“If you are ridiculed for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you. Let none of you suffer as a murderer, a thief, an evildoer, or a meddler. But if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed but let him glorify God in having that name.”
Friends, I am sorry it has been so long since my last post. I have been working on a talk that I will be giving on Monday night for our women’s ministry at church. I have the privilege of being the first speaker of the year, and I have been spending all my time preparing for it. I’m excited to share the message, and I will post it here the day after I present it.
This passage in 1 Peter is a continuation of the verses right before it. Peter is continuing with the topic of Christian suffering. Peter writes, “If you are ridiculed for the name of Christ, you are blessed…” I ended my last post with Jesus ‘s words from Matthew 5, and I am going to remind you of them again here. “You are blessed when they insult you and persecute you and falsely say every kind of evil against you because of me. Be glad and rejoice, because your reward is great in heaven. For that is how they persecuted the prophets who were before you” (5:11-12). Roger Raymer writes in his commentary, “Anything that we suffer for the sake of Christ is a privilege, not a penalty.”
Peter finishes this sentence with “… because the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you.” Peter is referring, of course, to the Holy Spirit. He is saying that we are blessed if we are persecuted because we have the Holy Spirit. Wayne Grudem puts it this way. “The blessing here is a present blessing (unlike the future blessing of v.13). ‘The Spirit… of glory and of God rests upon you’ indicates an unusual fullness of the presence of the Holy Spirit to bless, to strengthen, and to give a foretaste of heavenly glory.”
When I read this, I thought of the first Christian martyr, Stephen. We can read about him in Acts 7. “Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven. He saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. He said, ‘Look, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!’” (vv. 55-56). Even while he was being stoned, he called out, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!” (v. 59). And then he forgave them. “He knelt down and cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them!” And after saying this, he fell asleep” (v. 60).
In Rod Dreher’s book, Live Not by Lies, he has a chapter titled “The Gift of Suffering”. In it he describes many people who are persecuted for their faith. He also writes about the lessons that we need to learn because the days are coming when we as American Christians are going to be called to suffer for our faith in ways we never have before. Later in the chapter, he asks if we are disciples of Christ or admirers. He quotes Soren Kierkegaard who wrote this:
“Christ understood that being a disciple was in innermost and deepest harmony with what he said about himself. Christ claimed to be the way the truth and the life (Jn. 14:6). For this reason, he could never be satisfied with adherents who accepted his teaching- especially with those who in their lives ignored it or let things take their usual course. His whole life on earth, from beginning to end, was destined solely to have followers and make admirers impossible.”
Too many people today are admirers of Jesus and not disciples. They have made a Jesus in their own image, not the true Jesus of the Bible. And when the going gets tough, they abandon him. Peter knows a thing or two (or three!) about this. When the going got tough for Peter, he denied Christ three times. But then something happened! Peter truly became a disciple. He was forgiven by Jesus, and the Peter we see in Acts was a different man. He was filled with the Holy Spirit. He preached Christ crucified for our sins and considered it a privilege to suffer for him.
Peter emphasizes in the next verse that the suffering must not be because of wrongdoing. He has stated this several times already in his letter. He wrote in chapter 2, “For what credit is there if when you do wrong and are beaten, you endure it? But when you do what is good and suffer, if you endure it, this brings favor with God” (v. 20). And in chapter 3, “For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God’s will, than for doing evil” (v. 17). Raymer writes, “Peter stressed that persecution was no excuse for lawlessness. Christians were not to retaliate (3:9). Physical violence was not to be met with murder. Confiscation of property was not to be compensated for by theft. No matter what their trials, Christians were to do nothing that would justify punishing them as criminals (cf. 2:19; 3:17).”
Do we need to step back and reread those verses today? We are so concerned with our rights that sometimes we forget that we are representing Christ. We need to remember Peter’s words from chapter 2. “Conduct yourselves honorably among the Gentiles, so that when they slander you as evildoers, they will observe your good works and will glorify God on the day he visits” (v. 12).
I purposely left out the last thing Peter lists so that I could address it separately. He says, “Let none of you suffer as a murderer, thief, evil doer or meddler.” The first three seem so obvious! Those are terrible things, so of course we are going to avoid them. But what does he mean by meddler? This word is used nowhere else in the New Testament. In fact, it was not used in Greek literature before the 2nd century AD, so it is not easy to determine exactly what it means. Various translations have used “mischief-maker”, “one who infringes on the rights of others”, and “interfering with other people’s business”. First Timothy 5: 13 gives a good picture of this. “At the same time, they also learn to be idle, going from house to house; they are not only idle, but are also gossips and busybodies, saying things they shouldn’t say.” We may not be a murderer or a thief, but how many times have we gossiped? Or interfered when we didn’t need to? Peter is warning us. Don’t do these things! If we get in trouble for them, this is not honoring to Christ – in fact- we are bringing shame to his name.
He goes on. “But if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed but let him glorify God in having that name.” Amen to that!
Just an interesting historical fact to wrap up today’s post. The word Christian is only found three times in the Bible. Before they were called Christians, they were known as ‘disciples’ or ‘believers’. They were also called ‘those who belonged to the Way’. The first time the believers were called Christians was an Acts 11:26. “For a whole year they met with the church and taught large numbers. The disciples were first called Christians at Antioch.” The second time that Christian is used is later in Acts. Paul is describing his conversion account to King Agrippa. “’King Agrippa, do you believe the prophets? I know you believe.’Agrippa said to Paul, ‘Are you going to persuade me to become a Christian so easily?’” (Acts 26:27-28).
The term “Christian” was probably first used in a mocking way. Just as Peter told the early church not to be ashamed, but to glorify God in having that name, Christians today need to do the same. By proudly bearing the name Christian, we glorify God. Be proud of your faith!
Grace be with you!
Abundant Joy 