Yearly Archive: 2009

Be different? Stop doing what I used to do?

I wonder how many people in the first century got more than a little upset with Peter. They were probably mad at Paul and John as well, but here'they are thing "my 'bud' telling me to stop hanging out with my old crowd." Actually telling me "Enough already!"

What we have to remember is that he was talking to people that were living outside their original world. They were probably just like us – high school and college friends to party with. Frequent trips to the clubs or resorts. Maybe even some "Spring Break" antics.

But there it is, "they should be surprised that you are not running with them." He even makes it clear, that by being different, they (your old friends) are going to make fun of you. They will hurl names and insults at you for not being like you used to be.

His encouragement is that we "have had enought time of all that stuff," and we need to move on and be different.

How different? Different enough so that it is impossible for everyone not to see it.

Sometimes, what we read in the Bible is very clear. Other times, it's as clear as mud. We tend to get hung up on those unclear passages and get trapped in the mud.

If you have never lived where there were dirt roads, you can't understand that logic. Dirt roads without gravel were traps. You had to learn to drive in the ruts left by vehicles that had preceded you. Hopefully one of those vehicle was a truck. That was because the bottom of the rut was more firm – you could keep driving. It was when you got out of the rut that you got stuck in the mud.[more]

Once stuck in the mud, it was a chore to "rock" your vehicle just so that your tires found something to grab on and allow you to get back in the rut. I remember one night when my grandmother was driving through my home town in Oklahome and she veered out of the rut. That red clay soil was at time like ice or snow. Two kids under 10 were no real help in getting "unstuck", and so she left the car sitting there in the middle of the street with the lights on, and we walked to the house in the rut.

That could happen to us here in First Peter at the end of Chapter three. I don't understand it, and won't get caught up in trying to figure out what he is saying. The answer will come when I meet Peter and can ask him face-to-face just what he meant. Until then, I will just keep reading. Don't want to get stuck in the mud.