Alliance Christian Church
September 7 2025

      • 2 Corinthians 9:7GS-NETBIBLE

      • Colossians 1:3–6NETBIBLE2ED

  • Plans
  • Praise the Name of Jesus
  • I Will Sing of the Mercies of the Lord

      • 1 Peter 2:22–25NETBIBLE2ED

  • Crossing the Bridge

    1 Peter 2:18–25 “Slaves, be subject to your masters with all reverence, not only to those who are good and gentle, but also to those who are perverse. For this finds God’s favor, if because of conscience toward God someone endures hardships in suffering unjustly. For what credit is it if you sin and are mistreated and endure it? But if you do good and suffer and so endure, this finds favor with God. For to this you were called, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving an example for you to follow in his steps. He committed no sin nor was deceit found in his mouth. When he was maligned, he did not answer back; when he suffered, he threatened no retaliation, but committed himself to God who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we may cease from sinning and live for righteousness. By his wounds you were healed. For you were going astray like sheep but now you have turned back to the shepherd and guardian of your souls.”
    PRAY, INTRODUCTION.
    Introduction: Off roading, rock crawling, can’t approach it like any other road.
    You have to get out and examine the landscape, and take the road on it’s terms, not your own.
    A lot like the passage we’re going to read today.
    1 Peter 2:18–20 NET 2nd ed.
    Slaves, be subject to your masters with all reverence, not only to those who are good and gentle, but also to those who are perverse. For this finds God’s favor, if because of conscience toward God someone endures hardships in suffering unjustly. For what credit is it if you sin and are mistreated and endure it? But if you do good and suffer and so endure, this finds favor with God.
    Probably on the top ten list of most difficult topics to discuss in the Bible is this one right here, and the passages in the Bible, especially the New Testament that discuss slavery.
    And if you’re familiar with the bible, it can be jarring. You come across a passage like this and if you’ve never read it before, you can go, woah. I don’t understand what’s going on here, I don’t know what to make of this?
    And if you’re not careful, if you are just jumping in to the Bible without paying attention to what’s going on in the text, you can walk away from a passage like this with one of two attitudes.
    The first is where you go, I don’t know what to make of this? I don’t know what to do with this passage, it doesn’t make sense, and so I guess I’ll just skip over it. Because it obviously doesn’t apply to me, and so I’m just going to ignore it.
    the second attitude, and the one that is even more dangerous, is where you get to a passage like this and say, well obviously, this can’t be from God. this can’t be good, I know that slavery is bad, we all agree, and so this clearly can’t be from God.
    And that’s even more dangerous, because it shakes your faith in scripture, it shakes your faith in God and what is true and good.
    And the reason we get that way with passages like this is that we have this bad habit of taking our own culture, and our own bias, and our own lenses, and pasting it over the top of the Bible.
    Because we all have lenses through which we see the word. There’s no such thing as being “unbiased”
    Everybody has an upbringing, and a culture and a history. And whether we like to admit it or not, we carry around the baggage of our circumstances, and our worldview and our culture when we read God’s word.
    And then what happens is we take our lenses and we read them into the Bible, instead of reading the Bible on it’s own terms.
    We have to remember that the Bible was not written TO us, it was written FOR us.
    And so this morning, as we work through this passage of scripture, we’re going to imagine the Bible as a journey from the world of Peter, and the scattered churches to the world of today.
    And in between their world and our world is a long, winding, rocky road that we have to cross over to get there.
    and if we try to get from their world to our world too quickly, what’s going to happen is we’re going to get stuck and broke down, and frustrated.
    We’re going to take it in 4 steps, we’ve talked about this before, when we did our “how to read the Bible” series, but repetition is often the best teacher.
    The 4 steps are this:
    We have to understand what the text meant in their world.
    Survey the landscape between their world and our world.
    We draw out the universal principle
    We apply the text in our world.
    If you take notes, you can put down numbers 1, 2, 3, and 4
    Their world
    Survey the landscape
    Principle
    Our world
    What is the meaning of the text in their world?
    What we’re doing when we answer this question is we are specifically trying to step into the shoes of peter, and the original audience, and understand how they would have understood it.
    Peter is encouraging Christian slaves to remain faithful, even when they’re being abused by their non-Christian masters
    If we go back to verse 18, he says
    1 Peter 2:18 NET 2nd ed.
    Slaves, be subject to your masters with all reverence, not only to those who are good and gentle, but also to those who are perverse.
    Your translation might say “be subject to your masters with all fear”
    And on first glance you might think that he’s telling them to be afraid of their masters, but if you back up to verse 17, he just got through saying
    Honor all people, love the family of believers, Fear God, honor the king.
    It’s not their masters that he wants them to have reverence toward. It’s God.
    And the really hard teaching here, is when he says not only to the good ones.
    You can imagine, if you’re a household slave and your master is good and kind, well then of course it would be really easy. But then he adds, but also to those who are perverse.
    The word there is literally “crooked” dishonest, disreputable.
    And the encouragement he’s giving these household slaves in the scattered churches is to look at the example of Christ.
    1 Peter 2:21–24 NET 2nd ed.
    For to this you were called, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving an example for you to follow in his steps. He committed no sin nor was deceit found in his mouth. When he was maligned, he did not answer back; when he suffered, he threatened no retaliation, but committed himself to God who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we may cease from sinning and live for righteousness. By his wounds you were healed.
    The plain reading of the text here, is peter saying to the slaves in the churches, “maintain your good conduct, even when you’re being beaten and abused. And look to the example of Jesus who suffered, he was mocked, he was brutally executed, and bore our sins on the cross so that we might cease from sinning. Literally, the text says that we might be dead to sin, and alive to righteousness.
    That’s the text in their world.
    And as we start to make our way toward making sense of it in our world, then we have to first get out and survey the landscape. We might want to know a little bit about the situation that was going on in the first century.
    And again, this is before we try to apply it, before we ask the question, “how does this apply to me?”
    In step two, we’re simply gathering facts.
    When I’m on that offroad trail, before I decide which angle I want to approach the road, I’m simply going to get out and observe.
    OK, there’s a big rock there. over here there’s a bunch of loose gravel, up ahead it looks like the road gets narrower, and there’s a drop off on the right hand side.
    Just making observations about what I see.
    On your notes, under the number two, surveying the landscape. I want you to write down three points.
    The Roman empire was built around slavery.
    The New Testament opposes slavery
    Christians in the first century had ZERO influence
    -The roman empire was built around slavery
    That’s not an opinion, it’s just a fact.
    Their entire economy was built around slavery.
    It was a practice that was enshrined in law, and in customs
    It was so engrained into the roman world that slaves were considered a common part of a family unit.
    Today, if we say “describe the average household” you might say, well there’s going to be a mom, a dad, maybe two kids, and maybe a couple of pets.
    If you asked a roman citizen, they would say, “well the average household has the oldest living male, whether that’s dad or grandpa, and all of his male children, and their spouses, and their kids, and the household slaves.”
    For a roman citizen that was the definition of a family
    It was baked into the culture.
    That’s the first point, here, under number 2.
    Our second point is:
    The New Testament opposes Slavery.
    If you look at the entire book of Philemon, it’s a letter written By paul, where Paul is attempting to convince a Christian slave owner to do the right thing, and free his slave.
    And in that letter, Paul recognizes that he has no legal right to tell him to do so, but he insists on the basis of Christian values, that he ought to emancipate his slave.
    If you look at 1 Timothy 1, paul writes:
    1 Timothy 1:9–10 NIV
    We also know that the law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers, for the sexually immoral, for those practicing homosexuality, for slave traders and liars and perjurers—and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine
    So I want you to notice that slave traders are lmped into the same category of sexual immorality, and people who murder their own parents.
    So we can be clear here that the new testament absolutely opposes the practice of slavery.
    The Roman empire was built around slavery.
    The New Testament opposes slavery
    Christians in the first century had ZERO influence
    Christians in the first century had zero political or social influence.
    And this one, I think is what is going to help us make the most endroads toward understanding this passage.
    Christians in the first century the Scattered churches that peter was writing to, were one of the most hated and despised groups of people in all of roman culture.
    On top of that, a large percentage of the Christian church in ancient rome were people on the lower rungs of society to begin with. Hence why Peter is writing instructions to slaves here.
    You know who was really attracted to the message of the gospel? Poor, widows, disenfranchised, household slaves.
    Because the Gospel brought hope. Hope that said, you know what, I may be on the bottom rung of society now, but through Christ I am a child of God. And that is good news!
    As we survey the culture, when we understand the facts that number 1, slavery was ubiquitous in the ancient world, and number 2, Christians had absolutely no social or political influence in the greater world, we can begin to answer the question that I hear most often about these types of passages:
    Which is, if slavery is wrong, and bad, why didn’t God just say so in the Bible? Why does it seem like slavery is accepted?
    And the answer is, Peter wasn’t writing this letter to you.
    He was writing it to people who were slaves, who were sorely mistreated, and beaten and abused, and had absolutely no ability to change their situation.
    And he was encouraging them in their lot in life.
    He didn’t sit down and think, “you know, I ought to write this letter for plantation owners 1800 years from now on a continent that hasn’t even been discovered yet.
    It wouldn’t have made any sense in the context for peter to write about the evils of slavery. Not here at least.
    Here, in this letter, if peter would have written to the church and said “slaves, just so you know, slavery is bad, and it shouldn’t be a thing”
    The people he was writing to would have gotten that letter and been like, ‘yeah, thanks a lot peter. What exactly do you expect us to do about it?’
    We support missionaries in various place. Wing Wong, has a ministry in China.
    Imagine for a moment, if the church in China needed advice from us, here at ACC. And imagine that we wrote a letter telling them that communism is bad, and that they shouldn’t live under communism.
    It’s a nice thought. But it’s not very realistic, is it. Great, communism is bad, now what?
    Great, slavery is bad, now what?
    ——
    And once we understand that peter isn’t writing them to tell them how the world OUGHT to be, but he’s writing them to encourage them in how the world IS at the time.
    We can move on to step number 3 in our journey from their world to our world, where we draw out the universal principle.
    under your number 3 in your notes:
    3. Christians can endure injustice by looking to the example of Christ.
    That’s the big take away from this passage.
    The Bible is not a book that describes a perfect utopia of how the world ought to be.
    That doesn’t come until the very last chapter of the very last book, after Jesus comes back.
    But everything up until that point describes the world as it is.
    And how we can live in it.
    And for someone who hasn’t spent a lot of time around the bible, that might come as a shock.
    I think a lot of people who don’t know anything about the Bible expect it to be a big encyclopedia of how things ought to be.
    But that’s not how this book works. This book was written in the real world, for people living in the real world, and in case you didn’t know it, the real world is full of sin and injustice and horrible awful things.
    And to be honest, I like the Bible better that way, knowing that it’s written in reality.
    Because the bible is written in the language of reality, we can have hope in the fact that it’s a book that we can actually use in our lives, because we live in reality.
    The Bible says “Look, bad stuff exists in the world”
    And sitting around talking about how much we wish bad stuff didn’t exist doesn’t make it go away.
    The question, then, that we have to ask, is, how do we live our lives as Christians in the world, when the world is full of suffering and injustice?
    Under number 4, “our world” I want you to write:
    We as the church should seek to do good in all circumstances
    Do Good
    Not just when it’s easy. Not just when it’s convenient, but in all things.
    I’m willing to bet that everyone here has that one person in their life who makes it extremely difficult to be good.
    Some of us might even have more than one person.
    And you’re like I want to love this person, I want to show grace and forgiveness and compassion to them, but it’s just so hard.
    The Bible tells us to show love even to them.
    Jesus says in Matthew 6 if you only love those who love you, what good is it? Even pagans do that. That’s not that special.
    Christians are called to show love to the worst people.
    And that’s hard. That’s not an easy teaching. Peter himself recognizes that what he’s telling his audience is hard. Because when he gives them an example to follow he goes straight for the most compelling most convincing example he can think of:
    Jesus Christ who showed love and forgiveness, even to those who were putting him on the cross.
    He prayed Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.
    Under number 4 I want you to write:
    Look to the example of Jesus
    Jesus came and lived a perfect sinless life, so that we would be able to have that example to look toward.
    And in order to look at the example of Jesus, you have to know Jesus, and in order to know Jesus you have to spend time with Jesus. Spend time in prayer, spend time reading about him in the word.
    And of course we’re never going to be finished immitating Christ. It’s an impossible unattainable standard for a reason, so that we are always continuously striving upward.
    We keep our eyes fixed on Him, the pioneer and perfector of our faith.
    Last point I want you to put under number 4:
    Turn Back Around
    Verse 25 says :
    1 Peter 2:25 NET 2nd ed.
    For you were going astray like sheep but now you have turned back to the shepherd and guardian of your souls.
    It’s never too late to come back to the shepherd when we’ve gone astray.
    When we are acting out of malace, when we’re acting out of revenge, or out of fear because of the injustice that we’re suffering, It’s OK to admit that we’ve been like a sheep going astray. It’s ok to stop and look around and realize
    You know I haven’t been going down the right path. I seemed to have wandered off spiritually.
    I think I need to do a complete 180 and turn around and start walking back to the shepherd and guardian of my soul.
    And in fact it’s the only really good thing to do.
    I want to close with this.
    The Bible is a Hard Book: In more ways than one.
    It’s hard to understand, especially if we don’t know the context. And so you get passages like this one where we often don’t even know where to begin.
    And then even when you do figure out the context, you realize that the principle that the Bible is teaching is really hard.
    Love your enemies is probably the most difficult passage in the entire bible.
    Remaining steadfast in the face of injustice and evil and sin in the world, is an extremely difficult teaching.
    That’s ok.
    You have a helper, you have an advocate who helps you along the way.
    We’re going to take communion here in a little bit. 1 Corinthians 11, Paul tells the church that a person ought to examine himself first and then take the cup and eat the bread.
    This is a time in which we are given the opportunity to reflect back on the week.
    And say “God, I haven’t been doing so great. I’ve been holding resentment, I’ve been holding hatred in my heart.
    And even though I might be justified in my anger, Lord, I don’t want it to control me. I want to live the good example, and rise above it, even in the face of injustice.
    Take that time. If you get up to the table, and take the cup and the bread, and you need more time to sit and be with god, take it back to your seat and sit and give those things over to God for as long as you need, and then take communion:
    Pray.

      • 1 Peter 2:18–20NETBIBLE2ED

      • 1 Peter 2:18NETBIBLE2ED

      • 1 Peter 2:21–24NETBIBLE2ED

      • 1 Timothy 1:9–10NETBIBLE2ED

      • 1 Peter 2:25NETBIBLE2ED

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Alliance Christian Church
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