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1 Peter 2:18–20
“Servants, be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle but also to the unjust” (v. 18).
The Apostle Peter has been describing how believers in Christ must live their lives (1 Peter 2:1–12). He has made clear that the Savior’s holy people honor Jesus by honoring the various human institutions that God has established, including the civil authorities (vv. 13–17). In today’s passage, Peter applies his teaching on human institutions further, looking specifically at how Christian servants and slaves are to relate to their masters.
As we look at 1 Peter 2:18–20, we note that Peter addresses how Christian slaves and servants are to relate to non-Christian masters. His words, of course, have application to a servant’s relationship to masters who profess faith in Christ, but Peter primarily has nonbelieving masters in mind. Second, Peter is dealing with involuntary servanthood or slavery, but he does not directly call for it to be abolished. God’s Word does not, however, commend slavery as an ideal. The Bible is a very practical book, and passages such as 1 Peter 2:18–20 are given to help believers live faithfully under a societal evil that at the time they had no real way to overcome. As one commentator puts it, it would have done first-century Christian slaves no good to read a letter railing against slavery when it would have been impossible for believers, a small minority of Romans at the time, to change the institution overnight.
Our natural inclination would be to think that servants have no need to obey unjust masters, but Peter says otherwise. Servants must respect not only “good and gentle” masters but also those who are unjust and even perverse (v. 18). Obviously, this does not mean that we have a license to do what is sinful if a master or other authority commands it. When anyone commands us to do something that God forbids or forbids us from doing something that God commands, “we must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29). Peter’s point is that the wickedness or harshness of a master does not justify disobeying his lawful orders. In fact, we will receive a special blessing if we follow those in authority over us even when it is hard to do so, provided that obeying them does not cause us to sin (1 Peter 2:19–20).
Peter’s words do not mean that subordinates should never make use of their rights when they are mistreated by an authority. Paul appealed to his rights as a Roman citizen when he was mistreated in Philippi (Acts 16:25–40). Yet such appeals, if we are able to make them, do not negate our responsibility to obey lawful orders.
Coram Deo Living before the face of God
Matthew Henry comments, “The sinful misconduct of one relation does not justify the sinful behaviour of the other; the servant is bound to do his duty, though the master be sinfully froward [hard to deal with] and perverse.” This principle has wide application. Christians are to obey their leaders wherever God has placed them—at home, at work, and in the wider society—unless those leaders call them to sin.
For further study
- Genesis 39
- Colossians 3:22–25
The bible in a year
- 1 Kings 4–5
- Luke 23:26–43
- 1 Kings 6–10
- Luke 23:44–24:12