The Great Sending, Chapter 41

STUDY 41: The Honor is to You who Believe

pp. 200-202
Reference:  1 Peter 2:4-8            

Reverand Dr. Dale Meyer

Dr. Abjar Bahkou tells about Jason, a committed Christian who witnessed to a Middle Eastern taxi driver.

Jason’s witness fell flat. The reason why is important as God wills the Missio Dei to come to us and go through us to others.

Jason failed at his witnessing because he used our normal way of presenting Jesus, that Jesus earned forgiveness for our sins. This is a Jesus we have come to know through regular church attendance and through reading the Bible. There is right and wrong. There is sin and punishment. But thank God! Jesus offers us forgiveness!

You are familiar with this way of presenting the Gospel because you’re a product of western culture. But the taxi driver, like an increasing number of Americans, see life in terms of shame and honor, rather than in terms of sin and forgiveness.

In her book, Dare to Lead, Brené Brown writes, “The majority of shame researchers and clinicians agree that the difference between shame and guilt is best understood as the difference between ‘I am bad’ and ‘I did something bad.’ Guilt = I did something bad. Shame = I am bad” (128).

First Peter was written to people who knew shame. Many recipients of the epistle were Jewish Christians. Romans lumped Christians into their snobbery about Jews, judging them a superstitious people with strange customs. When many Jews and Christians refused to participate in some civic functions and revelries (such as sacrifices to the emperor and wild partying), the Romans were suspicious that these strange people were undermining society’s common good. Some Christians were lowly slaves (2:18). Some were believing wives who flaunted their husbands’ authority by becoming Christian, which raised eyebrows (3:1-6). And few of these dishonored believers had rights, because they weren’t Roman citizens. They knew shame!

Shame was an inroad for Peter to encourage these Christians, because their Lord Jesus himself experienced shame. “As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ,” Peter wrote. “For it stands in Scripture: ‘Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.’ So the honor is for you who believe” (2:4-7).

Do we minimize forgiveness in witness to people from different cultures? No. Shame and honor easily relate to the forgiveness of sin, which indeed is the heart of biblical faith. When you honor God, you’ll seek to obey Him. When you dishonor God, you’ll disobey His commandments. You’ll sin and you’ll need forgiveness. How rich the fullness of the Gospel!

Jason discovered that. Awareness of shame and honor can enhance our faith and witness to Jesus.