Surprising Submission, Part 1

Servants for Satan, be submissive to your masters with all respect. Now, with that culture in mind, the text is easy to apply to every one of them in the 21st century in a free country because as so many point out, this has to do with a relationship in a free country like ours of an employee to an employer, which is really bad news because now we can't talk about something happening way back there.

It's happening to you right now and it has to do with your response and mine today. The Gospel of Jesus Christ breaks down all of the racial, social, and economic barriers that seem to so easily separate people. We are all one in Christ. Still, God gives us leaders and He commands us to submit to the leaders He's placed over us. submission is hard. And when we understand biblical submission, it's surprising. That's why Stephen's calling this lesson, surprising submission. We're continuing through a series called above politics and parliaments. Today we're beginning lesson three in that series.

This is wisdom for the heart. And here's Stephen Davey with today's message from God's Word. One of the surprising things about the Bible is that nowhere does it promise you that God will settle the score in your favor sometime during your lifetime. And nowhere does the Bible promise you that you will be vindicated this side of heaven, or that your culture around you will eventually wake up and begin supporting you and appreciating you for your values and virtues and your defense of what they know to be the truth. At the same time, it's rather surprising that the Bible didn't give the believer the right to abandon culture and head for some mountaintop commune or some desert monastery. Instead, the inspired letters of Christ through his apostles to the church literally command us to unpack our lives right in the middle of our culture where we're told never to expect anything in return for a godly demeanor or standards of excellence or of purity, but actually to expect fiery trials to besiege us in order to develop us. And we shouldn't be surprised when they show up.

Peter will get to that eventually in chapter 4. What was surprising though, I'm sure, to the early church were the commands of God through Peter to the New Testament believer in how to act and how to respond in the midst of a pagan culture. I don't think anything would have been more surprising to the early church than 1 Peter chapter 2 where we would join our study.

So turn back there if you would. We read it and we think, yeah, I've read that. It really doesn't change all that much. I believe it will even to this day, but it was certainly a revolutionary teaching then. Frankly, as I read this text, I sort of imagine the believers in the churches where this would be read at some point covering their mouths with their hands in startling surprise, maybe blinking hard once or twice or three times, maybe even hearing a gasp or two from the congregation. I mean you go to verse 13 and we don't have time to really review everything, but let's go back since it's been a while. But he begins by saying, submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether to a king as the one in authority or to governors as sent by him and you think, wait a second, Jesus was crucified just a few decades earlier by the institution of government.

Along with the institution of the governing Sanhedrin, the Jewish Supreme Court, they had all betrayed the role to uphold justice. In fact, the last governor that Jesus will see before he is brutally executed on the cross was a political weasel, a compromiser who washed his hands in a bowl of water as if to signify that he had nothing to do with the injustice that would not have happened had he not allowed it. That was the last governor Jesus saw before his death. Not long after the church was birthed months later on the day of Pentecost, when King Herod later on put one church leader to death, he saw it pleased his constituents. In other words, his approval rating went through the ceiling and he thought, this is great. And he arrested another one and planned to kill him.

And that one was the one writing this letter. Peter, did you forget about that king? You barely get over your surprise and you get to 1 Peter 2 and verse 17. It starts out understandably, fear God, or excuse me, honor all people. Love the brotherhood, fear God, we like that, we like that, we like that. Honor the king, wait, what?

Show respect to the one in authority over you. You're not going to obey his command to violate scripture, but show respect to his office no matter what kind of king he is and this would be surprising, surprising submission. As we studied in our last session in this text, the apostle Paul earlier informed us that kings and rulers have actually been appointed by God. In other words, God isn't surprised by their rise to power. God, in fact, put them there. See, Peter is elevating our perspective to an understanding that there is someone higher and greater than all of the politics and parliaments and that someone happens to be a sovereign God who happens to be in charge of every election and every appointment and every judge and every governmental institution of authority on the planet.

It is all directing this world to his final purposes. So, wherever you are in whatever generation, in whatever culture, show every courtesy and respect and honor that you can. In other passages like 1 Timothy 2, we're told to pray for them.

We get that. You know, Lord, we're praying they die early or whatever you're praying. I'm not sure how you pray it.

Pray ultimately for their salvation because that reminds us frankly that no matter what they do, no matter what they get away with, no matter what they sign in the law, one day they're going to stand before the judge of the universe and that's a greater issue and you care about that and you pray for them. So, we've got to see beyond politics and parliaments if we want to have the right perspective in our world today. Now, it would have been a stretch for the early church in the first century to realize and to really believe, I mean, down in their gut that God was indeed sovereign while Nero was sitting on the throne. That would be a stretch. I mean, it's one thing to write verses 13 to 17 which we studied in our last session. It's one thing to submit to a wicked governor or emperor that you really don't like.

You know, you're probably never going to run into them in Food Lion which is good. But it's another thing entirely for Peter to write what comes next. Let's pick it up at verse 18. Servants, be submissive to your masters with all respect. Now, wait just a second. We'll get further than that but just wait for a moment.

This is really surprising submission. Before we dive in here, let's make a few observations so that we understand this text. You can imagine when Peter wrote this letter, there was an estimated 60 million slaves in the Roman Empire.

In fact, they estimated as high as 70 to 75 percent of the population. Slaves were basically all the people who had neither purchased their citizenship and they would have that opportunity by the age of 30. Slavery was not for life. Or they had not had the privilege of being born a Roman citizen. And it was quite a privilege to not have purchased it but to have actually been born a citizen. In fact, you remember Paul several times brought that fact out.

In fact, one time he avoided a beating because he reminded the jailer, I'm a Roman citizen. Roman slaves had nothing to do with race or ethnicity. It had to do with their social and economic standing.

Roman slaves were simply non-Roman citizens. They were the lower working class who basically did everything. They did all the work. In fact, one author wrote, they did all the work while the Roman citizens lived in pampered idleness, which by the way was one more thing to bring about the demise of the Roman Empire if you study history. During the days of Peter, these 60 million slaves would have been everything. They were the ditch diggers, they were the miners, the field workers, the cooks. But they were also the teachers, the musicians, the actors, even politicians.

They were the doctors. In fact, if you had surgery in the first century, it would have more than likely been performed by a household servant who had been trained in medicine. When we hear the word servant or slave, we immediately travel back in our minds to the slave trade of the 1700s and 1800s to that horrible enterprise that had everything to do with ethnicity and race finally outlawed in 1865. In fact, through the efforts of Christianity primarily if not exclusively in Great Britain and in this country, it would be the spread of and the preaching of and the application of the Gospel and the seed of the Gospel germinating which eventually brings about fruit by teaching among many other radical ideas that every human being has been created in the image of God. And even beyond that, when you come into the church, you discover there is equality in Christ whether slave or free. Galatians 3.28. Imagine Peter writing this letter to churches where a household slave would be the pastor teacher and the master would be a member of the church. In fact, we know from history this occurred. Callistus, one of the early church leaders, was a slave. Perpetua, an aristocratic woman in the early church was still a household servant.

She became a martyr for her faith about a hundred years after Peter wrote this letter. It's going to be the Gospel, by the way, and the truth of the Gospel that will create a brand new culture. The culture in here is different than the culture out there and it ought to be. We don't conform in here to that out there. We don't get our cues in here from that out there.

This is a new culture. But by the way, that atheist or that professor who loves to tell you that the Bible justifies slavery because of texts like these doesn't understand that slavery in first century Rome was different than the 18th century. The slavery or the servitude that Peter is addressing would not be the people who were bought, abducted, and bought, and sold against their will.

They were not kidnapped by their own countrymen many times and then sold to other nations. In fact, let me have you rethink this issue just a little bit. In fact, I thought about just doing a whole sermon on this. Had the Bible been followed in Great Britain and America, the kind of horrific slavery we think of today, if they had followed the law of Moses would have never, ever taken place.

Listen to a text. You might jot down the verse in the margin of your Bible if you want to go back into the law of Moses. It's stated in Deuteronomy 24 and verse 7.

Listen to this. If a man is caught kidnapping any of his countrymen and he deals with him violently or sells him, that man shall die and you shall purge this evil from among you. According to the law, beloved, God made it clear that the buying and selling of human beings, the kidnapping, the abducting of human beings was an evil deserving of capital punishment. What about the New Testament?

Well, if you look at the record, you discover Paul on one occasion is listing...I mean, all sin is sinful, but he lists sort of some really bad ones. Right in the middle of the list in 1 Timothy 1 and verse 10, he mentions enslavers, those who kidnap or adopt against another human being's will for the purpose of enslaving them. So slavery or servitude as we think of it in the 18th and 19th centuries existed, beloved, it existed not because of the Bible, but in spite of it. And it will be Christians on both continents who will take the Bible and clearly teach it. And wherever the gospel to this day, because guess what's happening around the world today? Slavery in the form of abduction and kidnapping. In fact, in his book entitled, How Christianity Changed the World, Alvin Schmidt recorded how the transforming truth of the gospel in those countries where it is allowed to prosper ends this evil.

He says, the countries that will not accept it will continue it or hide it. He summarizes that the African nation of Ethiopia, in Ethiopia slavery was finally outlawed in 1942. In Saudi Arabia, slavery was finally outlawed in 1962. And slavery was finally outlawed in India in 1976. By the way, the greatest offense occurring in relation to this kind of slavery, this kind of kidnapping and abduction is taking place and the media won't report it. It's happening in Sudan where already 3 million slaves have been killed.

Why? Because they're Christians being sold to their countrymen who are Muslims. It will be the revolutionary transforming truth of the gospel that will change the presuppositions and the institutions of our world. Let me make one more important observation so that we can understand this text, which does not defend that kind of chattel slavery as we call it. Peter doesn't even use the normal word for slave here.

He uses a word found only three other times in the New Testament and it refers to household servants, what we would call domestic servants. And while they didn't have the rights of Roman citizenship, depending on their household, they might receive an education. They could even purchase property.

They might enter a profession such as music or teaching or medicine. They could represent their household in a number of ways depending on the benevolence of that household. Think in your mind of a different kind of context. Think in your mind of the household staff of Downton Abbey, okay, where they do all the work and the family of the house spends all their time all day drinking tea and changing clothes.

Have you noticed that's all they do? Get that picture in your mind. That's Rome. This was in some ways like Joseph. He was abducted and yet he entered a culture where he rose to be the household administrator for Potiphar.

However, like Joseph, in the first century a servant, even a household domestic servant, still had no legal standing. His world could change at the whim of his master, whether brutal or benevolent. And Peter is going to address the employees of both scenarios.

All right, let's go back to the basic command. Servants verse 18, be submissive to your masters with all respect. Now with that culture in mind, the text is easy to apply to every one of us in the 21st century in a free country because as so many point out, this has to do with a relationship in a free country like ours of an employee to an employer, which is really bad news because now we can't talk about something happening way back there. It's happening to you right now and it has to do with your response and mine today. In fact, the point could be made, so I'll make it, that if a servant without personal rights or benefit packages in the first century was commanded to show deference and respect to his master, what excuse do any of us have to disregard or disrespect or disobey those in authority over us with all of our benefits and freedoms?

And maybe you're saying to yourself, I don't like the direction this is going. All of a sudden I wasn't expecting this and besides, Stephen, you obviously don't know anything about my boss or my supervisor or my teacher. You have no idea how absolutely utterly unreasonable they are. Peter knew you'd be thinking that. Verse 18, be submissive to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and gentle, but also to those who are unreasonable.

He closes the loophole. The word for unreasonable is scoliosis, which means crooked, hard to deal with, bent, like scoliosis of the spine. It's hard to live with.

It can cause difficulty. That's what he's talking about. Let's face it, we naturally show respect to the manager who's easy to work for. We naturally submit to the supervisor who seems to appreciate our worth.

We like working for them. We naturally submit to a boss who doesn't put on us more than that for which we volunteer. Look, you don't need a command to do that. You don't need a command to love the loving, to respect the respectful, to work hard out of appreciation for those who appreciate you. You don't need help with that.

Peter doesn't have to write to any of us about that. What's not so easy is for you right now to know, and maybe you'd like me to know, but you know and you feel like you're trapped. Perhaps at this moment, that's what's going through your mind. That's how you feel about your job. There's no respect for you.

You're constantly belittled. In fact, you might be serving a boss whose entire thinking patterns are just bent. I mean, you're wondering why in the world did he or she ever arrive at that position? They can't think straight.

They're crooked. I read one author who now is a pastor, but he recounted the time when he was going through college and he served as an assistant in a hotel to the man who supervised all the food operations. His name, the boss, was George. George was hardworking, but he was loud.

He was critical. He was abusive verbally. He played favorites. He divided everybody between either great friends or terrible enemies.

There was no in-between. The baker in this particular hotel was evidently one of his enemies. He didn't know why. Probably she knew more about food than he did, but at any rate, she did nothing that could ever please him. One day, he writes, she made apple cinnamon pancakes and George sent his assistant, this man is now a pastor, this young man, to bring some batter for him to taste and approve. He tasted some of it and then said, send it back. It's not sweet enough. So I ran back to the baker and she added some sweetener to it and I ran it back to George. He tasted it and then he thundered, it's too sweet, send it back. The third time, she stood there and fumed and she knew what was going on.

He said, I watched her just shake an empty container over the batter and waved the spoon in the air over her head and then handed it to me and sure enough, I sent it back and George said, now, it's perfect. Maybe that's your boss. Maybe that describes him or her. I hope, beloved, it doesn't describe you because I know I speak to many who are employers. What makes a mark for the gospel is living out this text with surprising submission to a man like George, respecting the disrespectful, being kind in response to the unkind, working hard for someone who will never slap you on the back and say, man, am I glad you're on the team? Great job.

In fact, if they did, you'd faint. This is surprising submission. This is the kind of work ethic from the first century to the 21st century that will do more for the transformational power of the gospel to advance than a thousand gospel tracts you'll leave on your boss's desk or a thousand invitations to church. When you're working out there in a world, by the way, and you know it, it treasures independence and autonomy and the demand of personal rights. I mean, people can find their lawyer's phone number quicker than a verse of scripture, right? They love to criticize the authority.

Whoever it happens to be, it doesn't matter. Just that's the authority. So we're always against them. The workforce, as you know, is filled with complainers, demanders, people arguing over their assignments and the question that Peter is not allowing any of us to skirt is, are we one of them? So you happen to know right now as I'm preaching through this text, you know who it is in your workplace, who's always chasing the promotion, who's always asserting themselves. Their idea of putting their best foot forward is kicking you out of the way. They're always undercutting the other employees. They're always criticizing the management. You know, they're constantly self promoting, self applauding.

The favorite topic of conversation is the deal they made, how great they are to the company, how dead this place would be without them. Has it ever occurred to you that we might be doing that with our children? You're setting them up.

They're going to grow up and not know how to demonstrate submission and respect to those in authority, whether it's a coach or a teacher, even if they might be unkind or unreasonable or unfair. Isn't this a practical message for today? It's very easy to submit to someone who's telling you to do what you already wanted to do. Submission is somewhat easier when the person in authority is very kind and gentle with you.

But that's not always the case. So as believers, we commit to submitting to those that God has placed in authority over us and teaching our children to do that as well. You're listening to Wisdom for the Heart with Stephen Davey.

Stephen is working his way through a series called Above Politics and Parliaments. He's calling today's lesson Surprising Submission. We're going to break right here and resume this lesson next time. In the meantime, we'd love to hear from you. One of the easiest ways that you can interact with us is the contact form on our website. You'll find us online at wisdomonline.org. When you get to that page, there's a link at the bottom that you can use to send us a message.

I'm Scott Wiley. Thanks for listening. We'll be back to conclude this lesson next time, and I hope you'll join us right here on Wisdom for the Heart. We'll be back to conclude this lesson.