Following Christ May Bring Persecution
March 25, 2020
Commentary
Peter explains how the Christian who stands true to Christ during persecution doesn’t do evil. Christ never returned evil for evil and the Christian who has the right attitude of Christ toward suffering will not strike out against his persecutors.
We find in this passage a big contrast between the saved man and the lost man. The man who does not know God, is driven by his own desires and seeks only to satisfy his own appetites. The true Christian does not live to satisfy his fleshly desires but wants to accomplish the will of his father in heaven. We see where the unsaved even consider it strange that their old friends who are now Christians no longer want to run around with them (v. 4).
We need to be patient toward the lost even though we do not agree with their lifestyle or participate in their sins. We need to remember that unsaved people are blind to spiritual truth (II Corinthians 4:3-4) and dead to things that are spiritual (Ephesians 2:1). In fact, when unsaved friends attack us, this can be a real opportunity to witness to them (I Peter 3:15).
Application
When have I suffered the most? Has it been physically through illness, disease, injury etc. or has it been through verbal persecution by others? How has this suffering affected my life and my desire to serve the Lord? Why?
1 Peter 4:1– 6 (NET)
1 So, since Christ suffered in the flesh, you also arm yourselves with the same attitude, because the one who has suffered in the flesh has finished with sin, 2 in that he spends the rest of his time on earth concerned about the will of God and not human desires. 3 For the time that has passed was sufficient for you to do what the non-Christians desire. You lived then in debauchery, evil desires, drunkenness, carousing, drinking bouts, and wanton idolatries. 4 So they are astonished when you do not rush with them into the same flood of wickedness, and they vilify you. 5 They will face a reckoning before Jesus Christ who stands ready to judge the living and the dead. 6 Now it was for this very purpose that the gospel was preached to those who are now dead, so that though they were judged in the flesh by human standards they may live spiritually by God’s standards.