Honorable Conduct

Well, as you can tell from the reading, that is quite a chunk of Scripture that we have before us in the next few moments. So let’s pause again and pray:

Father, what we know not, please teach us. What we have not, please give us. What we are not, please make us. And we ask in Christ’s name. Amen.

Well, by this point in the week, we are really aware of the fact of Peter’s exhortations. He’s writing to, essentially, a pre-Christian world as the believers face the challenges that are there. We’re reading this, essentially, in a post-Christian world, and we recognize that the citizenship that is ours—and it’s good to remind ourselves with the multivarious names and titles and countries that are before us that the one thing that unites us in terms of citizenship is that ultimately, we belong to the same place.

And having been raised up in Christ and with Christ to be seated in heavenly places,[1] we’re aware of the fact that the same grace of God that reconciles us to himself also antagonizes us to the Evil One. And that’s why the Westminster Confession of Faith at one point reminds us as readers that as Christians, we’re involved in “a continual and irreconcilable war,”[2] and that war essentially on three fronts: against the world, against the flesh, and against the devil.

Peter is keenly aware of this, and that is why we begin at the eleventh verse with his exhortation to us as those who are pilgrims, strangers, sojourners, “to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul.” Peter as a pastor, Peter as a shepherd now in this situation, is concerned for the souls of those to whom he writes. And so he is urging upon them, upon us, a conduct, a framework of life, an expression, a discipline of existence, that is very different from that which is displayed in the context in which we find ourselves.

And it is to be displayed in our attitude to everything. Our experience in Jesus is a mind-altering experience, to the extent that everything is different. When it pours with rain like this, a secular man says, perhaps, “Oh dear! What a mess we’re in now.” When it was sunny like yesterday, they say, “Well, we have nobody, really, to thank at all.” But it’s different for us as Christians, because we know that

Heaven above is softer blue,
And earth around is sweeter green,
And something lives in every hue
That Christless eyes have never seen.
And birds with gladder songs o’erflow

—those noisy birds “with gladder songs o’erflow”—

And earth with deeper beauties shine,
Since we know, as now we know,
That I am his, and he is mine.[3]

Or, as C. S. Lewis put it, remember: He says, “I believe in Christianity as I believe in the sun, not simply because I can see it but because by it I can see everything else.”[4]

And the way in which we view the world and the circumstances of our world is to be such that our lifestyles are testifying to the change that’s been brought about—that our conduct in the framework of everyday life is to be honorable conduct. This is not unique to Peter. Paul talks in the same way about “cast[ing] off the works of darkness … put[ting] on the armor of light, … mak[ing] no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.”[5] Honorable conduct.

I notice that what is true of the British Parliament is also true here in Australia and that individuals would be addressed as “honorable members of Parliament.” And I went looking for one in particular, a man by the name of W. M. Hughes, William Morris Hughes. He served here in your parliament from 1901 to 1952. He quit the year I was born. He was obviously quite a character. He represented, in his time, six political parties; he led five of them; he outlasted four of them and was expelled from three of them—only person, as a parliamentarian, to have served for all these years. And he served, in the record, as a representative displaying integrity, dignity, respect for both his colleagues and his institution. Well, I think he’s worthy of the adjective honorable.

What Peter is speaking about here is not simply moral uprightness but a radical discipline, and on the basis—as you have the text in front of you—on the basis of this: number one, our heavenly citizenship; number two, our concern for the well-being of our souls; and, number three, on account of the influence for good that we may bring to bear upon those who oppose us.

And so he says, “When you face the inevitable accusations that you will”—in verse 12—“as they come to your way, your defense should be seen first of all in your conduct. In your conduct. When they see your conduct—not when they hear your position—when they see your conduct, you are to, as Jesus said, be shining as lights in a dark place”[6]—or, if you like, “adorn[ing] the doctrine of God our Savior.”[7] New life, new lifestyle.

On one occasion, Plato was told that a certain man had been making slanderous charges against him. Plato’s response: “I will live in such a way that no one will ever believe what he says.” That’s conduct. And this is directly tied here to the fact that there is a day of visitation that is coming—that they may see your good deeds and actually give glory to God when things are wrapped up.

Now, as we think about this, and particularly in terms of the desire that each of us has to try and become better in expressing these things, there are plenty of books—plenty of books available—to teach us how to live our lives in a kind of 1 Peter 3:15 approach, so that we would live our lives in such a way that people would ask a question as to what we believed. And you get a book, and it says, “If you do this and do that and have coffee here and coffee there…” And it’s all very fine. But actually, the strongest missionary force in the world is a Christ-filled, grace-centered, attractive life. A Christ-filled, grace-centered, attractive life.

The word that is used here in verse 12 for “good” is not simply agathos, which means “intrinsically good,” but it is kalos. In other words, the intrinsic goodness is more than matched by a visible and attractive dimension. Each of us, if we had time, could rehearse how it is that individuals in our lives have made such an impact upon us because of this dimension in their existence.

I was driven to the airport some months ago by a young man in Tennessee. And I asked him as we drove, “Please tell me all about yourself.” It was a long story. He was brought up in a very broken environment, went in and out of children’s hospitals and homes, ended up in jail, and his story was quite remarkable. I asked him, “Who is the first person that you ever met who was a Christian?”

Immediately, he said, “That was my English teacher.”

“Oh,” I said, “tell me about that.”

He said, “Well, I had a fiery outburst in class one day, and I swore at the teacher, and I said a number of things. She said, ‘Well, perhaps we can talk about this when the rest of the class has left.’ She brought me to the front, and I sat beside her. And she said, ‘What is your problem?’ I said, ‘You’ve changed the time of lunch.’ And she said, ‘Well, I’m sorry, but why would that matter?’”

He said, “Because this is the only food I get in the day. And I’m starving, and you moved it. And I said what I said.”

She said to him, “What do you like for your lunch?” And he told her. And from that point on, she prepared his lunch for this outrageous young man. He’s now studying for pastoral ministry. But what impacted him was this amazing response.

The strongest missionary force in the world is a Christ-filled, grace-centered, attractive life.

Strategy for shining as lights in an increasingly hostile environment: We could spend all the time on it, couldn’t we? What is the strategy? What does it involve? Understanding our identity in Jesus as aliens and strangers, being alert to the fact that we move in the realm of spiritual warfare, allowing our testimony to be matched by the quality and the credibility of our lives—and all of it, as you see at the end of verse 12, motivated by a desire for the glory of God.

So then, where is honorable conduct to be displayed? The short answer, of course: It is to be displayed everywhere. And in the balance of the time we have, we look in these three areas.

Submission to Civil Government

First of all: honorable conduct in submission to civil government. Submission to civil government. Now, if just saying that statement makes you move a little bit in your seat—you find yourself bristling at the very thought of it at all… I just was asking somebody about Canberra. They told me, they said, “People don’t really like Canberra.” I said, “Oh? Why is that? They said, “Well, because of what it represents.” “Well, what does it represent?” Apparently, it represents the civil government. So there might be a few people bristling already: submission to civil government.

If we feel that way, it’s because we’re just inculcating in ourselves the prevailing spirit of the age. And yet, the simplicity and the clarity of Peter’s call for obedience just cannot be gainsaid. It cannot be avoided. How difficult is this? “Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution.”

Now, the underlying premise is in accord with what Paul writes—and we know this—in Romans chapter 13: “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been [appointed] by God.”[8] As we read in the text before us, we recognize the fact that God has set these things in place; they serve God in order that vice might be punished and that virtue might be praised.

I think it’s important for us to keep in mind that although we’re reading this here in a very different context, this is coming home to the initial readers, who are living their lives basically on the edge of persecution.

Now, think in terms, first of all, of our manner, in verse 13: “Be subject.” “Be in subjection to…” The word there actually means to rank yourself under—to rank yourself under, to recognize where you fit in the overarching framework of God’s purposes. Those of you who are military people understand rank, and that is the picture that is here—in terms of our manner.

In terms of our motive, it is clear: We would rank ourselves in this way “for the Lord’s sake,” because this is the will of God: that we would, in verse 15, be doing this in such a wonderful way that, as we see later, it becomes the occasion of surprise. As believers, we belong to a heavenly headquarters. And that’s why we see things differently. That’s why, by God’s grace, we are enabled to put to silence the ignorance of foolish people, not by the force of our argument but by the stellar defense of an admirable, honorable, good life.

I’ve always been struck by the challenge that Paul gives to Titus to pass on to his congregation. And in those three short chapters, they pack such a punch. And he says to Titus, “Make sure that in Crete, in that particular context, you remind your people at least to this”: “to be submissive to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work, to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, and to show perfect courtesy toward all people.”[9] And then he goes on to explain, “Because, after all, we too were foolish, and,” as I quoted yesterday, “we found ourselves living in an environment where we found it perfectly easy to say, ‘I hate people,’ and we knew it was that people hated us as well.”[10]

Now, he goes on to make it very clear in verse 16 that in the privilege of living as people who are free, that is not to be used as a coverup for doing bad things—for doing what we shouldn’t be doing. Freedom as servants of God is a freedom that enables us to do what we ought to do. What we ought to do.

Let me assign reading for homework, and I won’t delay on it myself. But if you go back into the early writings of David Wells of Gordon-Conwell—those five books that he did around 1996—in a way that was actually prescient, addressing particularly the American context, he said the forces that frame society—the place of law, the place of freedom under law—and then, in between these two positions, there is this law of the unenforceable, if you like, the realm of oughtness. And so he says when the realm of oughtness goes away, so that if you’re driving on a bus, and there is a boy there… I go back to my own old days: I’m on the bus in Glasgow. I put my feet up. A gentleman says to me, “Sonny, don’t put your feet on the seat. You ought not to do that.” I take them down. Today, there’s not a brave man in Scotland that’s prepared to tell a teenager to do anything at all, because the sense of oughtness cannot be appealed to. When the sense of oughtness goes in a culture, you have only two ways to go: Either it becomes, like America, phenomenally litigious, or it becomes the land of the totalitarian fist.[11]

Now, it’s in that context that the Christian is to bring a dimension, under God, an obedience that is rendered not out of fear of the emperor, to whom we show honor, but out of a sense of obligation to God, who made us for his purpose and for his pleasure.

Perhaps say just a couple more things: As Christians, we have a different view of government. I mean this: that we know that there is a government beyond government. We know that “there is a higher throne than all this world has known.”[12] We know that when we read Daniel as an alien and a stranger in his environment, this was what framed his existence. “Blessed,” he says,

   be the name of God forever and ever,
 to whom belong [all] wisdom and might.
He changes times and seasons;
 he removes kings and [he] sets [them] up.[13]

It’s in the same awareness that the word of the Lord through Jeremiah, to him and through him, concerning our role as citizens in a community—Jeremiah 29: “Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf.”[14] And then he goes on to say, “Build houses …; plant gardens”[15]—send your kids to university, and so on.

Now, we come to that because we have a different view of government and also because as Christians, we have a different motive for submission to government. We submit to government because we understand that this is God’s plan and purpose.

Now, if you do the Murray M’Cheyne readings, as I do, then, since we had to start at Genesis 1, we got to Genesis 4, and since we had to start at Matthew 1, we got to Matthew 4. And it so happens that there in Matthew 4, we have the expression of these things that is so vitally important to us. And the idea of there being… (I should have said Acts chapter 4. In Acts chapter 4. We were in Matthew 4. Acts 4. All the 4s. Anyway, there we were.) But in Acts 4: “Judge for yourselves whether it’s right for us to obey God or to obey man”[16]—what we refer to as the exception clause. It is the exception clause because it is the exception clause. Let me ask you: When were you personally asked by the state to disobey God? Personally? Well then, let’s pay careful attention.

Verse 17 is the summary: “Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God,” and “Honor the emperor.”

Submission to Masters

From the duty that we have to civil institutions and to government to the duty of servants to masters—the next section beginning in verse 18.

The word that is used here for “servants” is not the word that we will be familiar with, doulos—i.e., slaves—but oiketai is “servants.” What Peter is dealing with here is not the issue of slavery per se, but he is addressing what it means for a Christian to live in the framework of a normal household, in the structures of what is the common institution of household living. Households that would be made up of domestic servants, those servants would include some who were freemen and some who were slaves.

If you have enjoyed, as I have, the work of Richard Harris, the author, and you have read his trilogy on Cicero, I think it may have helped you, as it has helped me, to get a picture of the kind of environment that would be akin to what Peter is addressing here. I’m not trying to sell you on a book, but the trilogy is actually very, very good. Because in that, you realize that in the Roman institution, these people who were indentured slaves, many of them were physicians or trained in that dimension; many of them were educated and so on. And the difficulty that I have—that perhaps you have too—when we come to a passage like this is that we are tempted to read it through the lens of our own understanding of history. Not that we set ourselves apart from that, but it’s very important that we don’t read verses like this through the prism of the US Civil War. Let me put it that way. That is not what is in mind here. That is a subject for another time.

The servants are to be subjected to their “masters.” The word is despotais, like despot. It’s a strong word. It denotes absolute ownership and total control.

Now, the challenge that is here, of course, is a realistic challenge. In Ephesians 6, Paul gives directives to servants and slaves in relationship to their masters,[17] and he does the very same thing in Colossians chapter 3: “Bondservants,” he writes, “obey in everything those who are your earthly masters.”[18] That is so comprehensive, isn’t it? It would have been a lot easier for us if it said, “Now, your boss in office 6, obey him every so often.” No: “Obey in everything those who are your earthly masters, not by way of eye service”—so that you can leave early on Friday—“but … fearing the Lord. Whatever you do,” get in early; fulfill your day’s work. “Whatever you do, [do] heartily, [and do it] as for the Lord … not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.”[19]

So he’s urging slaves to be obedient, to work heartily as for the Lord on account of them looking in a different direction. In contemporary terms, I guess what it means—can be applied in your school, in your office, in your laboratory, whatever it might be: How am I supposed to handle myself when those who are in charge of me are not of the category of the gentle and the good?

It is in circumstances and experiences that involve trouble, opposition, suffering that providence will prove to be a soft pillow.

Verse 18: “Subject to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and [to the] gentle.” You say, “Well, I used to have a boss like that, but that was in Canberra. But I moved to Melbourne, and the one I’ve got now is a complete rascal. In fact, she is unjust.” The word there is skolios, from which we get that deformation of the spine. It’s used in the same way. It means “This person is crooked. They are curved. They’re perverse. They’re unfair. They’re awkward. They’re difficult to deal with.”

Now, I live in a strange world. I have basically all my life. I have worked in other places at times, but I’m no expert on this. But I have a colleague who came to work with me, Jeff, who was a partner in one of the large accounting firms in America. And when he came to work with me to help me, and has been helping me so much, I told him, I said, “I hope I won’t be overly directive or unkind.” And he says, “No.” He says, “Don’t worry about it at all. When I was working in the office, I would come back, and there would be voicemails that if I… I couldn’t press the speaker button in my office. I learned: Don’t do that, because of the amount of profanity that was left on the voicemail by my boss telling me how I haven’t done it, did it, wouldn’t do it, or whatever it might be.” He said, “So you? You don’t concern me at all.”

At a most recent staff meeting, I said to him, I said, “Jeff…” This is thirty-two years on. “Jeff,” I said, “did you go to your Christmas party again this year?” Yes, he did. And the men that he was working with, many of them who were those hard-bitten, hard-driving financial guys, sit beside him and eat a Christmas meal and say to him, “How is it that you put up with me?” And he says, “You were hard to put up with. And I did it because of Jesus. Let me tell you about Jesus.” The surprising impact!

And that’s why you have, then, Peter immediately, in verse 21, directing the attention of us as readers to Jesus. And 21–25 are worthy of an entire study. But since I only have the privilege of doing seven and not eight, I’m going to give you a homework assignment in 21–25. Here it is: It is in circumstances and experiences that involve trouble, opposition, suffering that providence will prove to be a soft pillow, so that we learn to say in the midst of the opposition that we face and the awkwardness of role relationships and so on—we can say to ourselves when we go to bed at night, number one, “I am in this position by God’s appointment”; number two, “I am in his care”; number three, “I am in his training”; and, number four, “I am in this for his time.”

God is not taken by surprise. Look to Jesus. Look to Jesus, “an example.” The word that is used there is “example.” It’s an interesting word. It is hypogrammos. It is… I just saw my son sent me a picture of his four-year-old son just last night, actually. And it was a picture of him. You couldn’t see him; you could only see his head. And what he was doing was he had a piece of paper, and he was tracing—tracing—letters onto the tracing paper. But the letters were underneath. That’s the word hypogrammos. It is to take, if you like, the architect’s initial sketch and to track along with it.

So, Jesus has left us as an example that we might follow in his steps. What are the steps? Verse 21: the steps of suffering. In his case, the step, in 22, as the sinless one, which is not true of us. In verse 23, he was the silent one—no hasty outbursts: “When he was reviled, he did[n’t] revile in return.” He didn’t go down the corridor to the water fountain and find some other person to complain with about Mr. So-and-So or Miss X down in the corner office, but he “continued entrusting himself to [the one] who judges justly.” He is the one—verse 24—says Peter, who is our substitute. He bore our sins so that we might die and that we might be enabled by the Spirit to live to righteousness—that it’s his wounds that provide our healing. “Because, after all,” he says, “we were all like straying sheep, but we’ve now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of our souls.”

Submission in Marriage

Our conduct, first of all, in the realm of civil government; secondly, in the realm of work and household life; and then, thirdly, particularly in the realm of marriage itself.

I use the Anglican prayer book for the marriage ceremony, because it’s so good. And so I know how that goes: It is not to be entered upon lightly or carelessly but thoughtfully, with reverence for God, and so on, because human society can be strong and happy only where the marriage bond is held in honor. Honorable marriages.

Here is an area in which, if we doubt our pilgrimage or our alien citizenship, we will be immediately confronted by it. Because we understand what the Bible makes clear: that it is God’s plan—it’s God’s covenant plan for us as he has made us as men and women—that marriage is a heterosexual, monogamous, lifelong relationship. My using that phrase at a Christian university on the West Coast of America ten years ago resulted in a wholesale walkout by many feminists and, as it turned out, lesbians. I was quoting only out of Ephesians chapter 5. So if you think that there is pressure from the culture to understand the nature of marriage, there is pressure also from a church that has given up on the sufficiency and the integrity of Scripture itself.

And so, when we think about teaching this, as we do, as we face it even now, it’s pretty clear to me that the woman, the man, the woman who bows underneath this direction, lives under the instruction of God’s Word, she should be very, very prepared to brace herself because of the critical response that will come to her in a collapsing culture and, as I say, in many cases, in a confused and compromised church.

The principle of submission seen in civil government and in daily employment is now applied in the context of husband-and-wife relationships. This would be a study all of its own as well. So now you’ll have the CliffsNotes.

First of all, we need to acknowledge that the submission of wives called for here is not akin to the obedience that children owe to parents.

It is submission to their own husbands (you’ll see that in verse 1)—submission to their own husbands, not to all men.

We recognize, too, that we come to it in the awareness that we’re equally made in the imago Dei—that husband and wife are equally created in God’s image, and in Jesus, husband and wife are heirs together of eternal life.

God’s desire for harmony in the home calls for the husband to submit himself under God to the privilege and responsibility of taking the lead. And it seems here that Peter has in mind a situation where the wife has come to faith after marriage. Her husband hasn’t, and she will desire that her husband might become not only a good husband but might become her brother in Christ.

The husband may not simply be indifferent to her; he may be antagonistic towards her. And so the counsel that Peter gives is as follows: If you like, the evangelistic impact, the missionary impact, of that wife in relationship to her husband is not on the basis of preaching, not on the basis of talking, but, once again, on the basis of living. It’s going to be because she lives before him as a good wife. And Peter is actually commending here an approach that arrives at making an impact on her husband not first of all through his ears but through his eyes. Because, again, conduct. The word “conduct” runs through this, and “honor” runs all the way through: “that … they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives, when they see your respectful and pure conduct.” There we’ve got it again.

First that he might see this, and then that he might wonder why it is. Because, presumably, before she was converted, her conduct, her “conversation,”[20] would have been akin to what was going on all around her. He’d be familiar with that. But the visual change that he now begins to see in her and in her demeanor and in her approach to being a wife, that visible change, is on account of an invisible transformation which he doesn’t actually initially understand—that it is an inner disposition that gives rise to the outward display.

And that’s why Peter says, “You shouldn’t really try and put things back together again on the strength of your adornments.” I won’t allow myself a segue here, but I remember as a boy this kind of stuff when I was growing up in Glasgow and the people talking about, “Oh, the braiding of hair!” And the Americans came to Glasgow and these dreadful women that had put their eyebrows together and looked like sensible folks and so on. And I remember big arguments about it, and then, going along with that, you know, “Women should not wear that which pertaineth to a man,”[21] and “‘Pertaineth’!” I always just remember as a boy thinking, “What does ‘pertaineth’ mean?” But then they had these huge arguments because ladies were wearing slacks. (This is a deviation. I shouldn’t have gone there.) But I remember sitting in the thing and thinking, “Well, you’re wearing a kilt, for crying out loud! Where did you come up with this? This is ridiculous!”

The principle is obvious here, isn’t it? Women are bombarded by the advertisers, preoccupied with the external—with jewels, clothes, size, botox. So we must learn to praise our wives, our daughters, our granddaughters for their inner loveliness as we seek to encourage them to understand what it means to become beautiful from the inside out. That’s what he’s saying here.

Now, this gentle and quiet spirit should not be understood as timidity or fearful reserve or affected piety. No! “Well,” you say as you’re reading it, “do you have any examples?” “Oh, yes! he says. “Consider the holy women.” “The holy women.” Sarah was a cover girl. Do you want to be… Yeah, she must have been. Goodness gracious! And just read Genesis. Do you want to be her daughters? Then do what is right. Obey the Scriptures. Trust God, who came up with the design. He knows what’s best! Actually, “Sarah obeyed [him], calling him lord”!

Now, I can’t… People camp on this forever. The naughty part of me says immediately, “Yeah, but that was not all she called him.” And when you go to the section where she calls him lord, she’s laughing![22] She’s laughing in response to the notion that the two of them can get together and enjoy mutual affection in such a way that they will produce an offspring. And so I think when she called him lord, she didn’t say, “Oh, Abraham, my lord.” She says, “Oh, my lord!”

Now, the challenge is phenomenal, isn’t it? Because—and this is a minefield, at least in America—if you do what is right in this realm and in the other realms, you inevitably face disdain, resentment, the cold shoulder. Don’t give way to fear. God’s way is best.

Someone says, “I see what you’re doing. You’re trying to stop so that you don’t have to deal with verse 7.” No, I will deal with verse 7: “Likewise, husbands,” in the same way, “live with your wives in an understanding”—in a consideration of who they are, what they are, what marriage means, in order that you might show honor.

If you do what is right, you inevitably face disdain, resentment, the cold shoulder. Don’t give way to fear. God’s way is best.

Now, if you think that what Peter is saying here is “Be courteous, stand up when she comes into the room, help her to open the jars of pickle,” and so on like that—that is rather trivial. I mean, I think that’s ridiculous, actually. It’s very trivial in light of the far-reaching instruction that’s just been given.

And again, our time goes, but notice: These ladies, our wives, are heirs with us “of the grace of life.” We are to “dwell with them,” to live with them, “according to knowledge,”[23] or “in an understanding way”—to learn how to live with your wives in an understanding of the reality of who and what they are. We lived previously in ignorance—verse 14 of chapter 1. The pagan influences of the world were part and parcel of our lives. But they are now giving way to the love of Jesus. Secular views of marriage are now brought to bow before the truth of the gospel. So we live with our wives in the knowledge of the wonderful provision God has made for us in marriage, in the knowledge of the unique purpose that he has ordained for husband and wife, in the knowledge of what it will be for our wives to live out verses 1–6, in the knowledge of what our wives are by nature and by grace. She is precious.

Question, husbands: How much special care and attention are we presently giving to our wives, in light of who she is both naturally and spiritually? She is “the weaker vessel.” Well, clearly, that does not have to do with intellect. It does not have to do with moral capacity. It does speak to physical constitution. And that’s where there is such a brouhaha about transgender engagement with international sport.

Can I just read… I’ve got limited time. I always say to pastors, young pastors, “Make sure you are reading your Bible, that you are reading the resources that help your Bible, but read widely so that you build a cross-fertilization of understanding of things.” This is a piece—this is fiction, from a book, from a novel. And I wrote it all down because it just jumped at me from the pages. There’s a relationship involved in the book. And this is a soliloquy by the wife. She says,

A real [relationship is] based on trust and understanding, the sharing of little things. Moments of happiness and laughter. Realising that you’ve both had the same thought, or were about to say the same thing. James and I shared nothing … except the same space. And even that, less and less often. I grew to realise that his emotions were without substance. His obsession was with himself, not me. He’d be telling me about some big contract he’d signed, some export deal to the US, and I’d realise he was watching his own reflection in the window as he told me. Playing to his own imagined gallery. Posing for photographs that weren’t being taken. He was in love with the idea of me, but I was just another trophy in a life that was all about him.[24]

Jesus sets us free from that stuff—in the realm of civil government, in the workday relationships, and in our marriages too.

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[1] See Ephesians 2:6.

[2] The Westminster Confession of Faith 13.2.

[3] George Wade Robinson, “I Am His, and He Is Mine” (1876). Lyrics lightly altered.

[4] C. S. Lewis, “Is Theology Poetry?” inThe Weight of Glory and Other Addresses(1949; repr., New York: Harper Collins, 2001), 140. Paraphrased.

[5] Romans 13:12, 14 (ESV).

[6] See Matthew 5:14–16. See also Philippians 2:15.

[7] Titus 2:10 (ESV).

[8] Romans 13:1 (ESV).

[9] Titus 3:1–2 (ESV).

[10] Titus 3:3 (paraphrased).

[11] David F. Wells, Losing Our Virtue: Why the Church Must Recover Its Moral Vision (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 62–64.

[12] Keith Getty and Kristyn Getty, “There Is a Higher Throne” (2002).

[13] Daniel 2:20–21 (ESV).

[14] Jeremiah 29:7 (ESV).

[15] Jeremiah 29:5 (ESV).

[16] Acts 4:19 (paraphrased).

[17] See Ephesians 6:5–8.

[18] Colossians 3:22 (ESV).

[19] Colossians 3:22–24 (ESV).

[20] 1 Peter 3:1 (KJV).

[21] See Deuteronomy 22:5.

[22] See Genesis 18:12.

[23] 1 Peter 3:7 (KJV).

[24] Peter May, Entry Island (London: Quercus, 2014), 67–68.