Commentary on First Peter (35)

Peter has a very low view of the non-Christian life, the life that his readers lived before they were converted to Christ. In fact, if you will study and consider all the ways that non-Christians have been described in the Bible by the prophets and the apostles, and by Jesus himself, you would realize that this is one area in which contemporary Christians have made their greatest compromise.

This compromise is made not only by those who are often accused of affirming a man-centered theology, such as the Liberals and the Arminians, but also by those who supposedly hold to a God-centered theology, such as the Reformed Christians. They are unwilling to follow what the Scripture actually teaches on how to talk to and talk about unbelievers. Instead, they stress some biblical verses and ignore others, and those that they emphasize, they take out of context and accommodate their interpretations in ways that reinforce the current cultural standard for social interaction.

The result is that the unbelievers are making the rules on how we view them and relate to them. This might weaken the offense of the gospel, but it is not as if the unbelievers will thank us for it. And aside from the fact that to dilute the word of God like this makes us unfaithful stewards of the truth, the problem is that part of the power of our message is in its sting. If you remove the teeth and the claws from an animal, you might make it more approachable, but then you also permit people to ignore it altogether.

Rather than using the same words or the same categories of words to describe the non-Christians in preaching and in conversation, they tend to restrict themselves to using technical theological terms to label the unbelieving condition. So we talk about the "depravity" of the unbelievers. This is entirely appropriate, but what does it mean? The Bible refers to them as dogs, snakes, trash, and even excrement. We talk about the "blindness" of those who refuse the gospel. And what does that mean? The Bible refers to them as brutes and morons.

In an attempt to reconcile how Scripture looks at the unbelievers and how they would like to look at the unbelievers, Christians have made a sharp distinction between the beliefs and behaviors of the non-Christians and the non-Christians themselves. So they say to the unbelievers, "You are smart, but you believe and do some very stupid things." But why do people believe stupid things? It is because they are stupid! Stupid people believe stupid things, else why are they stupid at all?

The same people might become indignant if it is suggested that Hitler was in fact the most compassionate person in history, but it just happened that he did cruel things all the time. No, if a person does evil all the time, it is because he is an evil person. The Bible does not make the distinction between the beliefs and behaviors of a person and the person himself. In fact, the beliefs and behaviors of a person are the things that define or exhibit the nature of the person. Thus a low view of the non-Christian life must necessarily translate into a low view of the non-Christians.