Who is a "model Christian"? A pastor-evangelist who can both disciple a congregation and reach the lost effectively? A nurse putting in long hours, working with compassion and praying silently for her patients?
Peter says: think of a slave. A slave - with no power, suffering for doing good - is a model Christian.
He has already told every believer to “live as God’s slaves” (1 Peter 2v16). Now he writes directly to slaves, and of all the groups addressed in this section on “live such good lives” (2v12 to about 3v13) it is slaves who receive the most instruction.
What a revolution! In the Roman world, plenty of people told masters how their slaves should behave. Peter wrote directly to the slaves; this was an act of empowerment, giving them dignity, status and honour. By writing to them, the Apostle of Jesus Christ was telling slaves that they were not property, they were responsible moral agents. Their submission to their masters was being transformed: submission is no longer the result of the powerful forcing their will on those who are beneath them - now submission is a Christian duty, the action of someone who belongs to God and who is living in the light.
When God speaks to someone, that very act brings dignity to the one being addressed.
"When God speaks to someone, that very act brings dignity to the one being addressed."
Aristotle vs. Peter
The great philosopher Aristotle said that because slaves are the lowest of the low, if a slave suffers that’s not really injustice - that they are not worthy of justice. When Peter tells the slaves that it is commendable if they bear up under “the pain of unjust suffering,” he is elevating slaves to a position of human dignity. In fact he was elevating them to the status of children of a Father who judges each person’s work impartially – notice the use of “reverent fear” in 1v17 and 2v18.
Slaves in the Roman Empire may have been born as slaves, captured in raids or have been soldiers defeated in battle: not exactly a career choice! Yet God says they have a calling. Christ Himself, the Lord who will be revealed in glory, is their example.
A 'calling'
Suffering with Christ, suffering for doing good and enduring it, is a calling. The Creator of the heavens and the earth stooped so low that the very lowest people in any society can follow in His steps. This remarkable verse about calling is given not to clergy or to missionaries but to slaves.
Peter does point out that being beaten for sinning brings no credit, but implies that suffering for doing good brings about something positive – in fact, he says it is commendable (literally “gracious”) before God. Peter prayed that grace and peace would be given abundantly to his readers (1v2). He wrote about the believers receiving grace and that this was part of God’s great plan announced by the prophets (1v10). He writes of grace that will be brought to the church when Jesus Christ is revealed (1v13). That same grace is at work when a slave endures suffering because they are conscious of God (2v19).
Famously, Peter once recoiled in horror at the sufferings and rejections of the cross but Jesus told him that these are “the things of God” (Mark 8v32-33). Are we surprised, then, that God should choose slaves to be those who model “the things of God”?
You are not a Roman slave, thank God! But how might you learn from this model of Christian living?
How would you characterise a Christian?
Every preacher should love 1 Peter 3v8. The verse begins, “Finally”, but he is only half-way through chapter three: you …