gentle & respctful

1 Peter 3

13 Now, who will want to harm you if you are eager to do good?

14 But even if you suffer for doing what is right,

God will reward you for it.

So don't worry or be afraid of their threats.

15 Instead, you must worship Christ as Lord of your life.

And if someone asks about your Christian hope,

always be ready to explain it.

16 But do this in a gentle and respectful way.

Keep your conscience clear.

Then if people speak against you,

they will be ashamed when they see what a good life you live

because you belong to Christ.

17 Remember, it is better to suffer for doing good,

if that is what God wants,

than to suffer for doing wrong!

What would the world think of us who follow Christ if we lived like Peter suggests here?

What would they think if in any encounter with us,

they knew we would be gentle & respectful.

Is that what the world thinks will happen if they encounter a Christ follower?

I doubt it.

They expect us to tell them

they're “going to hell”,

or, “God hates _________” (you fill in the blank).

So many of us these days are more interested in attaining the good life we think we are entitled to as Christians,

or wielding political power,

or being right,

or thwarting the powers we thing are persecuting us or taking away our religious right,

or any number of other things.

We forget that what we believe is at odds with what the world thinks.

If you haven't noticed, we live in a world whose basic attitude is developing into “anything goes”,

or “there are no absolutes except there are no absolutes”

or “I'm finding my own truth”.

And these are pretty antithetical to pretty much anything expressed in the Bible.

Our world doesn't have as it's moral center the things that appear in the Bible.

It operates with a whole new set of values,

dictated or mandated by whomever is the current authenticator of the month,

& claimed as our own truth.

We American Christians seem to feel like our lives are synonymous with the American Dream.

But any life whose yardstick for truth & wisdom is the Bible will find that suffering in some level of life will be the normal for us.

As we go about our day today,

connecting at whatever level with the people around us,

let's be gentle & respectful.