity. Often, they were regarded as subhuman. The Greek philosopher, Aristotle, referred to slaves as ‘human tools’.
To be a Christian slave was to be a living paradox. In the eyes of God you were honoured and free; in the eyes of the world you were dishonoured and trapped. Options were limited. Without any rights, their best hope was to keep their heads down and hope one day to purchase their freedom. Fighting back against an owner would result in severe punishment, possibly mutilation or even death. They knew too well what it meant to be stuck between a rock and a hard place. Addressing them specifically, Peter wanted these slaves to see themselves in the light of 2:12 – they could live in a way that would help those around them see something of God.
Going Deeper
6. Peter urged them to submit themselves ‘to every human authority’ (2:13). Do you think Peter expected there to be exceptions to this rule?
What did submission to rulers and governors look like for Jesus and the apostles? What didn’t it look like?
7. Of all the New Testament writers, Peter draws the clearest link between Jesus’ death and the ‘Suffering Servant’ of Isaiah 53. Take a look at Isaiah 53. What connections do you see with 1 Peter 2:21–25?
Living it Out
8. Putting modesty to one side for a moment, what have you noticed about one another that demonstrates something about ‘living a good life’, Monday through Sunday?
9. God calls us to model Christ in difficult circumstances. Is there a specific situation you’re facing on your frontline where you need wisdom, grace, or courage?
10. How does the earlier part of Peter’s letter around the gospel and our identity in Christ encourage you to live confidently through this?
Prayer Time
- Thank God for one another and the difference each person is making in the world.
- Pray for those who have shared specific frontline situations for which they need God’s help to confidently live for him in those places.
- You may prefer to prayerfully listen to your favourite version of the song, Amazing Love (You are my King). As you do so, silently reflect on the beauty and grace of Jesus. Ask him to shape your heart and fill you with his Spirit, so that you can become more like him.
The beauty of Christ
In the midst of advising the people of God about the realities of life, Peter gives us a beautiful portrait of Jesus (1 Peter 2:21–25).
Imagine walking into a rather run-down factory and discovering a random set of materials adorning the tired walls. To the left you spot a promotional calendar from a company that manufactures forklift trucks. To the right, a rather drab poster from the Health & Safety Executive. Suddenly you see it. Hanging between these two is the original painting, The Water-Lily Pond, by Claude Monet. ‘What on earth is that beautiful picture doing here?’ you ask yourself. It’s a somewhat fantastical scenario. Yet reading 1 Peter 2:13 – 3:7 has something of that kind of impact.
In 2:13–20, Peter writes about life under government (which everyone knew was corrupt) and how to respond to slave masters (who would sometimes beat up their slaves without reason). Further on in 3:1–7, he confronts the very real challenges women in the Greco-Roman world faced when they trusted in Jesus, and their husbands didn’t. And the challenge, too, for Christian husbands to live counter-culturally. This was the stuff of day-to-day life: the messy, the ugly, and the ordinary. It’s in the midst of these realities that Peter chooses to hang this beautiful portrait of Jesus (2:21–25). And it really is beautiful.
Christ, the Son of God, the one who had delighted in the Father’s presence for all eternity, willingly chose to suffer for us (2:21). Truth and integrity were the fabric of his life and words (2:22). He was without sin. When mocked, spat on, beaten, and nailed naked to a Roman cross, he didn’t retaliate (2:23). He bore the full weight of the judgement we deserved, so that we might be made whole, set free for abundant life, our relationship with the Father fully restored (2:24–25). The parallels between this description of Jesus, and the picture painted by Isaiah of the Suffering Servant (Isaiah 53) are not accidental. Peter is clear: Jesus is the long-awaited Christ, and it’s through his sacrificial death that we enter God’s kingdom (2:24–25).
But the death of Jesus isn’t only the way into the Kingdom. It lays down a pattern for life in the Kingdom. We are called to follow the example of Christ (2:21). This isn’t a part-time pursuit, reserved for religious days, times, or ceremonies. Hanging the picture where he does, Peter makes a profound point. In the monotonous, difficult, and unfair aspects of life, those bits we might be tempted to write off as the necessary evils of existence – as well as the joyous opportunities of life – he beckons us to follow and love like him. Apprenticed to Christ, we learn the ways of Jesus in our everyday contexts, in a complex world.
Theme and Questions from LICC booklet
– 1 Peter ‘Confidence in a Complex World’ by Joe Warton