In spite of what they say about us, our lives must give a different message. They should see: works of compassion and kindness, genuineness has already been mentioned, humility, conscientiousness and honesty in your work. You are scrupulously chaste; they observe that and it makes its impression. You are unselfish and always helpful. Your good works do not just happen to be noticed; they are observed. You are like a play being enacted in the office, in the work place, in the college, wherever it is. People are looking at you as though they have come and paid something in order to do just that. We learn from this that our behaviour in society at large, and are courtesy and our self-control, is a powerful witness. Obviously the contrary is true: that our failure in self-control and in speech and courtesy is against the testimony, and discredits our claims as children of God.
Sadly, people can sometimes look at us and we give them an excuse for their unbelief and for their rebellion, when they see the things we are capable of and the things sometimes we do and how short tempered we might be. Of course, you can see why we have to be so patient; not always standing on our rights; not always defending ourselves and insisting that we are perfectly and properly treated. Of course, it is a very good thing that in today’s society we do have rights and there are times when you must really utilise those rights. They are given to you in the work place, but you mustn’t be a person who is for ever griping, who can’t take anything. That is no good for your testimony, because we are called here to be as tolerant and patient as we can possibly, reasonably be and that is right. You are not like a slave in ancient times. He was stuck with a despotic master. Nowadays we can change our employment. There are certain things we can do, we don’t have to suffer half as much as Christians in ages gone by, but we must be as tolerant, as patient, as absorbing of wrong as we reasonably can.
I remember somebody telling me once that he’d been in his job, his office for about 15 years before he discovered, before it was told him, what was said about him, what was regularly and frequently gossiped. He’d had no idea, that this is how people looked at him, that things had been said and they’d been believed, it had gone round and so on, but it turned out that in that place there were several people saved through his testimony. They could see that his behaviour, as they observed it, was quite different from his reputation and it spoke to them and here we are reading about this very kind of thing.
Peter here uses extraordinary terms for this – ‘which they shall behold’. Now, it doesn’t come through so strongly in the English but there are a great many ways of saying behold or observe in the original Greek. The word chosen here, which is used again in chapter 3 and verse 2 is behold as a spectator may behold something, someone observing the games, or some piece of drama, and he gives it his undivided attention and he watches with great fascination and interest: this is the word which is used.