(Photo by lhon karwan on Unsplash.)
Dr Jillian Spencer is a senior child and adolescent psychiatrist in Brisbane with 20 years’ experience. In 2022, while working at Queensland Children’s Hospital, she raised concerns that distressed children as young as twelve were being fast-tracked towards irreversible medical interventions without proper assessment. She objected to being directed to use children’s preferred pronouns and to refer them to the gender clinic. A complaint followed. She was stood down, faced show-cause notices and investigations, and her professional standing was put at risk. In July this year the health department settled, reinstated her, and acknowledged that her concerns were well motivated and grounded in professional experience. A good outcome, but at the cost of years out of work, professional attacks, personal slander and legal fees.
Sometimes doing the right thing costs. Dr Spencer hasn’t spoken publicly about faith, but it isn’t hard to imagine a Christian in her place. The Human Rights Law Alliance has collected many Australian stories of people who have lost work or study because of their convictions. Most of us will face smaller tests: insisting on financial integrity when the business wants to cut corners, speaking up for someone being mocked in the group chat, owning up to a mistake when it will cost a friendship.
In 1 Peter 2, the apostle speaks directly to this.
Starting with slaves
In 1 Peter 2:18–25 Peter addresses household slaves. They had no legal standing and no recourse against harsh treatment. Greek and Roman moralists wrote advice on living well in the household and the city, but never addressed slaves. Slaves weren’t considered moral agents; they simply did as they were told.
Peter not only speaks to slaves, he begins his household instructions with them – and says nothing to masters. He knows slaves bear God’s image, have been redeemed by Christ, and need to know how to live for God as much as anyone. More than that, he holds them up as the example. All Christians are “God’s slaves” (2:16) and can face unjust accusations (2:12) and abuse for doing good (4:4). What Peter says to slaves he says to everyone: “it is better, if it is God’s will, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil” (3:17). Where pagan culture had nothing to say to slaves, the gospel makes them the model disciple.
Submit, do good, suffer patiently
Peter’s instruction has three strands. First, slaves are to submit to their masters, “not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh.” Submission isn’t earned by the one in authority; it flows from how God has ordered the world (2:13). That cuts against our instinct for autonomy.
Second, they are to do good. Peter assumes that cooking, cleaning, keeping accounts and tutoring children is good work that blesses the household. That dignifies all ordinary work.
Third, they are to endure when doing good meets harsh treatment. There is no credit in being punished for doing wrong (v. 20), and Christians should be honest enough to ask whether our “persecution” is really the result of our own folly. But in a world disordered by sin, good deeds often attract retribution. Peter’s answer is endure, don’t retaliate, don’t curse, trust God. This isn’t being a doormat. Paul appealed to his rights as a citizen (Acts 22). There are moments to protest or appeal. Yet often unjust suffering can’t be avoided, we bear it patiently. We follow Christ and not retaliate. We don’t turn the oppressor into our enemy.
Why live this way?
Peter gives three reasons. First, the fear of God (v. 18). We live before a God who sees, cares and judges justly. It isn’t all up to us.
Second, we follow Jesus, who “committed no sin” yet was betrayed, mocked, beaten and crucified. “When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly” (v. 23).
Third, his suffering was not only an example but our salvation: “He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness” (v. 24). We were saved to live his way in his world.
A subversive revolution
Douglas Harink observes that this passage brings a deeper revolution than law or politics can achieve. It is realistic about injustice yet subverts it by treating slaves as exemplary Christians with dignity and agency. It calls every Christian not to stand on our rights but to do good in humility. In his words, “The seeds of the reign of God in history are sown in self-subordinating, self-offering service.”
We all face times when we do the right thing and get hurt for it. When you respond Jesus’s way, you live out God’s coming kingdom of justice.
Quotation from Douglas Harink, 1 and 2 Peter (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2009). Scripture quotations from the NIV. This post follows a sermon John McClean preached on 1Peter 2:18–25, adapted from his notes with the assistance of an AI tool (Claude, by Anthropic). The author takes full responsibility for the content.
