Living Among the Pagans
TCF Sermon
November 18, 2007
Does anybody else here think that the level of public discourse in our country has fallen to new lows? No longer do we have respectful disagreements. Seldom do we agree to disagree about opinions on politics or other issues.
Rather, what seems to be happening is that on both ends of the political spectrum, we find people willing to condemn their political or social enemies,and to do it publicly, with great fanfare, and with little or no respect, and often insulting, for their opponents.
What’s sad is that Christians are sometimes guilty of the same thing. Doesn’t it make you cringe when the pastor of a Baptist church is best-known, not for preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ and all that entails, but for crude and hateful speech, intimidation and just plain callousness.
Of course, we’re talking about Fred Phelps, pastor of the infamous Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka Kansas, a congregation of about 70 which includes mostly family members. If you want to learn more about him and his views, you can visit his websites: godhatesfags.com and godhatesamerica.com
However, I don’t suggest you do that unless you have a strong stomach. Here are a few quotes from Fred’s lovely daughter, Shirley, who has apparently been anointed to answer the questions that come in to their website. One questioner asked:
Is there ever any remorse for the harsh message you proclaim?
Here’s her written response:
HELL NO!! We are not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ – we rejoice for every bit of it! We will leave the maudlin, squally drawing back for you ignorant earth dwellers that have not bothered to wrap your rebellious minds around the fact that God HATES drawing back! His soul has no pleasure in you creeps that run from his word and his standards – so shut up about that! So – if you have any sense WHATSOEVER, you will shut your odious cake chute and humble yourself under the mighty hand of God and OBEY all of his written word you dumb nerd!
This church pickets the funerals of dead soldiers. They rejoice in the doom of sinners. But I don’t see that in scripture.
Ezekiel 33:11 (NIV) Say to them, ’As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live.
2 Peter 3:9 (NASB77) The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.
Yes, we want sinners to repent, even as God does. But no, we should not take pleasure in the death of the wicked – God doesn’t. Now, admittedly, this is an extreme example of what I’m talking about this morning. But we could cite other examples of things Christians say and/or do in public, that fly in the face of what scripture tells us about how to behave.
So, with that as an introduction, let’s move to our primary text for this morning.
1 Peter 2:11-12 (NIV) Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. 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.
The NAS of verse 12: Keep your behavior excellent among the Gentiles, so that in the thing in which they slander you as evildoers, they may on account of your good deeds, as they observe them, glorify God in the day of visitation.
Now, think about this verse, and compare it to what we just heard, which again, is certainly at the extreme of examples we could cite. Here’s another verse which proposes a similar idea:
Colossians 4:5-6 (NIV) Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.
Even if you agree with the views of this church, in part or in whole, it’s hard for me to see how telling someone to shut their odious cake chute, how calling them a dumb nerd, how calling them a creep, even begins to live up to the admonition to be wise in the way we act, or to have conversations full of grace, or to live such good lives that people will be won by our behavior. How does telling them God hates them help draw them into the Kingdom of God?
Certainly God hates the sin, which caused Him to send Jesus to pay the price for that sin. But He also loves the sinner.
There are a lot of contentious issues in our culture today. We don’t even have to look at the ones which I believe are largely political issues to find easy examples.
One significant issue which has become political, but, which I believe is clearly a moral issue, and was so long before it was made into a political hot potato, is what we should do as a society regarding the issues of life. Abortion was the first front in this battle, and now we have embryonic stem cell research, cloning, euthanasia, and a host of other life-related issues that are very much in the public debate.
Some of us here have been involved in one way or another in the abortion debate for many years. Some of us have held signs in the Life Chain. Some of us have picketed abortion clinics. Maybe there are even some here who were arrested in the early 80s working with groups like Operation Rescue, where protesters blocked the entrance to clinics.
But here’s where we get to an example of how I think we can apply our primary text this morning. Because while I certainly believe there’s an appropriate time and place for public demonstration, for public proclamation, of important moral truths, this verse seems to say that there’s a different strategy we may consider.
So, in the context of battling abortion, there may certainly be a place for political activism. There’s certainly a place for public proclamation. But more effectively, perhaps more strategically, we can walk the walk rather than just talk the talk. We can let our deeds do our talking. Rather than just crying out against the evil that is abortion, the taking of a human life, we can walk the walk by helping women, who are in unplanned or crisis pregnancies, have a real choice – we can help them through their pregnancy, we can help them provide for themselves and their babies, we can offer to adopt those babies they decide to give life to, but decide they’re not equipped to care for. This is just one example of living a good life among the pagans.
Now, Planned Parenthood calls pregnancy centers like Mend or CPO, both fine organizations here in Tulsa doing vital work, “fake clinics.” Pro-aborts accuse Christians who work in these kinds of places of doing wrong, just like this verse says. But here’s the strategy part. “Live such good lives among the pagans.” They may accuse you of doing wrong. But they’ll also have to admit, perhaps grudgingly at first, but eventually perhaps, they’ll even glorify God for this, that you were right.
Think about it - this is a verse emphasizing strategy. This is a battle plan. Verse 11 starts with telling us to work on the inside, our hearts, our spirits – to abstain from sin.
Verse 12 tells us what this should look like to the world, what’s the visible result of our holy lives.
Verse 11 tells us that we’re different. We’re so different as followers of Christ, we’re like aliens and strangers compared to the rest of the unbelieving world.
So we already have that strike against us as far as the world is concerned. But the way we overcome that clear difference, is to live such good lives that people, though they might initially accuse us of wrongdoing, will eventually see that what we are doing is good.
The reality is that the pagans, as the NIV calls them, the Gentiles, as some other versions refer to them, which essentially means those who are not followers of Jesus, these people, whatever we call them, are watching what we are doing.
Part of the reason they’re watching is that we, that is, followers of Christ, proclaim to be something. Christians claim to follow the truth. We claim to follow the light. We claim to follow the One who says He is love. We make an exclusive truth claim about the way to God. We claim to have character which is shaped by what we believe. Sadly, quite often, the failure of Christians to live up to what we say we believe, is used as an excuse not only to ridicule us, but to dismiss what we say.
Our proclamation of the way, the truth, and the life, means nothing if it’s not backed up by what we do and how we live. On the other hand, that proclamation gains incredible power, especially over time, when we live out our beliefs. That’s what Peter is telling us here.
The NAS says “on account of your good deeds.” The KJV says “by your good works.” There’s a cause and effect suggested here. The good deeds, the good lives we live, will have an impact in the world. We know the reverse is true, too. Every public failing of a prominent Christian gives the pagans another excuse to dismiss what we say. It gives them an excuse to call us hypocrites. It moves them a step further from seeing the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Every foolish person who identifies themselves as a Christian, and then exhibits very unChristlike attitudes or behavior, puts another barrier, another hindrance, between faithful followers, and those people they are trying to reach for Christ.
So this is a critical admonition. Remember we’re aliens and strangers, Peter reminds us. Because of that fact, we’re being watched. Because of that we must root out sin from our lives. Because of that, we must be above reproach. Peter was writing to an early church that was accused of doing wrong. These accusations were largely misunderstandings of what real Christianity taught, but they were accusations nonetheless.
The early Christians were accused of:
1. cannibalism – Jesus’ words: eat my flesh and drink my blood were misunderstood.
2. incest – they called themselves “brothers and sisters” in Christ, and then they might get married to each other.
3. atheism: they didn’t worship the pagan deities and so did not participate in the social and civic activities that involved homage to them.
4. disloyalty to the state or to Caesar.
Erdman writes:
... the Christians were being slandered as irreligious because of not worshiping the heathen gods, as morons and ascetics because of refraining from popular vices, as disloyal to the government because of claiming allegiance to a heavenly King.
Those are just a few examples, and because of these things and other things, Romans and many of their subjects, living in the Roman Empire, justified not just dismissing the truth claims of the Christians, but also justified persecuting them.
Such criticism cannot be avoided. But under no circumstances should believers give the world a valid reason for such reproach. All slanders should be refuted by an unbroken record of good deeds. Believers Bible Commentary
Last week we remembered the present-day persecuted church around the world. The apostle Peter wrote to a people who knew and experienced the same reality.
Peter’s readers must have been tempted to respond to persecution by adopting an anti-world attitude and withdrawing as much as possible into the comforting warmth of Christian fellowship. Though we may be citizens of another world, we still have to live among the pagans and do so in a way which testifies clearly to the existence and power of that new world. This declaration depends not so much on word (Peter is remarkably silent on verbal witnessing) as on behavior. Non-Christians watch what we do. The word translated “see” means to watch over a period of time, implying prolonged observation. We must see to it that, though we may be mocked or apparently disregarded, the evidence of our lives will speak so loudly that on the day of judgment, non-Christians will glorify God, because they will have to concede that the testimony was laid before them quite unambiguously, even if they failed to heed it. What we are on the inside (vs 11) will become obvious on the outside (vs 12)
Baker Bible Commentary
The phrase “they may see” is important here, as well as the phrase, “that” or “so that,” so let’s spend a few minutes looking at those. First, the word “see.”
NIV: they may see your good deeds
NAS: as they observe them - referring to good deeds
Yes, it’s true that the Word tells us not to do our good works to be seen by others. Jesus criticized the Pharisees for this in Matthew 6 and Matthew 23. But Peter presents an entirely different motivation than the Pharisees had, and Jesus condemned.
Here, the motivation isn’t so that we’ll just be seen as good people, as it was with the Pharisees. It isn’t to glorify ourselves, to puff ourselves up, to be able to say – gee look what a great person I am. It’s not to bring praise and honor to ourselves. There’s a different purpose Peter proposes. That purpose is the glory of God.
The motivation for good works that Peter urges us to adopt is distinctly different. It’s the glory of God, and the potential salvation of those who don’t know Jesus. And there’s also no implication by Peter that we’re to make any effort for these good works to be seen. The sense is, that this is something we do, the way we live, in our daily lives, and by default these things will be seen, over time, without our intentional efforts for them to be seen.
The specific Greek word used here for see occurs only twice in the entire New Testament. It’s used here, and a chapter later in 1 Peter 3:2. There, it speaks of the influence of the godly life of a wife, on her husband.
1 Peter 3:1-2 (NIV) Wives, in the same way be submissive to your husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives, when they see the purity and reverence of your lives.
The idea behind the word “see” could also be translated “gaining insight by your good deeds.” It reveals what a powerful thing good deeds are – how critical a godly life is. The word translated see means to watch over a period of time, - it implies prolonged observation. The context of the word “see” here and in 3:2 suggests an act of observing that leads to a change of mind or outlook, like having one’s eyes opened to something not seen before.
One skeptic offered this challenge to Christians: "Show me your redeemed life and I’ll be inclined to believe in your Redeemer."
Then there’s this quote: "The world takes its notions of God, most of all, from the people who say that they belong to God’s family. They read us a great deal more than they read the Bible. They see us; they only hear about Jesus Christ" (First and Second Peter and First John [N.Y.: Eaton and Maines, 1910], p. 105).
Peter is telling us about the foundation of evangelism. What is evangelism founded on? Yes, there’s proclamation of the good news. But the foundation is not so much what we say as what we do. It’s true that actions speak louder than words.
Peter here in this passage is echoing Jesus’ own words in Matthew 5:16:
Matthew 5:16 (NIV) …let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.
Then, we have the connecting word “that” – which clearly shows, as we noted earlier, a cause and effect relationship. In other words – they see, so that they will believe and glorify God.
NIV says: Live such good lives among the pagans that…they may see
NAS says: Keep your behavior excellent among the Gentiles, so as they observe (your good deeds they may), glorify God in the day of visitation.
Combined with the phrase: on account of your good deeds, as the NAS puts it, we see a clear path from Christians doing good deeds, living good lives, to pagans seeing the good deeds, observing the good lives of Christians, and because of those good deeds, because of that godly life, they may end up glorifying God.
It means “for the purpose of.” It’s also used to indicate the cause for, or “on account of which,” anything is done. It can be translated, "to the end that," or "in order that it might [or may] be," or "so that it was [is, or will be]."
Now, if they’re pagans, how and why would they glorify God? If they’re pagans, meaning they’re not followers of Jesus, they’re not inclined to glorify God.
Some scholars recognize this section of verse 12, which speaks of glorifying God on the day He visits us, as potentially meaning a couple of different things.
The day he visits us may be the final judgment day (4:7) or the occasion when disaster overtakes the persecutor himself, awakening him to the truth of the Christian’s position, or the time of the Christian’s suffering (4:17) International Bible Commentary
Zondervan NIV commentary says:
The meaning of “on the day he visits us” is problematic. Does Peter mean “on the return of the Lord” or “on God’s gracious visitation of salvation that may come to the non-Christian?”
But it goes on to tell us something which argues in favor of the latter interpretation:
That is, the interpretation that “the day He visits us” means the day of salvation for the pagan, who then becomes a former pagan like the rest of us. The meaning of the word “see,” which we just looked at, argues for this, because it suggests that the pagans will continuously observe the good works, and perhaps God will grant them repentance unto life, perhaps they’ll change. Isn’t that a wonderful thought?
Verse 11 tells us that Godliness begins with our inner spiritual discipline, and then as it’s reflected outwardly in the ongoing pattern of our lives, as our lives are good or excellent as the NAS says, which speaks of something that is winsome, our lives will impact the lives of unbelievers. They’ll see our good lives, and eventually, over a period of time, they may even come to Christ. I think another thing that argues for this interpretation is that, elsewhere in this letter, Peter refers to glorifying God as an act of worship, which is engaged in by believers exclusively.
So, how does this work? How do our good lives, how does our excellent behavior, end up with pagans becoming followers of Jesus and glorifying God? One possible answer is found a chapter later.
1 Peter 3:15 (NIV) But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect,
What do the pagans see when they see our good lives, our excellent behavior? They see some external action, or some ongoing behavior, and they wonder what motivates it. They see what we do and how we respond to life, and they have to wonder why we have hope. They might see a humble act of love. They might see an act of courage. They might see us in self-denial, giving generously. When they see that, what are they noticing?
They notice that you must not be hoping in what people usually hope in—self-exaltation, safety, money—and they are puzzled as to where your hope is. So they ask about your hope: where do you get your confidence, your contentment, your satisfaction when you act that way? John Piper
Mark Twain said:
Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.
Charles Spurgeon wrote:
A man’s life is always more forcible than his speech. When men take stock of him they reckon his deeds as dollars and his words as pennies. If his life and doctrine disagree, the mass of onlookers accept his practice and reject his preaching.
An unknown writer wrote this:
I would not give much for your religion unless it can be seen. Lamps do not talk, but they do shine.
John MacArthur tells the story of a missionary couple in World War II, Herb and Ruth Clingen. They spent 3 years in a Japanese prison camp in the Philippines.
In his diary, Herb recorded that their captors murdered, tortured, and starved to death many of their fellow prisoners. The camp commandant, named Konishi, was hated and feared more than the others. Herb writes, "Konishi found an inventive way to abuse us even more. He increased the food ration but gave us rice still in its husks. Eating the rice with its razor-sharp outer shell would cause intestinal bleeding that would kill us in hours. We had no tools to remove the husks, and doing the job manually--by pounding the grain or rolling it with a heavy stick--consumed more calories than the rice would supply. It was a death sentence for all internees" (Herb and Ruth Clingen, "Song of Deliverance," Masterpiece [Spring 1989]:12). Before death could claim them, however, General Douglas MacArthur and his forces liberated them from captivity. That very day Konishi had planned to gun down all the remaining prisoners. Years later Herb and Ruth "learned that Konishi had been found working as a grounds keeper at a Manila golf course. He was put on trial for his war crimes and hanged. Before his execution he professed conversion to Christianity, saying he had been deeply affected by the testimony of the Christian missionaries he had persecuted" ("Song of Deliverance," p. 13). When God graciously visited Konishi with salvation, that one-time torturer remembered the godly behavior of missionaries he once persecuted. Their example became the unspoken means of Konishi’s salvation.
The Gospel itself is offensive enough, especially in our culture where tolerance has been elevated to the foremost virtue. After all, Jesus made exclusive truth claims. He said no one comes to the Father except through Him. Because this is hard to swallow, because we’re in a culture that has lost the concept of sin, because of all these things, we should do all we can to avoid being offensive ourselves, so that the offense of the gospel – so that the truth that you are a sinner, and you need God’s grace, and you must trust in Christ alone for salvation – so that this is the only thing that offends people --- not our politics, not our choice in music, not our hateful or offensive words, not the way we choose to communicate or say certain things.
It’s not just “what” we say, but “how” we say it. It’s not just what we say, it’s what we do. This is the strategy Peter encourages. It was the battle plan for the inevitable confrontation between Christians and the Roman society they lived among in Peter’s day. It’s also the winning strategy for the inevitable challenges we face in our increasingly secular culture.
As battle plans go, it is a gentle one indeed, in the tradition of Paul’s advice to the Romans not to overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. (Rom 12:21). Word Biblical Commentary
Let our attitude be like that expressed in Rich Mullins song Let Mercy Lead:
Let mercy lead, Let love be the strength in your legs
And in every footprint that you leave, There’ll be a drop of grace...If we can reach beyond the wisdom of this age Into the foolishness of God that foolishness will save those who believe Although their foolish hearts may break they will find peace And I’ll meet you in that place where mercy leads.
Let’s not lead, or start out with, condemnation and judgment. There’s a place for judgment, and God will judge whether we do or not. There’s a place for clear proclamation, even confrontation, but let’s not start there with the world we encounter day by day. They’re likely not ready to hear that anyway, but they’ll be softened toward our message if they see our good lives. Let’s start with mercy. Let’s start with our good lives.
Let me close this morning with this biblical admonition from Philippians:
Philippians 2:14-16 (NIV) Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life--… Pray
