Request your free, three-month trial to Tabletalk magazine. You’ll receive the print issue monthly and gain immediate digital access to decades of archives. This trial is risk-free. No credit card required.
Try Tabletalk NowAlready receive Tabletalk magazine every month?
Verify your email address to gain unlimited access.
Few words carry as much weight in modern society as freedom. We invoke it to defend rights, preferences, and even whims. In the cultural imagination, freedom means self-rule or autonomy from every constraint. To be free, in this view, is to answer to no one but oneself.
The Apostle Peter, however, presents a strikingly different vision, one to which we must pay careful attention. In 1 Peter 2:16, he writes: “Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God.” Here is a paradox that is precious to the people of God: We are most free when we belong wholly to God.
exiles in the world
Peter’s words appear in a letter written to Christians who lived as outsiders in the pagan Roman world. He reminds them that they are “sojourners and exiles” (v. 11), called to abstain from sinful passions and to live honorably before unbelievers so that their good deeds might silence slander. They are to show respect even to rulers and governors, not because Caesar is ultimate but because their conduct reflects on the Lord. The Christian life, then, is a visible witness: In a hostile world, holiness and honor testify more loudly than protest or complaint.
It is in this context that Peter delivers the paradox of verse 16: Christians are free, but their freedom is not to be twisted into license or rebellion. Rather, their liberty expresses itself in obedience to God. The section concludes with a memorable summary: “Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor” (v. 17). These commands, taken together, frame what it means to live as free servants in the midst of the world.
the nature of true freedom
Having described how Christians are to live as exiles in the world, Peter now turns to the heart of the matter. True freedom is not the right to do as we please but the power to do as we ought. This is the paradox at the center of the Christian life.
First, Christian freedom is freedom from sin. Through Christ’s death and resurrection, we are liberated from both guilt and bondage. Jesus declared, “If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (John 8:36).
Second, Christian freedom is freedom for obedience. Peter cautions against “using your freedom as a cover-up for evil.” Liberty is not license. Paul echoes this in Galatians 5:13: “Do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.”
Third, Christian freedom expresses itself in servitude: “living as servants of God.” The Greek term translated as “servants” is strong. It literally means “slaves.” We are free because we are not our own. We belong, body and soul, to our faithful Savior, Jesus Christ.
freedom and the modern imagination
This teaching cuts against modern notions of liberty. For many today, freedom means radical autonomy, the right to define one’s own truth and pursue one’s own desires. Yet such freedom is illusory. Scripture exposes it: “Whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved” (2 Peter 2:19). What the world hails as liberty often proves to be bondage.
Peter offers another vision: To be free is not to be autonomous but to be rightly bound. The freest person is the one who can say with the psalmist, “I delight to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart” (Ps. 40:8). Obedience to God is not the enemy of freedom but its essence.
living as free servants
How does this paradox take shape in everyday life? We live as free servants when we submit to earthly authorities without surrendering our ultimate allegiance to Christ. We honor rulers “for the Lord’s sake” (1 Peter 2:13). When authorities require disobedience to God, we resist; otherwise, we pay taxes, obey laws, and seek the good of the community.
We live as free servants when we resist sinful passions. Freedom does not indulge the flesh but abstains from it. In a culture that equates liberty with unrestrained desire, Christians reveal a higher liberty—the liberty of self-control, the fruit of the Spirit.
We live as free servants when we treat others with dignity. Verse 17 distills the Christian ethic: Honor all, love the church, fear God, honor rulers. Such respect flows not from fear of man but from fear of God. Enabled by our awe and love for God, we are free to show honor even to those who oppose us.
Finally, when we live as free servants, we shine as a city on a hill. Peter’s exhortation recalls the Lord’s words in Matthew 5:14–16. Our paradoxical liberty serves as public witness. Good deeds silence slander. Love for the church reveals a new community. Honor extended to rulers shows confidence in God’s sovereignty.
the witness of paradox
At first glance, Peter’s teaching seems contradictory: How can one be both free and enslaved? Yet this paradox is the secret of Christian liberty. The one who serves God is free from sin, free from the fear of men, and free from the dread of death. Bound to God, we are unbound from everything else.
The world cannot understand this liberty, but it also cannot ignore it. When Christians embody the paradox of being free servants, they shine with a light that cannot be hidden. They show a kingdom not of this world and bear witness to a Lord who gave Himself to lead His people to true freedom. As sojourners and exiles in a culture that mistakes bondage for liberty, let us live as people who are free because we are servants of God. In doing so, the church will be a city on a hill, pointing a darkened world to the freedom found through the light of Christ.