Perhaps I am meddling. 1 Peter seems like the perfect biblical letter for me as an American Christian. It is addressed to Christians who live as foreigners amid non-believers (1:1). The charge is to be holy as God is holy (1:16), to be witnesses of Jesus.
Dear friends, I urge you as foreigners and exiles to keep away from fleshly desires that do battle against the soul, and maintain good conduct among the non-Christians, so that though they now malign you as wrongdoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God when he appears. (1 Pet. 2:11-12 NET)
That is easy enough to say. The reality, though, is that I (we) think that America is my land. I not only want a privileged, respected position in my culture, I also want others to have to be like me.
Example:
Christians
often want to legislate our sexual moral values. That is not biblical. Moral obedience is voluntary. Israelites voluntarily entered in to covenant
relationship with God and agreed to follow God’s statutes. Periodically, there were times of covenant
renewal. (Presumably Israelites who did
not want those demands could leave the community.) Paul, recognizing that believers in Jesus as
Messiah and Lord constituted the “real Israel,” extended that moral code to
Gentile believers. However, the USA is
not ancient Israel, not a theocracy, not the Church, and certainly not in a
covenant with God. It is not our
land. American Christians are like the patriarchs,
strangers in a strange land (Heb 11:11-16); our citizenship is in heaven (Phil
3:20).
Application:
If I want to change my moral environment, I must be visibly holy
(separate, distinct), practicing that which is morally good. I cannot legislate someone into obedience to
God. The “natural law” is self-evident. Violation of God’s order brings chaos into
people’s lives. Living within God’s moral
law results in peace and order. The
Church must be holy to demonstrate that divine order. Then, when people ask, I (we) will be ready
to give an explanation (apologia)* for my confident hope (elpis)
that is in God (1 Pet 3:15).
Lord, I don’t know how much my life is a witness and a light to
others. Not much I imagine, but I want
it to be. Please keep working on me, in
me, and through me that I might serve others by living faithfully to
you and your moral order. Amen.
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*From this verse and the word apologia, Christians have created the discipline of Apologetics. Each year as the advisor to an apologetics club that started on our campus, I would remind students that we are not called to be aggressors “battling the pagans” with our rational arguments. On the contrary, we are called to live such lives that they ask us about the reasons for our faith. We welcomed all comers to our club as friends. Ironically, that is sometimes not the demeanor of Christian apologists. (My students and I, because of our "contrary" attitude, were asked to leave the national apologetics organization that started with us.)
