For today, One Year Bible Online links here.
Everyone cheers when good people succeed, but when the wicked become powerful people go into hiding and attempt to avoid being noticed. If most people seek to avoid drawing attention to themselves, it tells you that those with power are wicked. When people cheer for the successes of those in power, you know that those people are leading in a godly way. Usually our leaders are somewhere in between and we see the behavior of the people being somewhere in between as well.
Those who hide their sins will find them being revealed at inopportune times, or otherwise interfering with their success. Those who admit to their sins and turn from them will receive forgiveness and be able to move beyond them.
The arrogant will mock us for relying on God’s promises, but they are our only true hope. It is easy to become angry at those who reject God’s directions on how to lead a good life. They fail to see the connection between that rejection and the problems they seek to solve. The solution to most of the problems we see in this world is following God’s direction. It is by obeying God’s commands and instructions that we will find our way to dealing with the problems which life presents us.
Peter reinforces his teaching that we are to live as foreigners among unbelievers. He instructs us to live such good lives that, even if they accuse us of wrongdoing, the unbelievers around us will honour God for our behavior. We need to examine our lives to be careful not to do anything which will bring dishonour to God’s name. This includes recognizing that the government, and its officials, have authority over us. Let us strive to be respectful of everyone, especially those with government authority, and live good lives, so that those who accuse us of wrongdoing look foolish.
Peter makes clear how we are to judge our response to government commands. He tells us that we are to love everyone and respect the Church, the family of believers. We are to fear God and respect the government. This means that we should NOT fear the government. When the government instructs us to do that which violates God’s commands, we should respectfully decline. Another point worth making, Peter tells us to submit to government authority. Elsewhere we are told that all government authority comes from God. Therefore, the government does not have the authority to tell us to do anything which is counter to God’s commands.
Peter goes on to tell slaves to submit to their masters, even if their masters are bad masters. This instruction contains the same limitation as the previous instruction to submit to government authority. He then tells wives to submit to their husbands. Further, they should seek to have beauty that comes from being a good, loving person, not that which comes from adornment (or cosmetic surgery). Wives are told to submit to their husbands, even if they are not godly men. That is both easier and harder than following his instructions for husbands.
Peter tells husbands that they are to honour their wives and respect them. My wife may be weaker than I, but she is just as much God’s child as I am. And when I say weaker, I mean that literally. She cannot pick up as heavy an object as I can (or perform other feats of strength as easily as I can). The reason that the instruction given wives is easier is because it is easier to interpret what it means for a wife to submit to her husband than to interpret what it means for a husband to honour his wife. On the other hand, honouring your wife will probably not involve submitting to emotional or physical suffering at their hands. I will say that if your wife suffers emotional or physical suffering at your hands, you have FAILED to honour her.
There is one last point I would like to make here. It is instructive that Peter has no instructions for how masters should treat their slaves. This leads me to the conclusion that Peter could see no way to be faithful to God and hold a fellow human being as a possession.
Ezekiel describes a river which flowed out from the presence of God. This river got deeper as it flowed away from the Temple. It starts out as shallow stream, but becomes a deep flowing river. This river is a river of life. It brings life everywhere it flows. It even converts the Dead Sea from a place where no fish live to a place that abounds with life. Life will abound wherever the water of this river flows. I believe that Ezekiel was talking about how life will flourish in the restored Israel as a result of their faithfulness. However, it also tells us how the love of God works in the world around us when we faithfully follow Christ and express God’s love of those around us.