Reflecting the Gospel

1 Peter 3:8–12 ESV

8 Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind. 9 Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless, for to this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing. 10 For “Whoever desires to love life and see good days, let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit; 11 let him turn away from evil and do good; let him seek peace and pursue it. 12 For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayer. But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.”

Peter begins this passage by summarizing his exhortations earlier in the letter. Peter has given extensive instruction on how the Christian should act as a citizen (2:13-17), a servant /employee (2:18-25) and a spouse (3:1-7). These three contexts transcend historical and cultural boundaries and are directly applicable to us today. Peter is about to reaffirm his position on what a Christian life should look like between believers and among the ungodly.

In verse eight we see five qualities of Christian life set forth by the apostle in regards to how a Christian should live among other Christians. First, having unity of mind, or like-mindedness is something we are all currently familiar with. I think we can all attest to the importance of living in unity of mind with our fellow brothers and sisters. Matthew Henry says that this like-mindedness is to be "unanimous in the belief of the same faith, and the practice of the same duties of religion." John Calvin puts it this way, “ For though friends are at liberty to think differently, yet to do so is a cloud which obscures love; yea, from this seed easily arises hatred.” When reading these quotes I couldn't help but think of just how important being a confessional church is. Confessing that we all agree that the Bible is best understood from the perspective of the 1689 2LBC is vitally important and is a step toward living in the kind of Christian fellowship Peter is talking about here. Of course Peter goes on to say that we should also show sympathy, brotherly love, compassion and humility toward our brothers and sisters in Christ. Why do you think this is? Because even when we strive to have unity of the mind we will still disagree and sin against each other. How can we pursue this type of brother-love relationship? By keeping the moral law of God as our standard

In verse nine Peter begins to give us instruction on how the Christian should live among the ungodly. Think about this phrase he uses. "Do not repay." Obviously we see that in this scenario and unbeliever has done or said something evil or insulting to a believer and that we should not take vengeance in our own hands or say something insulting in return, but pay closer attention to that word "repay." If someone loans you $20 and it comes time to pay them back, why do you give them the $20 back? Because they deserve it. Peter is saying here that whoever does evil against you deserves evil in return or whoever insults you deserves insult in return, BUT do not give them what they deserve. Does God give us what we deserve? Absolutely not. We deserve hell and damnation, but yet while we were still sinners Christ died for us to reconcile us back to God. By grace we have been saved. Peter is saying, here, that because we have been shown grace we should show grace to those that deserve to be paid back. The gift that we are given by God, through His grace, is our faith. Here, Peter tells us to give a blessing. This particular use of the word "bless" means to invoke divine favor. Peter is telling us to pray a blessing over the person that has offended us. This is the same type of blessing that we read about all over the old testament. God blessed creation. God blessed Abraham. God blessed Rebekah. God blessed David. Etc. Peter goes on to tell us that this is what we are called to, blessing those that do not deserve it. Showing grace to those undeserving just as God showed it to us. We are called to reflect God's glorious grace in the way we interact with the unbelieving world. Peter then tells us that we will obtain a blessing ourselves for doing this good work.

In verse nine Peter begins to give us instruction on how the Christian should live among the ungodly. Think about this phrase he uses. "Do not repay." Obviously we see that in this scenario and unbeliever has done or said something evil or insulting to a believer and that we should not take vengeance in our own hands or say something insulting in return, but pay closer attention to that word "repay." If someone loans you $20 and it comes time to pay them back, why do you give them the $20 back? Because they deserve it. Peter is saying here that whoever does evil against you deserves evil in return or whoever insults you deserves insult in return, BUT do not give them what they deserve. Does God give us what we deserve? Absolutely not. We deserve hell and damnation, but yet while we were still sinners Christ died for us to reconcile us back to God. By grace we have been saved. Peter is saying, here, that because we have been shown grace we should show grace to those that deserve to be paid back. The gift that we are given by God, through His grace, is our faith. Here, Peter tells us to give a blessing. This particular use of the word "bless" means to invoke divine favor. Peter is telling us to pray a blessing over the person that has offended us. This is the same type of blessing that we read about all over the old testament. God blessed creation. God blessed Abraham. God blessed Rebekah. God blessed David. Etc. Peter goes on to tell us that this is what we are called to, blessing those that do not deserve it. Showing grace to those undeserving just as God showed it to us. We are called to reflect God's glorious grace in the way we interact with the unbelieving world. Peter then tells us that we will obtain a blessing ourselves for doing this good work.

Notice what Peter does here to confirm that his exhortations are true God honoring exhortations. What does he do? He quotes scripture. . It's a pretty straightforward piece of scripture. If you are someone that desires a long life and have more good days than bad then you will do these things...do not speak evil, turn away from evil, do good, seek peace.

When I read this line about keeping your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking deceit I couldn't help but think of where James compares the tongue to the rudder of a boat. The idea is that the entire boat is steered by such a small piece of the boat. In thinking about this I took James' illustration out just a little further. If the tongue is like the boat's rudder, being small in size, influencing the entire vessel something still has to influence the captain to cause the rudder to turn. Something in us has to to influence the tongue to form the words that our mouths will speak. What is the captain of the boat's motivation to steer the boat in a particular direction? The destination. The captain has an agenda in steering the boat. It is the same with us and our speech. Any time we say something evil or deceitful we have a motive behind it. What are some of these motives? Elevating ourselves over someone else, keeping something secret, etc. If we can identify these sinful motives we can prevent our tongues from taking us places we don't need to go. Matthew Henry says this about the tongue: "The practice of religion, particularly the right government of the tongue, is the best way to make this life comfortable and prosperous; a sincere, inoffensive, discreet tongue, is a singular means to pass us peaceably and comfortably through the world."

As Christians we are to live contrary to the world in harmony and peace, reflecting the grace of God in our daily interactions with the world. It is this type of person, a pursuer of peace and righteousness, that God pays attention to. He sees our struggles and He listens to our prayers. And to those that do evil against us His face is against them and if you go back to the last half of verse 16 is not used here in 1 Peter, but it says "to cut off the memory of them from the earth."

So, in summary Peter is telling his readers that in the face of trials and suffering to live out the Gospel. We know that faith comes by hearing, as in the spoken word of sharing the Gospel. We should always be aware that our relationships with fellow believers as well as the ungodly should be from a Christ-gospel centered perspective showing grace and reflecting God’s goodness and glory.