The Church is strongest when humility, tenderness, and mercy become its language in a hostile world.
1 Peter 3:8-9 8 Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind. 9Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless, for to this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing.
After instructing servants, wives, and husbands in their respective callings, Peter turns to the church in general. His appeal is simple but crucial: be of one mind. Such a command seems impossible to obey now considering the overwhelming number of Christian denominations totalling to over 45,000 globally. But this goes beyond having a unanimity of opinion. It has more to do with having a deep harmony of spirit.
This unity can only be achieved through sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and humility. To have sympathy means to have a shared emotion with another, particularly in the context of suffering. In the Greco-Roman world, it meant suffering or feeling with others within the same community, including martyr groups, where everyone “felt with” everybody even unto death. It means to enter the joys and sorrows of a brother or sister as though they were your own.
Joined to this is brotherly love, which is deeply associated with family loyalty, affection, and mutual protection. The church today has to function as a genuine kinship group marked by emotional attachment and tangible support as it had in its early years. For that to take place, believers must love with a tender heart, a deep compassion expressed through a warm and visceral concern for others, especially those who belong to the household of faith.
To crown these virtues is humility, a posture that is as radically countercultural today as it was in the ancient world. However, while humility is taken for granted in modern society, in ancient times, it was associated with lower social status or shame. Yet, early Christians embraced it because Jesus Himself did. To have a humble mind means to refuse to struggle for honor or threaten another’s position. It means yielding your rights for the good of the church of Christ.
Peter then turns outward by commanding his readers not to repay evil for evil but to bless those who persecute them. Social survival has always depended on immediate retaliation even today. But with Christ as our model, we are not to arm ourselves with a quick and clever insult to defend our honor. Instead, we are to bless and speak well of those who wrong us. To do all these things in the face of dishonor is weakness in the standards of the world but in the kingdom of God, it is triumph.
Lord, shape my heart with the unity of mind, compassion, and humility that reflect the beauty of Christ. Teach me to bless when wronged, that my life may display the triumph of Your kingdom over the ways of this world.
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