1 Peter: Confidence in a Complex WorldSýnishorn

9: At the Heart of God's Mission

How it might have been:

It’s Thursday evening, the sun has disappeared from the sky, and you look around the inner room of Calpurnius’s house. After a long day in the kitchen, you’re exhausted. You make eye contact with Dionysius, who’s looking much thinner these days. Tryphosa, who’s there with one of her servant girls, looks lost in thought. You count 24. That’s pretty much everyone. During that day you’d all received the message about the letter sent by the elder Peter, and tonight, you’ll get to hear what he says.

As you listen to Calpurnius read, it sounds so grand, like it’s talking about someone else. But you know it’s about you and Calpurnius and Dionysius and Tryphosa and everyone else in the room. You’re trying to work out what he meant when he said you are a royal priesthood, and then you hear this: ‘Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.’ Your tired limbs suddenly feel light and alive. Even though your master and fellow slaves have been making your life a complete nightmare, you start to glimpse the possibilities. The way you live can point them to God.

These two verses mark a turning point within Peter’s letter. They depend on and make sense of what has gone before, and they pave the way for the instructions that will follow. The gospel is amazing and true, and those who trust in Christ become the people of God. But this new story they’ve become a part of and this new identity they’ve received left them on the fringes of society: ‘foreigners and exiles’ (2:11). As foreigners and exiles, they are called to be holy, abstaining ‘from sinful desires, which wage war against’ their souls. 

This renewed life of goodness and holiness must not be hidden away; it is to be lived out in the eyes of the pagan world (2:12). Doing so may involve false accusations from the onlooking world, but as non-believers see the consistent good behaviour of Christians, they might see something of the reality of God, and perhaps even turn to him. 

Christians might feel like outsiders, but they are right at the heart of God’s mission. That goes for you too. God wants to work through you, whatever you do and whoever you’re with, to point others to himself. And what’s more, it’s probably already happening.

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Reflect:

What is the main place you spend time around people who are not Christians (your frontline)? How do you think God is working through you there at the moment?

Pray:

Marvel and rejoice that God chooses people like you to reach others with his life-transforming love and goodness. Ask him to show you where this is happening already, and how you might live on your frontline in a way that will point others to him.