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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. |
Bible Question:
The problem of injustice persists, and no doubt merits some attention. Many Christians experience injustice and have had difficulty in responding to it. Peter seems to be saying (1 Peter 2:19) that we should take it patiently. Moreover, it is not only deserved punishment that must be taken patiently but also suffering that has not been earned. (See v. 20). One may suffer patiently for having done good deeds. That may include situations where one is prosecuted, or otherwise persecuted, for preaching the Gospel. But what when one is innocent, having broken no laws? What when one is falsely accused or punished without due process of law? It is probably true that some people in every society experience injustice. For some, it is systematic and continual. For some, it is occasional, and they may seek clarification by consulting legal experts. Sometimes legal experts offer their assistance in an attempt to right the wrong. How are the children of God to respond when they think they are victims of injustice? There may well be different opinions, and this may depend in part on the extent to which one has suffered from injustice. Please share from the Scriptures rather than from personal experience. Is it always appropriate to identify with our Lord Jesus Christ in his trial and to suffer, simply committing ourselves (as in 1 Peter 2:23) to our God who judges righteously? Does scripture ever require or allow for any alternative or additional responses? |
Bible Answer: Waiting for an answer, as to what can be done about injustice, and waiting for justice, are alike, both painful processes. One is interested in what the brethren think, and what God feels, and thinks, as he looks on. “Our transgressions are multiplied …, and our sins testify against us: for our transgressions are with us; and as for our iniquities, we know them; … “Judgment is turned away backward, and justice standeth afar off: for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter. “Yea, truth faileth; and he that departeth from evil maketh himself a prey: and the LORD saw it, and it displeased him that there was no judgment“ (Isaiah 59). The sight of injustice may arouse our emotions. It may arouse the most common feeling, fear. It may give rise to anger or, as has been suggested, angst. Or it may leave us apathetic. As always with God, there are choices, and for our choices there are consequences. When we see injustice, we can ignore it. But the Lord says, “He that departeth from evil maketh himself a prey“. In other words, “Those who turn away from evil make themselves victims”. (GW). We should think about that. We can condemn it. The Lord says, “Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and shew my people their transgression”. But showing God’s people their transgression can but much like placing a picture before a blind man. The psychologists call it denial, but it seems we need a stronger word. A brother protested to me recently that there is no prejudice in the church, in America. One who complained about a young man being denied an opportunity to use his gifts in the church was described as “envious”. One man took another man’s wife, and they both continued in the church. The one who lifted his voice to “cry aloud” was taken aside and counseled to be quiet. We can work against it. But then the pronoun “we” is hardly apt, for such a person often has to do that work alone. One may feel quite the Lord’s man then, and identify with the Lord himself, for it is he who “saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor: therefore his arm brought salvation unto him; and his righteousness, it sustained him“ (Isaiah 59:17). Of course, we can continue doing as we are doing now. That might include one of the choices mentioned above, but it could be otherwise. I am not sure whether an “intercessor” in this case is one who prays or one who takes some action, intervening. Either way, the Lord looked and wondered, because there was no intercessor. There was no one who prayed, and there was no one who did anything, about injustice. So he took action himself. It is in that vein that he said: “The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; “To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn; “To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he might be glorified“ (Isaiah 61). That is what Jesus did when he was here. He did not only speak it; he also did it. He began to say unto them, “This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears” (Luke 4:21). What a message! And what a program of liberation! And as he was leaving he said, “He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father“ (John 14:12). We are here now. We are his body. We are to do his work. And one of his apostles said, “Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world” (James 1:27). This does not suggest that we attempt to fix things in the world. We preach the Gospel and call people out of the world and into the church. Then we should do what we can to ensure that there is justice, if not in the world, then surely in the church; if not for ourselves, then surely for our brethren, in the church. |