COV LIFE BLOG

1 Peter 1:1-2 – Strangers and Exiles On Earth

All those who really have faith in Jesus Christ are ‘strangers’; scattered throughout the world, and dwelling dispersedly in an order of things to which they do not belong, ‘seeking a city which hath foundations.’ The word ‘strangers’ means, originally, persons for a time living in an alien city. And that is the idea that the Apostle would impress upon us as true for each of us, in the measure in which our Christianity is real.

If we are strangers, … let us live by our own country’s laws, and not by the codes that are current in this foreign land where we are settled for a time.… It will be well for us Christian people if men look at us, and say, ‘Ah, that man has another rule of conduct from the one that prevails generally. I wonder what is the underlying principle of his life; it evidently is not the same as mine.’

Live by our King’s law. People in our colonies, at least the officials, set wonderful store by the approbation of the Colonial Office at home. It does not matter what the colonial newspapers say, it is ‘what will they say in Downing Street?’ And if a dispatch goes out approving of their conduct, neighbours may censure and sneer as they list. So we Christians have to report to Home, and have so to live ‘that whether present or absent’ — in a colony or in the mother country — ‘we may be well pleasing unto Him.’

Keep up the honour and advance the interests of your own country. You are here, among other reasons, to represent your King, and people take their notions of Him very considerably from their experience of you. So see to it that you live like the Master whom you say you serve.

The Russian Government sends out what are called military colonies, studded along the frontier, with the one mission of extending the empire. We are set along the frontier with the same mission. The strangers are scattered. Congested, they would be less useful; dispersed, they may push forward the frontiers. Seed in a seed-basket is not in its right place; but sown broadcast over the field, it will be waving wheat in a month or two. ‘Ye are the salt of the earth’ — salt is sprinkled over what it is intended to preserve. You are the strangers of the Dispersion, that you may be the messengers of the Evangelisation.

Alexander MacLaren

---

SCRIPTURES FOR THIS SUNDAY
Read 1 Peter 1:1-2 and consider how we are aliens in the world in which we currently live. If then, this world is not your home, how does this impact your perspectives, your passions, your schedule, your pursuit of Christ, and everything in life?

SONG FOR THIS WEEK
Before the Throne of God Above by Charitie Bancroft