Make the accusation look ridiculous!
1 Peter 2:12
12 Keep your behavior excellent among the Gentiles, so that in the thing in which they slander you as evildoers, they may because of your good deeds, as they observe them, glorify God on the day of visitation.
Yesterday, we discovered some important things to keep in mind as we carry out the mission Peter gave us in verses 1–10, especially verses 9–10: remembering who Jesus is and the new identity He has given us.
If you missed yesterday’s devotional, please go back and read it. It provides important context for this verse.
We also saw how one of the ways we can do long-lasting or even irreparable damage to this mission is by refusing to fight the lusts of the flesh that wage war against our souls and try to pull us away from God.
Today, Peter gives us another warning about how we can damage the mission of sharing Christ with the world.
Peter says it in a lot of words, but the principle is one you’re familiar with:
Be above reproach.
Maintain conduct that is so pure and good that even when you are accused, not even the accuser really believes what they’re saying. That’s one way I like to think about it.
A few other important things to note from this verse:
It is inevitable that slander will happen.
If you are truly living for Jesus, that will upset people who are lost and given over to the ways of this world. You must be prepared for it.We cannot control what slander or attacks come our way. What we can control is our deeds.
So we must live lives filled with such good deeds that the slander and attacks against us seem silly, foolish, misguided, or misinformed.
When I say good deeds, I don’t mean massive acts like giving a billion dollars to charity. I mean consistent good deeds throughout our lives.
This is a hard lesson.
We want to fight back when wronged, slander others when our pride is wounded, and be unkind to those we feel haven’t earned our kindness.
But to do so is to directly damage the witness of the Church in the world.
Be honest:
Is the American church currently known for its good character and good deeds?
One last thing we absolutely cannot miss:
WHY do we do these good deeds?
It’s not merely to protect our reputation or even the Church’s reputation as a whole.
It’s not so we can self-righteously look down on our attackers and shake our fists at them.
We do these good deeds with the hope that when unbelievers see the consistent evidence of our character and good works, they will believe in God and be alongside us, glorifying Him when He returns—or when we join Him in Heaven, whichever comes first.
In the earliest church, soon after the apostles had passed away or been martyred, non-Christian writers attacked Christianity by accusing Christians of extremely vile and immoral practices.
They claimed that Christian agape love feasts were massive orgies. They claimed Christians ate the flesh and drank the blood of babies during the Lord’s Supper.
Absolutely brutal attacks.
But barely 100 years later, when a Roman named Celsus published one of the first extensive attacks on Christianity, guess what he picked on?
He accused Christians of ignorance, foolishness, superstition, and many other things.
But not even for a moment did he attack their character or their deeds.
Our ancestors in the faith lived out 1 Peter 2:12 so well that it didn’t even take 100 years to convince an entire society that, instead of ritualistic cannibals, they were kind, loving people who were some of the best citizens in the Empire—even though they had “crazy” religious beliefs.
That is what can happen when the Church acts like the Church of Christ.
Let us be a part of that work now in our society instead of simply being upset with how our society views the Church.
