The Minority Group

As we read Peter's first letter to the church in Asia Minor, we see him taking another page out of his Old Testament book.  Of course,  we know he had a scroll and not a book so maybe it is more accurate to say he borrowed another reference from the sacred writings.  I Peter 2:11 contains the reference, "Beloved, I urge you as aliens and exiles to abstain from the desires of the flesh that war against the soul.  It is a verse that revisits the very first verse of the letter where Peter addressed his letter to "the exiles of the Dispersion..."  Like the ancient Hebrews who lived as exiles and aliens in Egypt and Babylon, so were these early believers identifiable as the different ones.    

Earlier words about being a chosen race and a holy people solidify this image.  Even though they lived in a Gentile community, they were still different.  What made them different was their faith in Christ and their hope and longing for a home which was eternal with God.  They were those who because of their new birth had been given "an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you..."  (I Peter 1:4).  They were a different, set apart people, and though they lived in a culture antagonist to the Christ, they were to walk and live against the grain of that culture in faithfulness to the One who had died for them and called them to faithfulness.    

If anyone doubts the relevance of the Word for today's believers and today's church, they only need consider these words of the Apostle of the Church.   Though we sometimes forget, the Christian community has always been a minority in our culture.  It has been such since Peter's day and it remains the same in our own.  The culture around us to some degree or another has always been antagonistic to Christ and His ways.  One of the real struggles of the church today is to heed the message of Christ instead of living according to the dictates of a culture that calls for the church to blend with the society around it.