Seeds for 05/22/2024 - 1 Peter 3:17-18
Scripture:
For it is better, if it is God’s will, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil. For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit.
Observation:
This is a challenging but practical text. The first line is plainly true: “it is better… to suffer for doing good than for doing evil.” Hard but dead on. If we were forced to choose between becoming a co-conspirator in evil deeds or a victim of them, we should choose to suffer them. Far better to suffer in the body, but keep our moral character and godly devotion intact than to avoid suffering in the body but do injury to the soul.
But this is hard to do. It is hard to embrace suffering because in modern America, we are often what I call “practical Buddhists.” I say this because we seem to consider suffering the greatest problem with the world, worth avoiding at any cost.
But one of the strange and compelling features of Christianity is its contention that suffering can fall within the will of God and that when it does, it is embued with redemptive purpose and therefore value.
The foundation for this contention and its chief paradigm is the person of Jesus, the Son of God. He suffered and died for humankind, that we might have life in Him. He did not avoid that suffering which was within His calling, but engaged the powers that were the means by which He entered into it. Peter connects the suffering of his readers with the suffering of Jesus and in doing so makes suffering for doing right a thing which, in the hands of the Lord, may result in the greater advance of God’s kingdom.
The destestable suffering of the cross yielded to the dignity and power of the great King. Now, believers who suffer, “if it is God’s will,” may trust that pain is used for redemptive purposes and that burdens can become means of blessing, just like in teh case of Jesus.
Application:
What else might the Holy Spirit be speaking with you about in the text today?
Prayer: Lord, grant us gratitude for the redemptive suffering and victory of Jesus, and courage to suffer for your kingdom’s advance if it is found in your will. Amen.
“But the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it. This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.” (Matthew 13:23)
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