So I'm studying 1 Peter 3:8-12 over break. 1 Peter itself was a letter written during the reign of Nero to scattered Christians. The theme of this particular passage is unity, and it's interesting to think of unity in the context of persecution.
Remember September 11th?
Not just the tragedy - but the EFFECTS of the tragedy.
There was POLITICAL unity.
There was RELIGIOUS unity.
There was FAMILIAL unity.
There was NATIONAL unity.
Now, I'm not saying that September was necessarily a day of "persecution" in the strictest sense. However, it was definitely a hard time - a time of fear, pain, and sadness. But the unity that came out of that day was short lived. Why? There's a simple explanation...
America as a nation is NOT the body of Christ. Believers are the body of Christ - those who put their faith and trust in Christ alone and follow Him with their entire existence.
If believers are called to unity (1 Peter 3:8-12), then why do we struggle so much with it here in America?
Answer: No persecution.
Am I limb crawling here or not?
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Unity in the church in the United States is absent, primarily, because those who have sought it have most often done so by trying to base it on some kind of enforced unity of doctrine.
But our unity is not properly based on the agreement of our doctrinal statements. Instead, our unity as believers is properly based on one thing: whether we are truly spiritually alive and therefore have the same Father in heaven. If we are spiritually alive, then we have been born by God from above into His family as his children. Now, that doesn't mean that we will agree about doctrine by any means -- any more than all the family members who gathered yesterday for Thanksgiving dinner agreed about politics. But just as political disagreements among family members are (usually) incapable of destroying the family bond, so also the doctrinal disagreements among believers who have truly been born from above are (or, at least should be) incapable of destroying our unity as a family. Too often, however, we invert these things, and allow the doctrinal wars to subvert our unity in Christ. This is not what Jesus prayed for in John 17.
-KSL
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