Honorable Conduct in a Dishonorable Culture

In 1 Peter 2:11, the apostle Peter gives his appeal to believers as foreigners and sojourners to abstain from fleshly lusts. 1 Peter 2:12 gives the positive component to Peter’s exhortation: Keeping your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that although they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.

We tend to read this as saying that Christians should keep their conduct honorable in the eyes of the gentiles (unbelievers). But that’s not what Peter is saying. Not here. Remember the broader context of 1 Peter, the apostle urging us as Christians to reorient ourselves toward God and God’s people as the only court of reputation we care about. But look even in the immediate context. We are to keep our conduct honorable “so that although they accuse us of wrongdoing…” Clearly, our conduct is not honorable in their opinion! In fact, they’re accusing us of being evildoers, in part, because of our honorable conduct. Peter reiterates this in 4:4, when he mentions the astonishment and maligning that unbelievers will respond with “when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery.” But, he says in 4:5, “they will give account to Him who is ready to judge the living and the dead.”

What Peter is saying is that we are to keep our conduct honorable according to God’s standards—honorable in the estimation of God, and of our brothers and sisters who reflect and reinforce the same values and standards. Keep your conduct among the unbelievers honorable, so that although they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation. The “day of visitation” is best taken to refer to Christ’s second coming, or, I think, more specifically, the Great White Throne judgment. And the crucial reminder is this:

First, the standard of our estimation is God’s, not the world’s; and, second, the timing of our estimation is yet future, not immediate. Peter is reiterating his comfort and encouragement to the Asian believers, that no matter what disgrace and dishonor and humiliation they face from the world, although unbelievers will speak against Christians, calling them evildoers, they will still observe their good works. And God will use that for His glory one day. Although they accuse and malign you now, God will use your honorable conduct in the face of hostility to bring about honor and glory and praise to His name—and that is to be our ultimate goal anyway.