Now that Peter has established the greatness of our salvation—both because it is God’s work, and because it has completely changed us—he turns to the “so what?” question, to application. How then should we live? How do people whom God has completely changed live in the world, among people whom he has not changed?
The answer to this question will take up the rest of Peter’s letter.
He begins with the overarching principle: don’t live like the unchanged. Abstain from fleshly lusts (1P 2.11). Behave yourself excellently, in such a way that even people who want to say bad things about you will have to slander you to do it (1P 2.12).
What does that look like? Peter begins this section with a single imperative verb—one that we’re going to find driving the lifestyle choices for the rest of the epistle.
“Submit,” he says (1P 2.13). And for the rest of this chapter, he’s going to focus on how we live in society: in reference to the state (1P 2.13-17), and in reference to our jobs (1P 2.18-20).
Our lifestyle before the state, the government, is to submit—to do what they say. And “they,” Peter specifies, includes both the guy at the top, the king, and lower-level functionaries, governors (1P 2.13-14). Why should we do that? Well, because God wants us to, and he has an outcome in mind: we can “put to silence the ignorance of foolish men” (1P 2.15).
In Peter’s day, the locals suspected Christians of being disloyal to Rome because they would not offer a sacrifice to Caesar or call him lord. Because they would not sacrifice to the Roman gods, they were called “atheists.” Peters calls that ignorance and foolishness, and of course he’s right. But how do we disarm the haters?
Not the way a lot of Christians are acting today. You behave yourself. You do what the leaders say. Now, in our political system, the leaders tell us what to do through laws. And Peter says, you submit. You show a cooperative spirit. You obey the law.
Now, of course, Peter himself disobeyed authoritative orders when they contradicted the direct command of God (Ac 4.15-22). And we have legal ways to resist ungodly laws. But we do so, Peter says, in ways that evidence goodwill and the desire to respect governmental authority, whether it represents our party or that of the other guys.
Peter adds one more thought. Our interaction with the government should be genuine, not as a cover for secret disobedience (1P 2.16). We treat everyone with respect, as in the image of God (1P 2.17).
Now Peter extends the principle to our jobs. We respond to the boss just as we do to civil authorities: we do what we’re told, and respectfully—and even if he’s unreasonable (1P 2.18). We endure injustice, and we find favor with God (1P 2.19-20)—who, it can be observed, has suffered the greatest injustice of all.
Peter closes the chapter with a summary statement. In these relationships, we follow the example of Christ, who bore that greatest injustice and did so without responding to his revilers in kind. He never “owned the libtards.” He simply entrusted himself to the God who judges righteously and does all things well (1P 2.23).
And it was this controlled and trusting action that accomplished our salvation—that accomplished all those great effects we’ve read about in chapter 1.
Our submission to unjust authorities is not going to accomplish anything near that level; the cross work of Christ is unique in the history of the universe. But by giving our maltreaters a picture of Christ, we may well introduce them to him and make them fellow beneficiaries of his work. And the consequences for them will be every bit as eternal as the work of Christ himself.
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