NOTES for Pe1 2:23

Peter advises his brothers in faith to make a favorable impression on the pagans through good deeds, so as to enjoy a good reputation in their eyes. But why is this necessary if the pagans remain pagans and their moral notions are distorted in any case? Can they, steeped in sin, really appreciate the sinless lives of Christians?

Such reasoning, perhaps not always expressed so directly, can still be encountered today. Unfortunately, some Christians understand election to salvation as a pretext for Pharisaic snobbery and for exalting themselves above those around them. But Peter looks upon those around him with optimism and does not caricature them. He clearly sees that even in the souls of pagans there lives an understanding of true values that eludes them. Today, when many Christians are accustomed to mocking the notion of “universal human values” as opposed to Christian ones, it is worth remembering that genuinely universal human values—without quotation marks!—cannot be incompatible with Christian values. They are the values that give life to every soul created by God, even one that has fallen away from Him.

For this very reason, state laws and standards of social conduct must be observed, even if they come from pagans or from people far removed from any faith, provided that these laws and rules were established for the good.

Many are troubled by the apostle’s call to obey masters who are not only good and gentle, but also harsh. Is this an appeal to submit to evil? By no means. If a master has a difficult character, this does not necessarily mean that his instructions to his workers are intended to cause harm. What we have here is not an appeal to indulge evil, but a statement of reality: life is difficult, and the people around us are rarely perfect. We must therefore arm ourselves with fortitude and patience in order to make our way through life with dignity.

Peter's words about submitting to human institutions, which mysteriously became “authorities” in the Russian Synodal translation, may seem to contradict what the apostle said when he called Christians strangers and sojourners. Yet the apostle says that this acceptance of human ordinances and institutions follows precisely from the fact that Christians are strangers and sojourners on earth.

Indeed, it would be strange to expect an outsider to try to change the state of affairs in a place where he does not consider himself at home, does not intend to stay, and will soon leave. This is not, of course, a matter of giving up what matters most for the sake of earthly power or human rules and ordinances: it is no accident that Peter says human ordinances and institutions can and should be accepted only “for the Lord's sake.”

Here there is a simple recognition of the generally obvious fact that no change to humanly devised ordinances and institutions, including even the most far-reaching social reforms, can be an end in itself for a Christian. If the world had not lain in evil after the Fall, there might perhaps have been a chance of radically changing the world's situation through social reforms; but we live in a fallen world, and there is no reason to expect anything of the kind. Yet this is not the only point.

There is also the fact that a Christian's main task during the earthly stage of the journey is to learn to live in the Kingdom. Accomplishing this takes so much time that, ordinarily, if a Christian attends to it as he should, he has no time left for anything else. Of course, even social relations can provide the material and the setting for such work, and in that case they should be used to pursue the main task.

But engaging in social or political activity for its own sake is too great a luxury for a Christian. Observing God's commandments in public life is another matter: here the requirement to put God first remains in force, and everything done in this sphere must be done “for the Lord's sake,” just as in any other. But nothing apart from God, Christ, and the Kingdom can or should become an end in itself for a Christian—not even what the world considers absolutely important and fundamental to its own life.