Audio Transcript
“Do what’s right and nobody gets hurt” sounds like a scene in a bank heist. If you do what is right, you will not feel pain. That’s a message we are given all the time from the world around us. It drives a lot of social conformity and virtue signaling, I fear. Do what’s right and say what’s right — conform to an expectation — and you won’t get hurt. But is that equation true for Christians?
We’re reading 1 Peter together in the second half of this month. It’s a gritty, practical book that answers a lot of the key questions to the challenges of the Christian life. And there Peter says, “If you do good, no one will harm you,” which is great news. Until a few verses later when he reverses this and says the exact opposite: “You will be harmed for doing good.” So, what is it? Today on Ask Pastor John: Do good people get hurt?
It’s a thoughtful question from Matthew. “Pastor John, thank you for the Ask Pastor John podcast! Several verses in 1 Peter don’t make sense to me when I place them side by side. The big problem text for me is 1 Peter 3:13, where Peter asks a rhetorical question: ‘Now who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good?’ On the face of it, this seems to promise that nobody in society will harm us if we pursue goodness.
“However, Peter repeatedly contradicts this. First Peter 2:20 says, ‘If when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God.’ And he says, ‘Even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you will be blessed’ in 1 Peter 3:14. A couple verses later he warns that people will ‘revile your good behavior’ (1 Peter 3:16). And in 1 Peter 4:19 he explicitly commands believers to suffer according to God’s will ‘while doing good.’ So, how do you reconcile all this with 1 Peter 3:13? And the bigger question in my mind: Does Peter affirm or deny that this world is more inclined to harm us precisely because we pursue righteousness?”
This is an incredibly good example of what to do when you’re reading along in the Bible, and you think you’ve caught the drift of an author’s meaning, and suddenly you bump into a sentence that seems utterly out of step with almost everything you’ve been reading.
So, what do you do? I suppose if you are a brand-new believer, or maybe a nominal believer, or you’re just bumping into the Bible for the first time, and you have zero confidence in the biblical authors — that they’re inspired or even that they’re reasonable — you might just throw up your hands and say, “These guys can’t think straight. I’m done with the Bible.” You might do that. I think that would be like a novice mountain climber hiring a thirty-year veteran Sherpa to help him climb Mount Everest. And after two hours into the first day, the path leads smack into a sheer vertical rock face, and the beginner concludes, “Well, I guess this guy doesn’t know how to find his way up the mountain” — as if a beginner should pass judgment on a thirty-year veteran two hours into the first climb. That’s not wise.
What do you do? Because we just ran into a vertical rock face. I mean, this is a smack-dab obstacle.
Persecuted for Good?
First Peter 3:13 says, “Now who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good?” Now, that’s a rhetorical question, meaning it expects the reader to give the answer. And what answer would you give? Well, it sure sounds like the answer should be “nobody.” Who is there to harm you if you’re zealous for what is good? It sounds like the answer should be “nobody.”
But the very next verse — I mean, not like two chapters away but a half an inch, the very next verse — says, “But even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you will be blessed” (1 Peter 3:14). Now maybe a sharp-eyed reader would say, “Oh, I see. You won’t suffer for doing good, but you might suffer for being righteous.” Because that’s the distinction between those two verses. There might be a difference between being good (“You won’t suffer for being good”) and being righteous (“You might suffer for being righteous”). Because in Romans 5:7, Paul makes that distinction. He says, “One will scarcely die for a righteous person — though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die.” So, maybe Peter is saying, “If you’re a good person, nobody will harm you. And if you’re just a righteous rule keeper, then they might harm you.”
“When you do good, God’s eyes are on you. His ears are open to your prayer. His face is against your adversaries.”
That won’t work, because two verses later Peter says, “Those who revile your good behavior . . . may be put to shame” (1 Peter 3:16). People do revile good behavior, not just righteous behavior. They persecute not just righteous people but good people — people with good, heartfelt, kindly behavior. This is the same as in 1 Peter 2:20: “When you do good and suffer for it,” he says. So, Peter’s not just saying, “You might get persecuted for being righteous. You won’t get persecuted for being good.” Yes, you will. You will. So, what do you do?
Well, here’s my suggestion for how to get close to Peter’s intention in verse 13: “Who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good?” And I want to pay really close attention to the immediate context.
Sovereign Wisdom
And in the immediate context, first, the preceding three verses (1 Peter 3:10–12), Peter quotes Psalm 34:12–16, and this is what leads up to verse 13. Who’s going to harm you? Here’s what it says:
Whoever desires to love life
and see good days,
let him keep his tongue from evil
and his lips from speaking deceit;
let him turn away from evil and do good. (1 Peter 3:10–11)
Now, that’s the link. There’s the phrase: “Let him do good; let him seek peace and pursue it” (verse 11). Why? Here comes the ground in verse 12:
For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous,
and his ears are open to their prayer.
But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.
So, just before verse 13, Peter reminds us that when you do good, God’s eyes are on you. His ears are open to your prayer. His face is against your adversaries. He is totally for you. He is against those who would oppose you, and he is God.
Now, what would follow more naturally from that assurance of God’s being for you as you do good? What would be more natural than to say, “So no one can harm you”? And the basis for that confidence is not that people are kept from harming you because they’re so touched by your goodness. They’re kept from harming you because you have a sovereign God who’s against them and who’s for you. Goodness doesn’t make them like you. God keeps them from harming you. That’s the argument.
“It’s God, not my goodness, who decides how my enemies treat me.”
But once you’ve shifted from focusing on the psychology of your enemy (as if your goodness might make him nice to you), and now your focus is on the sovereignty of your God, that puts everything in his hands, which means ultimately it’s God, not my goodness, that decides how my enemies treat me. Which also means he may have his good reasons for why he would indeed let my enemies harm me in the short run sometimes, in order to bless me in the long run.
For Your Benefit
Now, if we’re on the right track here, getting things in God’s hands and his sovereign wisdom, then a good paraphrase of verse 13 would be, “Nobody is going to harm you if you are zealous for what is good, unless your all-controlling Father in heaven wills that it should be so. And if he wills for you to be harmed for doing good, it’s only temporary and will in fact prove to be better for you, for your benefit in the end.”
And what surprises us maybe is that my venture at a paraphrase like that is exactly what verse 17 says. It says, “It is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God’s will, than for doing evil.” That’s just four verses later. Your goodness does not decide whether you get persecuted or not. God decides whether you get persecuted or not, and that would be better. That word better is simply amazing in verse 17. “It is better,” he says, “to suffer for doing good . . . than for doing evil,” if that should be God’s will, which he clearly says it will be sometimes. That’s why you suffer for doing good. And if it’s better, it can’t be ultimately harmful to you.
Verse 13 is really, profoundly true. Nobody can ultimately harm you if you do good because God’s eye is on you. God’s ear is open to you. His face is against the evildoer. Nothing happens but what is good for God’s children. No ultimate harm comes to those who trust him and do good.
So, I think the key when you bump into a sheer vertical rock face of an obstacle in reading the Bible is to very carefully look around you in the context, and if you’re patient and pray, you may see there’s a crack here. There’s a crack here in this wall, and you can walk right through it.
