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As a Scot living in the United States, I developed a mischievous (but innocent) pleasure. If, after an elevator conversation, someone asked as I exited, “Where are you from?” I would smile and say, “Columbia, South Carolina”—and then enjoy puzzled looks as the doors closed. Apparently, I don’t sound as though I come from Columbia, S.C.
I wasn’t riding elevators to illustrate a Tabletalk article on the teaching of 1 Peter 2:11 that Christians are “sojourners and exiles” here. But it isn’t a bad illustration, is it? Because Peter is emphasizing that while as Christians we live in this world, we don’t belong to it the way others do. We belong to a “better country, that is, a heavenly one” (Heb. 11:16). Here we are “sojourners and exiles.” Therefore, our lives “speak” with a different “accent.” There is something distinctively and definitively different, something “foreign,” about us. We cannot hide what we are or where we belong. And while those who are citizens of this world only may not be able to put their finger on it (“Are you from Germany?” I have been asked), they notice it and react. In fact, Peter (whose own accent once betrayed him) saw this as basic to our witness in the world and a reason that people would ask about “the hope that is in you” (1 Peter 3:15). It’s interesting that Peter is not here urging us to start spiritual conversations with non-Christians (however worthy that might be); instead, he assumes that they will want to start the conversation, intrigued by our “accent.”
So we need to recognize that we have an “accent,” to own it rather than trying to disguise it, and to pray that the Lord will use it—employing the way that we live, speak, act, and behave with others—so that we shine as lights in the world as we point to the Light of the World (Matt. 5:14; John 8:12). Isn’t that how we want it to be? Thus, Christ will increase, and we will decrease (John 3:30), and whatever is Christ-attracting about us will point people beyond us to the Lord Himself.
New Testament Christians were dual citizens, “in Christ . . . at Ephesus [or Galatia, Corinth, or Rome].” We, too, live in this world but are, like our Savior and King, “not of the world” (John 17:14). It is important, therefore, to know what it means that “our citizenship is in heaven” (see Phil. 3:20).
Who, then, are we? We no longer “belong” here. Rather, we are “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession. . . . Once . . . not a people, but now . . . God’s people” (1 Peter 2:9–10). Chosen, royal, holy, God’s possession—we have become blessed, privileged, dignified beyond measure—and all because we have received mercy and a new nationality. “Ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven, Who, like me, his praise should sing?” (Henry F. Lyte, “Praise, My Soul, the King of Heaven”).
Peter is here pointing to a fundamental structure of the Christian life: How we think about ourselves, understanding our new identity in Christ, transforms our motives, affections, desires, actions, and very existence. We now communicate in a “foreign accent.” Yes, our environment remains the same, and we still use the same old language. But we no longer sound like people who entirely belong here. Among other things, we now “abstain from the passions of the flesh” (2:11). Consequently, some are “surprised when [we] do not join them . . . and . . . malign [us]” (4:4). We may suffer a spiritual form of prejudice. Christ’s grace has made us surprising people after all. So the one thing that we ourselves should not be is surprised.
It is increasingly clear today that Christians “don’t belong.” Socially, it has become challenging to have a Christian “accent” and to believe, confess, and live out the gospel. But isn’t this how it was for New Testament Christians? So should we be surprised? No. Should we be intimidated and conform? No—for “if you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you” (4:14). When that happens, it is altogether possible that some will “see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation” (2:12).
We are strangers here, pilgrims on a journey. So until we get home, let’s live as sojourners and exiles.