MONDAY September 18th
1 Peter 3:9
‘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.’
Following on from the qualities that Peter calls to be found in the lives of the people of God he gives an instruction that is more to do with our attitude toward unbelievers, ‘Do not repay evil for evil, or reviling for reviling’. He spends a lot of time talking about our suffering for the gospel as we will see later in this chapter. And the human nature would if left unchecked so easily want to retaliate negatively when someone does that which is evil towards us or reviles us, but Peter wants his readers and us as well today to learn to live in such a way that we have self-control, a quality that will help us manage how we respond, and Peter says rather than retaliation we should be a people who bless.
How can this be possible? It is only by the grace of God and by the help of the Holy Spirit, it can happen as we heed the instructions given by others such as the apostle Paul about putting off the old nature and putting on that which is new in Christ for each one of us, we will see our inner man being renewed and transformed and as we read in Galatians 5 we will begin to produce the fruit that should be evident in a life that is filled with and led by the Spirit. One of the fruit is that of self-control.
Here is a reminder of what Paul says in Galatians 5:22-26 ‘ But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.’
The fruit of the Spirit will not only enable us to be what we should be in relationship with one another in the body of Christ but will also temper us in such a way that we will react positively towards those outside who seek to do us evil or to revile us.
Peter says that we learn instead to react by blessing others, this in turn he says will lead to us obtaining a blessing. In his sermon on the Mount in Matthew’s gospel, Jesus taught that when we are shown evil, on that occasion he uses the words ‘when you are persecuted’, we should pray for those who are behind it (see also Luke 6:28). In fact Jesus was the greatest example on how to react rightly, in this same epistle that we are going through back in chapter 2 Peter says about Jesus ‘When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly’ (v23).
In 1 Corinthians Paul list many things that happened in his experience and in verses 12-13 he says ‘When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we entreat.’
May God help each one of us to not only have the right attitude toward each other as we saw in the previous verses, but to be a people who are so filled with and walking in the Spirit that we walk as we should towards those who are outside. May our lives be a reflection of the Lord Jesus Christ, being light in the darkness.