“Servants, be subject to your masters.”

1 Peter 2.18-25.

So here’s a passage which has been regularly misinterpreted and abused by people who want employees, subordinates, “servants,” and slaves to unquestioningly obey their masters. Whenever they wanted a proof text that’d get people to shut up and permit their own exploitation, they’d quote 1 Peter, and claim Simon Peter endorses their despotism. After all, the word the KJV translates “master” in verse 18 is literally δεσπόταις/despótes… so apparently Peter was fully aware these people were living under tyrants, and it was okay with him.

It wasn’t, and I’ll explain. First, the passage.

1 Peter 2.18-25 KWL

18Those of a household submitting

in all fear, to the boss—

not only to the good and reasonable bosses,

but also the crooked ones—

19this receives grace,

if it’s because of an awareness of God

when someone who is wrongfully suffering

undergoes grief.

20For how is it glory

if sinners will undergo being beaten?

But if do-gooders will undergo suffering,

this receives grace from God.

21For this is why you² are called;

for Christ also suffers for you² all,

leaving you² an example

so you² might follow his steps—

22Christ who “doesn’t sin,

nor is deceit found in his mouth.” Is 53.9

23Christ who, being disrespected, doesn’t disrespect back;

suffering, doesn’t threaten back;

he yields to the Righteous Judge.

24Christ who “bears our sins himself,” Is 53.4

in his body, on the wooden cross,

so people, dying to our sins,

might live for righteousness.

“You’re² cured by his wounds.” Is 53.5

25You’re² “like straying sheep,” Is 53.6

but now you² return to the shepherd,

and the supervisor of your² souls.

We have to remember there’s a cultural context Simon Peter is dealing with. He didn’t write to the 21st-century United States; and if you’re not from the States he didn’t write to you either. His letter was for first-century eastern Romans. These people practiced a form of patriarchy—the paterfamilias, the head of the family, functioned like the king of the family, and largely had the power of life and death over everyone in it.

Obviously this includes slaves, but you might not be aware it also includes kids: Roman fathers could kill their children. Yes, this includes their adult children. Not for just any reason; he had to justify it to Roman society, but there were many reasons Romans would consider totally valid, such as defying or shaming one’s parents. Yep: Embarrass your dad, and he might have you whacked.

If you’ve ever seen movies and TV about Italian organized crime, like The Godfather or The Sopranos, there are a lot of similarities; these mobsters like to imagine themselves as modern-day Romans, and deliberately mimic Roman patriarchy. So, much like you can’t easily extract yourself from a mob entanglement, it was extremely hard to get out from under a Roman patriarch.

Trapped in your circumstances.

Nowadays if we have an employer we can’t stand, we quit. That’s usually why we quit. People can put up with lousy jobs when we have benevolent bosses. And if we really like the job, sometimes we’ll tolerate a lousy boss. But in every other situation, people quit bosses more so than they quit jobs. If your workplace has a lot of turnover, it’s nearly always because the leadership sucks. Leaders might complain, “Nobody wants to work anymore!”—but no, nobody wants to work for you.

Whereas in Peter’s time, you had no such options. Family can’t leave. Slaves can’t leave. Freemen could, but unless they held leadership positions in the household—butlers and accountants and overseers—they weren’t considered οἰ οἰκέται/i ikéte, “the [people of the] household.” If you can leave, you’re not in the household.

So if you wanna use this passage to talk about present-day bosses and employees, it doesn’t always work. Maybe employees who are under contract, who can’t easily quit; maybe members of the military, who’d go to prison if they went AWOL. Maybe family members who stand to inherit the family business, who don’t wanna pooch their inheritance. That’s about it. You gotta be bound to your job—in a way where you can’t escape a lousy boss, no matter how much you badly wanna. When those are your circumstances, then Peter’s speaking about you.

When those are your circumstances, you often live in fear of your boss. Some bibles are gonna render this “in reverent fear,” because φόβῳ/fóvo, “in fear,” can in certain contexts also mean “in respect.” But when you’ve got a lousy boss whom you can’t escape, ain’t no respect involved. It’s just fear. Such bosses can make your life hell if they so chose. You’re trying to avoid that!

Again, I remind you ὑποτασσόμενοι/ypotassómeni, “submitting,” in the scriptures doesn’t mean an unquestioning, blind obedience. It means taking someone else into consideration. You can’t obey an evil command—same as American soldiers are forbidden to obey an unlawful command, even when it comes from the president himself. Same as the last passage, Peter isn’t instructing Christians to obey evildoers! But we do have to be mindful of them when we live under their authority. We have to avoid unnecessarily upsetting them. They can’t always kill us like a paterfamilias might… but for an awful lot of human history, people have lived under tyrannical kings, dictators, and even local big-shots, who could easily have people killed. And if we foolishly elect leaders of low character who would love to become tyrants, we may very well fall back into those times.

Grace to the sufferers.

Abusive people will claim this passage actually justifies living in abusive situations. I’ve heard Bill Gothard, among others, claim that if you’re a kid with abusive parents, you gotta suck it up and take their abuse, because God will bless you for honoring your father and your mother—and this passage supports that “biblical principle.”

And no it does not. If you have abusive parents, call the cops. Demand protective custody. Call the press if the cops are no help. Make noise. It wasn’t right for patriarchs to kill their children back then, and it’s not right for parents to abuse their children today. Society rightly doesn’t tolerate the things ancient Romans and Jews put up with, largely because of 20 centuries of Christianity teaching us to do better and be better, because Jesus expects better. Whenever a Christian preacher claims abuse is a biblical principle, get away from that preacher! They’re ignoring the Holy Spirit, so it only right you ignore them—for your spiritual safety as well as your physical safety.

But if you’re in a scenario where there’s legitimately no way out—you’re in prison and there’s a hostile prison guard, or you’re under contract and your boss is a jerk—when you take these people into consideration, and try to follow God regardless, God grants us grace. Verse 19 literally says τοῦτο χάρις.túto háris, “this [is] grace.” (When there’s no verb in the sentence, we usually presume the verb is “is.”) I went with “receives” because I don’t want people to get the wrong idea: This rotten situation isn’t grace. Grace comes despite the rotten situation.

And yeah, I’ve heard people claim otherwise. They think the suffering is a form of grace—that God’s permitted, even created, a horrifying situation so that we can suffer, ’cause he knows it’ll build character. Plenty of people justify all sorts of horrors and miseries for this very reason: “It builds character! I went through that, and now I’m a stronger person.” Yeah, you might be a stronger person—but other people went through the same thing, and it broke them. Even killed them.

In reality, suffering can build evil character, same as good. I’ve met plenty of people who went through a rough time, and came out of it angry, bitter, vengeful, spiteful, furious at God and everyone. Plenty of people lose their faith because of suffering—“What kind of benevolent God would let anyone undergo that?”—and defy God ever after, to the bitter end. Certain Christian determinists insist God’s behind all the suffering in the world, because they think it’s all part of his cosmic plan, and I don’t agree with them whatsoever; it’s not biblical.

The Holy Spirit, not suffering, builds good character and grows good fruit. And he doesn’t need suffering to do this! He builds it in spite of suffering. In fact God would much prefer we not have to learn it the hard way by suffering the consequences of our actions, or the consequences of the world’s sins. But when we suffer—’cause we will; it’s the world we live in—God’s grace is here for us. God provides grace.

Verse 20 points out God’s grace is properly for people suffering undeserved consequences. If the boss is coming down hard on you because you’re lazy, or stole something, or you’re disruptive, or a jerk, the boss isn’t a tyrant; the boss is right. And I’ve known plenty of Christian jerks who were simply awful employees. Likewise people who will willfully, gleefully break the law, then when they get caught, tried, and fined or imprisoned, try to make themselves out to be martyrs who are suffering so much—but they’re getting by, ’cause Jesus is with them. Yeah, they all look ridiculous.

Yes, God is a loving Father, and will still be with them even though they’re playing the fool. But “how is it glory?” 1Pe 2.20 Christ Jesus’s self-sacrifice was glorious, but that’s only because he didn’t deserve it. And, as Peter points out, we oughta follow his example. If we suffer, suffer like Jesus.