A Life Worthy of a Priest (1 Peter 2:4–11)
If someone were to ask you how a priest lives, how would you answer? Most of us think of priests as people who hang around the local parish, who can';t marry, who listen to people confessing their sins all day long, and who wear funny-looking collars.
But there is more to being a priest than doing all those things. Being a priest — or any other kind of minister for that matter — means living under a higher standard of conduct, making sure that everything said and done properly reflects the position entrusted to the person. The very same thing applies to those who have been welcomed into God';s eternal family through their faith in Jesus Christ.
Peter points out in this passage that there will be people who “stumble” because they don';t obey God';s Word, and the consequences are that they meet a fate other than the one reserved for those who have put their faith in Jesus Christ (1 Peter 2:8). True believers, on the other hand, are different because: “you are a chosen people. You are royal priests, a holy nation, God';s very own possession. As a result, you can show others the goodness of God, for he called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light. Once you had no identity as a people; now you are God';s people. Once you received no mercy; now you have received God';s mercy.” (1 Peter 2: 9–10).
Peter';s teaching on the priesthood of the individual believer was one of the assertions made by Martin Luther and other reformers during a sixteenth-century event in the history of Christianity known as the Protestant Reformation. Luther believed that the Catholic Church at the time was going against this teaching by asserting so much control over individuals.
As God';s chosen people — as those who are royal priests and members of a holy nation — God has called us all to live in this world as “temporary residents and foreigners” (1 Peter 2:11). That means we are to “keep away from worldly desires that wage war against your very souls. Be careful to live properly among your unbelieving neighbors. Then even if they accuse you of doing wrong, they will see your honorable behavior, and they will give honor to God when he judges the world” (1 Peter 2:11–12).
In other words, since God has taken us as His own possession and called us “royal priests,” we are to live lives befitting those God has called to such a high spiritual position. We are to live lives that people around us will see as different, as above reproach. And when we do that, others will see Jesus Christ in us.
Study Questions
Who does Peter tell us we are in relation to God because of the work of Jesus Christ?
What does Peter say God has called believers into?
