Titus II Lesson -- July 19th

How Shall We Then Live in a Post-Christian Culture

“Submission in the Workplace”

1 Peter 2:18-25


Context

In 1 Peter 1:13, after having explained the greatness of our salvation in 1 Peter 1:1-12 (i.e., what God has done in salvation), Peter says: “therefore.” That is, in light of this great salvation we are to live in a manner that is consistent with this great salvation. So, in 1 Peter 1:13-2:12, Peter sets forth seven calls to action related to our sanctification as believers. Next, we find ourselves in the third section of 1 Peter -- the submission of believers (2:13-3:12). Derek Thomas writes of this section: “What practical difference does it really make in your life that you are a Christian? What does it really mean for you to be a Christian? How is your life any different because you profess the name of Jesus Christ than if you didn’t? That’s the issue that Peter is dealing with here in this third section. He wants to say something about Christians living in a society that is less than ideal, to slaves who are living in circumstances which are less than ideal, to husbands and wives in marriages which are less than ideal, and to those churches which are less than ideal. In four different areas Peter wants to address the issue: ‘What difference does it make that you profess to be a Christian?’”1 This week, we explore the second area – the need of the believer to be submissive in a workplace that is less than ideal.


Text


“18 Servants, be submissive to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and gentle, but also to those who are unreasonable. 19 For this finds favor, if for the sake of conscience toward God a man bears up under sorrows when suffering unjustly. 20 For what credit is there if, when you sin and are harshly treated, you endure it with patience? But if when you do what is right and suffer for it you patiently endure it, this finds favor with God. 21 For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps, 22 who committed no sin, nor was any deceit found in His mouth; 23 and while being reviled, He did not revile in return; while suffering, He uttered no threats, but kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously; 24 and He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed. 25 For you were continually straying like sheep, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Guardian of your souls” (1 Peter 2:18-25).


Introduction2

Peter is speaking here to slaves. No wonder. Slaves were everywhere in the Roman Empire and in the fledgling Gentile church. In fact, William Barclay estimates that there were nearly 60 million slaves in the Roman Empire.3 They were not only the domestic help and laborers of the empire, they were the clerks, the actors, the musicians, the teachers, the doctors -- the professional people generally. Economically and politically the Roman empire was based on slavery and in some places slaves would outnumber freemen ten to one. It is likely that more of the people in the churches to whom Peter wrote this letter were slaves than were not.


There is no doubt in my mind, that non-Christians (in general) will be disappointed with Peter here, perhaps irritated, perhaps even contemptuous. In our "rights-conscious" age and culture, this is a text that cuts right across the modern world’s conventions, moralisms, and confident sense of right and wrong. And this text surprises and disappoints the believer that Peter does not take a more negative posture toward an institution we find so repulsive. That is all the more so, because we know that slaves then were like slaves of all other times and places.4 They longed for their freedom and for just conditions.


What Peter should have said, both groups think, is something about the equality of all men, of the vicious evil of slavery, or of the natural hope of all slaves for their liberty. Even if in the present circumstances, the slaves to whom Peter was speaking could do nothing about their predicament, surely Peter should have comforted them by emphasizing the injustice of slavery. Though Peter acknowledges the injustice of certain masters and cases in verse 19, he does not, nor does any other biblical writer, take the time to discuss the evil of slavery or even recommend its eventual abolition. Instead, Peter has the temerity to teach, as Paul did, that Christian slaves should cheerfully accept their lot, serve their masters faithfully, even to go the extra mile to demonstrate their faithfulness as workers. (Now, to be sure, the NT also lays Christian masters under strict obligation to treat their slaves with dignity and respect, to treat them as they would desire to be treated themselves. But, that hardly satisfies the modern American reader of the Bible.)


We live in a culture that has been developing over hundreds of years an orthodoxy of the individual, a view of life that stresses the self-realization and personal fulfillment of the individual more than fellowship and self-sacrifice for others. It is, from time to time tempered by impulses that call for very selective subordination of personal interests to the public good (e.g. national health care or gun control). But by and large, our moral vision as a culture still places an emphasis on individual liberty. Whether this revolution of individual emancipation has brought good or evil, happiness or sadness to our culture is another question for another time. What is true is that this concentration on the rights of individuals to live as they please and to pursue their own personal fulfillment and self-realization cannot be found in the Bible. The Bible does present us with many wonderfully fulfilled people, but it did not produce this effect by teaching or emphasizing the importance of self-actualization, of freedom from constraints, or of the terrible injustice of confining human institutions, customs, or moralisms. These happy fulfilled Christians found their life in one way only, by losing it first for Jesus' sake.


In short, Peter is not primarily talking about the nature of slavery and of right social relations here in this passage -- that is not his interest. What he is saying, rather, is that the Christian life is radically unlike the life of unbelief. And nothing points this out more starkly than this counsel to Christian slaves. Peter speaks nothing of the vanilla Christianity that so many in our culture think of when they think of what it means to be a Christian -- go to church, be nice to people, visualize world peace, and, if you screw up in some way, comfort yourself with the fact that you're forgiven. Peter's Christianity is something starkly, bracingly different. That’s what Peter is saying in these verses. There ought to be something radical about it. There ought to be something that changes our perspective about everything because we are Christians. It ought to change the way we think, it ought to change the way we study, it ought to change our desires, our motives, our goals, and our ambitions. It ought to change the way we do our work, the way we live our lives in our marriages, the way we raise our children, and the way we conduct ourselves in society. That’s what Peter is saying -- that being a Christian ought to make a difference. In chapter 2 verse 13 down to verse 17, Peter told us how we ought to live as citizens in a world that is less than ideal. Now in the passage that’s before us this morning, beginning at verse 18, he wants us to think about how we ought to act in a workplace that is less than ideal.5


Transition

To do so, I want to approach this text by looking at three things:

First, I want to consider how this text is relevant to the 21st century believer.
Second, I want to consider three separate arguments that Peter uses to persuade these Christian slaves that cheerful submission to their masters (even cruel ones) is more important than their own deliverance from slavery.
Finally, I want to consider three specific practical applications that we can take from this text.
21st Century Relevancy6
How is this text relevant to the 21st century believer? It would be very easy to read these words Peter wrote so long ago to a class of people who no longer exist in our nation today and reach the conclusion that this text is not for us. If this is your response, watch out! This lesson is for you! Peter’s words in our text, addressed to slaves, are applicable to every Christian. Let me suggest why this is true.


First, the term Peter uses in our text is not restricted only to slaves nor is this the usual word for slaves. Rather, it is a much less common word which may refer to a broader group.7 Thus, not only slaves but servants are addressed.
Second, many addressed may technically not be slaves, but they are subject to those with virtually unquestioned authority and thus face a condition similar to that of a slave. For example, an armed forces private (the “sergeant” is the “master”), the prison inmate, or one living in the ghetto who, because of his poverty or minority status, believes he has virtually no rights.
Third, verse 19 is expressed generally (“if … a man bears up”). This suggests that the principle being laid down here, while it applies to slaves, also applies to all other saints as well.
Fourth, Peter is instructing the Christian about submission to authority in the context of suffering for the sake of godly conduct. His teaching about slaves and masters is a “worst case scenario.” If Peter’s teaching applies here, as it does, surely it applies in less difficult circumstances as well.


With this perspective in mind, let us therefore approach this text as one which speaks clearly and loudly to each of us, trying to learn the joy and privilege which is ours to suffer as servants of our Lord.


Three Arguments

Next, let’s consider three separate arguments that Peter uses to persuade these Christian slaves that cheerful submission to their masters (even cruel ones) is more important than their own deliverance from slavery.


Obedience
Peter’s first argument is that of obedience. Or stated differently, the obedience being discussed by slaves to their masters is really that which is being offered to God and for God. Their slavery is only an occasion for their service to God. He speaks in verse 19 of them acting in a certain unusual and unexpected way "because they are conscious of God." And then, in verse 20, he speaks of such behavior -- behavior the world might regard as servile, weak, or simply strange -- as being "commendable before God."8 In essence, obedience of Christian slaves to masters is for the “Lord’s sake.”


The questions that determine the conduct of a genuinely Christian life is not what I want to do, what would bring me pleasure most immediately, or what I think is fair. The question is this and this only: what does God Himself want of me? What does He approve? What will please and honor Him. Non-Christians do not think this way. Survey our culture and you will find hardly anyone making choices for this reason. Whether it is abortion, or sexual purity, or taxes, or divorce, or what a woman should do with her life, or how a man should treat a woman, or how parents should raise their children, or how people should spend their money, or a thousand other things -- the world asks many questions but not the only question the Christians asks -- what would God have me do? A Christian, a true Christian, is someone who consciously lives and breathes and has his or her being in God (see also Luke 6:32-35). As C.S. Lewis famously says it: "I was not born to be free; I was born to adore and obey!"9


Under what conditions are Christian slaves to be obedient? Peter makes it clear that submission is not only required under favorable conditions but in painful and unpleasant circumstances as well. Christian servants are not only to submit to “good and gentle” masters but to those who are “unreasonable” -- even if they may be unfair in their accusations, punishments, or rewards.10


What are the limits to this submission? If the master is asking a slave to do something, if a master or boss is asking you to do something that is clearly in violation of the will of God, of the law of God, the answer is very clear -- you must obey God rather than men.11


Imitation
The second argument that Peter uses to persuade these Christian slaves that cheerful submission to their masters (even cruel ones) is more important than their own deliverance from slavery, is nothing else but an imitation of the life of Jesus Christ Himself. This is the point of verses 21-25. The only sinless man who ever lived, the One who loved us and gave Himself for us, the One who saved us from sin and death and Hell – this Lord -- suffered unjustly at the hands of many. He was falsely accused throughout His ministry. He was condemned by men at His trial who were eaten up by jealousy of Him. He was cruelly tortured and then crucified though even His judge admitted publicly He had committed no crime. The Lord went to heaven with many wrongs that had been committed against Him unpunished and “unrighted.” Yet, all His life He blessed those who cursed Him. He even loved His enemies to the end: "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do." Is it then too much, to ask the same of those who follow Him, who trust Him as the Son of God, who have received from Him the forgiveness of their sins and a citizenship in heaven? God forbid that any Christian should ever think not.12


Judgment13
The third argument that Peter uses to persuade these Christian slaves that cheerful submission to their masters (even cruel ones) is more important than their own deliverance from slavery, is because it makes perfect sense in view of divine judgment and the certainty of a faithful Christian's eventual judgment. Is this not what Jesus thought? As we read in verse 23, in all of the injustices committed against Him, in all of the terrible sacrifices His calling required Him to make for others: "he entrusted himself to him who judges justly." It does not say that God judges immediately, only justly!


The divine judgment, the reality of it, the certainty of it, Peter says here, is what liberates a Christian to take such chances, to live a life of such daring self-surrender. The wicked will not get away with their wickedness because we bless them and do not curse them. They will one day pay their dues. Justice will one day be served.


Do you remember the Lord's trial, that sham and mockery of a legal proceeding? The witnesses lied about Him, the judges conspired to ensure a guilty verdict, and Jesus Himself -- remained silent. He submitted Himself to His enemies. And what was the result of that? The salvation of men -- your salvation and mine. And what will be the result of your living as He did, of resisting the powerful urge always to vindicate yourself, to serve yourself, to resist and oppose those who, in any way, oppose you? Why, you will be more and more like Jesus Christ Himself.


Practical Application

Let me close with three brief questions whose answers we can apply practically.


Does God will the unjust suffering of his people?
Yes. This text assumes that God sometimes wills for His people to suffer unjustly. We see it in verse 21: "you were called to this." But lest you doubt that, Peter says the same thing more explicitly several other places. For example in 4:19: "Let those also who suffer according to the will of God entrust their souls to a faithful Creator in doing what is right." And again in 3:17: "It is better, if God should will it so, that you suffer for doing what is right rather than for doing what is wrong." God wills this because He knows the best way for us to bring glory to Him is (sometimes) by miraculously escaping suffering and (more often) by graciously bearing suffering that we do not deserve from men, because we trust in God. God often wills that we suffer unjustly and that we bear it by His grace and for His glory.14 Augustine once said: "When God allows us to suffer it is either to improve our imperfections or to prove our perfections."15


Where is justice for the wrongdoing of abusive masters?
There are two answers. One is: justice is in God at the last day. God will settle all accounts justly. No one will get away with anything. The other answer is that God has given a measure of His authority for retaliation in this age to the state as His minister for keeping order and peace in society. 1 Peter 2:14 says that God ordains kings and governors to "punish evildoers and praise those who do right." So God wills that governments punish those who cause Christians (or anyone else) to suffer unjustly. God's glory shines partly through his dispensing of justice through the state. But it shines much more through the patient, God-centered suffering of His people.16


Is there a difference between disciplinary suffering and undeserved suffering?
Yes. Disciplinary suffering comes as the result of sin in our lives. This is not to say that God is looking over us to punish us each time we commit a sin – but -- "whom the Lord loves he corrects, even as a father does the son in whom he delights" (Prov 3:11,12). Undeserved suffering on the other hand is not the result of sin but of righteousness. God expects us to patiently endure disciplinary suffering, but we can please God greatly by enduring undeserved suffering in a God honoring fashion. This can be seen clearly in this passage where Peter says in verse 20: “. . . but if doing good and suffering you endure it, this is thanksworthy to God."17