‘You are called to this’, says Peter. ‘Oh no,’ we say, ‘I was called to salvation. I was called to eternal life. I was called to repentance and faith, and to walk with God; not to have to take unreasonable behaviour from superiors, so-called, and employers. When I was saved, there was no mention of attitude to employers.’ ‘Yes, there was’, says Peter. Certainly you called to salvation: to wait for Christ, and to make heaven your hope. You were called to learning and instruction about the living God, to understand the deep things of God, to feed your soul and your mind on limitless truth, every day of your life. But you were also called to obey lawful authorities, and to be a good and conscientious employee. How so? Well, we heard the message of salvation, but there’s something more. We see what he suffered wrongfully on behalf of others. And in that precious hour when we were saved, we saw Christ and we would do anything for him. We would have taken any hardship for him. It was part of your calling. You just knew when you were saved that this is the sort of person you should be: obedient to him out of conscience, out of a sense of duty to him, to accept any amount of reviling, any amount of scorn, any amount of contempt for his sake, and you would do it. As time went by, it slipped out of our minds. As time went by, we began to get prickly once again, and we began to resent being ill-treated, and to shy away from the possibility of being scorned for Christ’s sake, but it was part of our calling – a call to even accept poor treatment and hardship.
How do you look at strikes? Well you have a right to strike these days. But Christians have to think very long and hard, and prayerfully. Perhaps if it is something very just. There is some terrible wrong that has been done. Yes, they may be a just cause, but is it for more my comfort? Is it for more spending power? Well I’m far from starving. Is this something we can do, and at the same time obey God? How far will we go?
Suffering is inevitable if the Christian does not hide his light from the world. Those addressed here were particularly vulnerable to persecution of this sort, and if their masters were unjust they would use their greater influence and power to tell themselves that they acted reasonably. Patience is sometimes needed for prolonged periods, but if God leaves us in the furnace for a while, it does not mean that he loves us any the less. No one can patiently put up with wrongs and injustice who does not hope that the truth will in the end come to light. We are so constituted that we would despair otherwise. Only the Christian can look beyond the present world with perfect calm to a reward that will come from God after death. The real strength is in Christ who led the way before us.