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NASB | 1 Peter 2:19 For this finds favor, if for the sake of conscience toward God a person bears up under sorrows when suffering unjustly. |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | 1 Peter 2:19 For this finds favor, if a person endures the sorrow of suffering unjustly because of an awareness of [the will of] God. |
Subject: What's the proper response to injustice? |
Bible Note: Every word of God is pure (Proverbs 30) and surely there is pure honey, and dynamite too, in Matthew 10:16. Jesus told the apostles, “Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves“, and I think we can relate that to problem of injustice. Let me do it this way. Let us say it takes wisdom to go into a world of wicked men with the Gospel, for all men have not faith (2 Thessalonians 3:2). As a wolf tears a sheep, so wicked men can hurt you (1 Corinthians 15:32). One must be wise. But consider what happens when that wolf puts on sheep’s clothing, and you cannot tell by outward appearance that he is a wolf (Matthew 7:15). It takes wisdom. Consider what happens when those wolves have come into the church (as in Acts 20:29 and 2 Peter 2:12)! Now, what if those wolves dispense justice in the church? What when they pervert justice? Is the church then to bear with it, or to root it out? There was injustice in the early church, and “there arose a murmuring of the Grecians against the Hebrews, because their widows were neglected in the daily ministration“. The questions I have are these: Should the Grecians have murmured? Or should they have suffered themselves to be defrauded (as in 1 Corinthians 6:7)? And there is injustice in the church today. I hope all who read this would consider that these are not theoretical questions. I am aware of the way that people are treated in church, and the complaints sometimes come into my ears. My impression is that most people bear with it. Otherwise they move to another church, or they forsake the assembling of themselves together. And I am pondering this today, unsure of what’s to be done. The problem is everywhere. It is in society. Nonbelievers encounter it. Believers encounter it as they live their ordinary quiet lives, and as they present the Gospel. That latter situation is probably where we need the wisdom of serpents most, and the harmlessness of doves. But we need wisdom to face injustice in the church as well, and for me the question is urgent. As Peter would say (4:17) “The time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God“. |