Pastor Bell's Words To Live By

Although Peter commends that the followers of Jesus should accept suffering as we travel along the path to becoming fully human, he is not recommending that we develop a theology of suffering, that is, we major of the theme of suffering to the point where this is all we talk about. Many people of the past fell into this trap and indeed there are still many people today who fall into the trap of focussing of one particular area to the exclusion of many others. Examples of this are those who do penance by beating themselves until they cut the skin thinking that this will appease God. Others focus on the fact that God want us to be prosperous and spend their time accumulating wealth. Still other spend their time promoting one gender above the other by taking Paul’s writings out of context and subjugating women and disregarding their benefit to the kingdom as Jesus and Paul himself did (see 1cor 14:33, 1Tim 2:12 & St john 8:1-11 for such examples).

learn from our elders

What Peter tells us in this chapter is that we should be examples to those who do not know the true and living God and have not experienced his power. So when they revile us do not retaliate, but reflect the love of Christ to them. Listen to Peter for a few moments; “For it is God’s will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish people. Live as free people, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as God’s slaves. Show proper respect to everyone, love the family of believers (the church), fear God, honour the emperor (Political leaders) (1Peter 2:15-17 NIV).

So we can be rich or poor, servants or masters, men or women, but whatever state we find ourselves in or whatever gender we are let us live to reflect God’s glory. Use your riches or your poverty to glorify God. And let him change our status to show us off to the world.

Have a read of Romans 8:31-38 and see how Paul puts it!