1 Peter: Confidence in a Complex WorldSample

13: Feeling Small

What do you do if you’re in a situation where you’re the only Christian and people around you are giving you grief? What do you do if this hassle is coming from people more ‘powerful’ than you? These are the very questions Peter addresses here.

Back then, if you were a married woman and became a Christian, but your husband continued to worship idols, you had a major problem on your hands. In those days, women were viewed as inferior to men and were expected to fall in line with the wishes of their husbands. This went for what or who they worshipped. A number of women found themselves in this very situation, and the temptation to give up their new-found faith in Christ would have been strong. What could they do?

Peter’s answer: live like Christ. What he calls them to here is a not a list of exclusively feminine virtues. The instructions he gives follow the same pattern given to all citizens and slaves in 2:13-20, and are in fact rooted in the character of Christ (2:21-23). Just like Christian citizens and slaves, just like Jesus, these wives should ‘submit [them]selves’ (3:1), live pure and attractive lives (3:1-5), and not be controlled by fear (3:6). In living this kind of life, it was possible that their husbands might be ‘won over’ to Christ (3:1).

At times, their society, the evil one, and even their own hearts may conspire to tell them they are weak. In God’s eyes, though, they are missionaries. It was countercultural for Peter to encourage these women to continue with a faith different to their husbands’. To tell them they could influence the faith of their husbands was nothing short of audacious!

Perhaps there are spheres of your life where you’re the only Christian. Maybe, in at least some of these, you sense you lack social power: you’re not the boss of the company, not the best player in the team, not the most popular at the school gate, not the most connected in the street, not the most respected in the family. Perhaps you feel small. ‘Nobody will be influenced by me.’ 

If that’s the voice you’re hearing, that’s not the voice of God. God says to you, ‘You are my child, my ambassador. As you allow me to shape your character, I will work through you.’ Listen to that voice today. 

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Reflect:

Are there situations where you’re the only Christian? To what extent do you believe God can work through you in that place?

Who will you be around today?

Pray:

Thank God for the opportunities you have to show Jesus to others by the way you live. Ask that he will give you courage and wisdom to walk the way of Jesus, whatever the dynamics might be.