Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human authority: whether to the emperor, as the supreme authority, or to governors, who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to commend those who do right.
1 Peter 2:13-14 (NIV)
For the Lord’s Sake
The watch came out of a drawer with a dead battery and a scratched crystal, and the boy who brought it in couldn’t decide whether asking if it was worth fixing would come out rude. He is fifteen. He says sir twice in one sentence, laughs a beat late at a joke about the strap, and has no idea where to put his hands while the back of the case comes off.
The people this letter went to lived as foreigners and exiles, with neighbors accusing them of doing wrong. Peter told them to live such good lives among the pagans that the accusation would come apart on its own. Into that situation: “Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human authority: whether to the emperor, as the supreme authority, or to governors, who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to commend those who do right.”
The boy’s sir is nerves. He’d say it to anyone older holding a tool he can’t name, it costs him nothing, and by next year he’ll have dropped it. Peter asks something harder of people with very little power, foreigners and exiles whose neighbors are already accusing them, and the reason he gives them is the Lord’s own sake. The emperor gets a title in that sentence and no character reference. The governors get a job description and no promise that any of them will live up to it.
Peter asks four things at once: show proper respect to everyone, love the family of believers, fear God, honor the emperor. Fear goes to God. The emperor gets honor, and Peter picked a different word for him on purpose.
This passage doesn’t ask anyone to endure abuse. Peter goes on to speak to slaves about masters who are harsh, so he writes with his eyes open about how bad authority can get, and a person in danger is free to leave and free to ask for help.
Most of the authority in an ordinary life wears no title that size. It’s a shift supervisor, or a woman at a counter who decides whether your form goes through today or in three weeks. For the Lord’s sake has to survive that counter.
Whose face came up while you were reading every human authority, and what would for the Lord’s sake cost you with that person this week?
A Prayer to Remember
I have a case built against someone who has authority over me, God, and I add to it on the drive home most nights. Show me what for your sake would look like inside that building tomorrow morning. I don’t know yet whether I’ll do it.
In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.
