I Peter 4:12 to 5:11 may well be a P.S. to a letter that really ended with the benediction at 4:11, and which Peter added because he had received news that severe persecution was afflicting those to whom he wrote. The remainder of ch. 4 covers ground to which we have already given attention, so we turn to 5.1-11.
Two recurring themes with which we have become familiar feature in it: "be subject" v. 5 and "suffering" v. 9, so attention will be focussed on 3 other themes:
i. Counsel on Eldership vs. 1 - 4
ii. Counsel on Humility vs. 5 - 6
iii. Counsel on Anxiety vs. 7 - 11
The first four verses show how important the eldership was in the New Testament Church. It is not possible to cull from the evidence in Acts and the epistles - even when we take it all exhaustively into account - a very precise definition of what an elder's role was. The New Testament does not supply a clear job description. There is a line drawn somewhere between administrative and pastoral responsibilities, but it is a fuzzy line. There is a line drawn somewhere between voluntary service and remunerated service, but it is a fuzzy line. There is a line drawn somewhere between the decision-making role of the eldership and the decision-making role of the congregation as a whole, but it is a fuzzy line. Broadly, there seem to have been ruling elders, teaching elders and pastoring elders, but the roles overlapped.
But if the practice of eldership is uncertain, its principle is not. It was a universal feature of the early church. Elders were appointed in every congregation, and it is quite obvious that in the apostles' eyes a congregation's spiritual wellbeing and effectiveness depended heavily on the quality of service they gave.
Culturally, the institution was familiar to both the Jewish and the Greek and Roman elements in the young churches.
Among the Jews it had had its beginnings in the time of Moses, when the burden of judicial responsibility became too heavy for him to handle alone, and seventy elders were appointed to share it with him. Elders thereafter were a permanent feature of Jewish life. Every village and city had its elders, who met at the village or city gate and dispensed justice to the people. They administered the affairs of the synagogue (though they did not preach necessarily) and were responsible to discipline its members where that was needed. Elders formed a large part of the supreme court, the Sanhedrin. Jewish converts would have had no difficulty recognising an eldership in their Church.
But it also had a Roman, Greek and Egyptian background. Each of those cultures recognised leaders in their communities responsible for the conduct of both civil and religious affairs, whether in courts, councils or temples. So Gentile converts too would have had no difficulties with an eldership in their church. From the evidence of the New Testament, it is clear that among their duties, however it was shared among them, was financial management, a healing ministry, pastoral oversight, preaching and teaching, and the settlement of doctrinal issues; their authority in the congregation was everywhere recognised. Peter, an apostle, no less, classed himself simply as a "fellow elder," you observe.
Peter addresses a paragraph directly to them. In view of the imprecise definition of elders' duties, we should not apply what he says exclusively to ministers; it is relevant to any in the congregation who are appointed to oversight or a leadership role in it; that may include deacons, Sunday School teachers, Bible School Superintendents, Christian Endeavour leaders, Women's Fellowship and Men's Society presidents etc., etc.
Peter has three words of counsel, all of them to do with attitude, two of which bear on motivation especially. They are to tend the flock of God which is their charge (so they are seen as shepherds) ...
i. Not by constraint, but willingly ...
We can be pressured into a ministry within the church so we never quite lose a feeling of resentment against the demands it makes on us. It never really enjoys our full consent. "That won't do," says Peter: "Tend the flock of God which is your charge (lambs or sheep), not by constraint, but willingly" ... and some translations add "as God would have you." I have no doubt Peter is here remembering that morning by the lakeside after Jesus was risen when He said to Peter, "Feed my lambs, feed my sheep."
Different kinds of constraint may lead us into Christian service; we may feel constrained to serve out of a desire to be well thought of: "What will people think if I don't?" Or we may do it out of pride: "High time I was given a bit of recognition around here." Peter wants those who serve in the church to do so under a divine constraint. You do it because God calls you to do it, and in the spirit of Jesus when He said: "it is meat and drink to me to do my Father's will."
ii. Not for shameful gain, but eagerly ...
That would make no sense unless elders were paid. Peter is not of course saying that they should not be paid at all, nor is he saying that they should be paid less than a reasonable living wage; what he is saying is that covetousness should be no part of their reason to stand for office.
Of course, money is not the only thing we may covet! We may covet status, and accept nomination to be a deacon for the standing it will give us in the congregation's eyes. A pastor may exercise his ministry so as to build the whole church round his own personality instead of around the Lord ... and not even know he is doing it! There is a labyrinth of self-deceit in us all of which we should beware - and of which we should be aware before the Lord. To put it at its simplest, Peter is saying we should never do anything in the church for what we think we may get out of it, but out of a simple eagerness to be of service.
iii. Not as domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock ...
Peter is remembering again. He had heard His Master say, "You know that those who are supposed to rule the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you; whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all." Mark 10:42-44
The will-to-power is a motive that may corrupt our service to God in the Church every bit as easily as it may corrupt our service in worldly affairs. I shall never forget a thing I read in a little book for ordinands written by Bishop Stephen Neill just at the time of my own ordination:
You must often have encountered the ambitious type of minister. Such a man is always restless and never happy. All the time he has one eye on another church with better pay and prospects or a more congenial atmosphere; it is therefore impossible to him to be single- minded and contented in the work he is doing. He tends to speak often in church assemblies so as to have the eyes of others upon him as "a coming man." His thoughts and actions tend to be determined, not by the will of God but by what others will think, and particularly by the current policies favoured by leaders of the church.Well, it says in Scripture that a double-minded man is unstable in all his ways, and that such a man will receive nothing from the Lord. You can well see that the entering in of ambition spells disaster to the true work of the minister.
For the Christian there is one place and one place only - the lowest place. That is the command of the Lord, and it is binding upon us all. As you enter on the work of the ministry you must seek the place of hardest work, greatest sacrifice and least recognition, and there you must be content.
Obviously in the church some men must come to the top; the places of great influence and responsibility must be filled. But woe to the Church if they are filled by ambitious men who have sought them.
If when you are toiling contentedly in the lower place those who have authority to call men to special spheres in the Lord's vineyard come to you and say, "Friend, come up higher; this place of great eminence and heavier responsibility is the one in which you can now best serve," you may accept the call without fear and without anxiety; but never, never, never if you have yourself desired what is called advancement in the Church." (Stephen Neill, "On the Ministry" [S.C.M.] 1952 p. 41)
The man or woman who heeds that counsel will be "an example to the flock."
What Peter says about receiving "the crown of glory that fadeth not away" must be understand against the background of the public games in the Roman Empire of that time. It is not the crown worn by kings he has in mind; the phrase "that fadeth not away" would in their case make no sense, for they were made of precious stones and metals, very durable. Rather he is thinking of the crowns with which athletes were crowned at the games - garlands of leaves and flowers, such as roses, myrtle, oak and ivy, which faded and withered very quickly. The point is that there is no mercenary element in the rewards for faithful Christians. The crown that fadeth not away is simply a badge of faithfulness, and the permanence Peter has in mind is the inward state of heart and soul which we win by it.
Second, Peter counsels humility.
Verse 5 begins with a word that challenges us to ask why Peter used it just there. "Likewise ... you that are younger be subject to the elders?" But if elders bear rule, how can submissiveness belong to the discharge of their office?
The answer we have already learned, of course, when we were occupied with the whole theme of submissiveness in chapters 2 and 3. The submissiveness required of us all as Christians is the attitude in which we set the interests of others above our own - not self-serving but "others-serving." And that sums up the whole thrust of what Peter has just said to elders - their attitude is to be one of selfless service to those over whom they bear rule. The shepherd's task is to serve the welfare of the flock - to build up the sheep. As a wife's role in marriage is to build up her husband in his fatherly role, and the servant's role to serve the boss's interests, so the younger are to support the elders in the leadership role they exercise in the congregation. But likewise, just as the husband's role in marriage is to build up his partner in her role as wife and mother, and the boss's role is to serve his employee's interests, so elders are to serve the interests of the congregation, ruling for their benefit, not their own.
Submissiveness is the foundation quality of character and attitude upon which all Christian leadership is built.
"Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another," says Peter. The word he uses means "to tie with a knot," "to gird" yourself with a garment that needed to be knotted round your waist. The garment worn like that was the loin clothe worn by slaves.
Peter is remembering again! ... remembering the Upper Room where Jesus "girded Himself with a towel," like slave, and washed the disciples' feet. You remember how John described it?
"Jesus rose from supper, laid aside his garments, and girded himself with a towel. Then he poured water into a basin, and began to wash the disciples' feet, and to wipe them with the towel with which he was girded. He came to Simon Peter; and Peter said to him, "Lord, do you wash my feet?" Jesus answered him, "What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will (afterward is now, when Peter is writing). "When he had washed their feet, and taken his garments, and resumed his place, he said to them, "Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord; and you are right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you." John 13:5 ff
There was Peter's model; there was the Chief Shepherd "not domineering over the flock, but being an example to it."
"Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that in due time He may exalt you."
If we were truly ruled by that one concern - to have what became of us rest entirely, totally, in every last little detail, in the hands of God and in His hands alone - what manner of people would we be? To take "hands off" our career interests, and our prosperity growth, to abandon all manipulation of our own advancement and simply leave all that to God - what sort of difference would it make to the conduct of our lives? We all react as Peter did: Peter said to him, "You shall never wash my feet." But Jesus answered him, remember, "If I do not wash you, you have no part in me."
Peter follows his counsel on humility with counsel on anxiety. "Cast all your anxieties on Him, for He cares about you."
We may see now why Peter followed up with that. If we really do take our own hands off our lives and the management of them, what will become of us? What shall we eat? What shall we wear? Where shall we live? What will become of our jobs and our mortgages and our retirement situation? Well, Jesus gave us the answer to that a long time ago: "Seek first the rule of God, and all these things shall be yours as well."
But we do not want to do that. We want to put it the other way round: "Provide for all these things first, and then you will be free to seek the rule of God." We want to settle our worldly affairs first, and then we shall be set up the way we need to be to give God service.
"No," says Jesus. "God first; the rest will follow."
Is it true? Can we care-worn creatures really live in such a care-free frame of mind? How can the businessman not worry about the state of the market, or the threat of a strike? How can the mother not worry about the safety and honour of her children? How can a student not worry about exam results ... or the worker about the threat of redundancy ... or old folks about becoming a burden? How can Jesus mean what He says? We hear Him, and under the spell of His beautiful words we can feel transported into another world. But isn't it like watching an entertaining film for an hour? ... when it is finished and you turn the tellie off, there are still the bills to pay. You could be forgiven for thinking so.
But remember Who said this! Jesus' own life was far from being dream-like! He faced threats to His life too, the way we do. Wasn't the long shadow of the cross already reaching to His feet? Had He shut His eyes to the grim tomorrow that was taking shape for Him? He had not. He was looking it right in the eye, all of it, when He said this. If He could say this, meaning it, in the circumstances of life that had woven their web around Him, then He had a secret we all need to know. And He did mean it. His secret was very simple. It is in the last couple of paragraphs: "Your Heavenly Father knows your needs, so join His enterprise, and He'll supply them."
Is it the Father's hand we look to to supply our needs, or only to the goodies in His hands? Because if it is only the goodies we have eyes for, it will be our own hand we rely on to get them - not His. And when there is no hand to look to but our own we shall never be free from anxiety ... because then it is our hand against every other man's hand, and we dare not let up, even for a moment. Then we are like a man sitting at a machine he absolutely depends on ... watching the dials and monitors, feverishly throwing switches and pressing buttons ... and he cannot get up and leave the machine - ever - or it will go out of control, and he will never get it back. But if we really believe this is God's world, and the place we have in it is the place He gave us in the achievement of His enterprises (not our own), then we know that God's hand operates the machine ... and we are not chained to it.
Everything depends on whether my heart is all taken up with my goals, or His. If it is His, then it is Him I trust to provision me for the job.
If I know ... if even at only one point I know that behind all the appearance of things there beats for me in the breast of Him Who holds the whole world in His hand a Father's heart ... a strong, true, loving heart, beating for me ... then I know I can trust Him through all the maze of things. And I do know that. I know it from looking at Christ's Cross. I see there that God will go to any lengths for my sake; I know that His Fatherly heart beats truly for me, and I can trust Him. Once we know that, then everything else Jesus says - and Peter - follows from it, and makes sense. "Make God your only care, and free from care you will for ever be." The world thinks it is crazy. But remember why - because it has no-one to trust!
"Cast all your anxieties on Him: He has a care for you."
Finally Peter has a word to say about resisting the devil.
We are to "resist him, firm in our faith." I Peter 5:9 Pride and anxiety are in view - and suffering. Peter has just said,
1. "Humble yourselves ..." and
2. "Cast all your anxieties on God ..."
and at once adds, "Be sober, be watchful - your adversary the devil prowls about seeking someone to devour." The obvious implication is that pride and anxiety make you an easy prey.
Then he says, "Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same experience of suffering is required of your brotherhood through out the world." So suffering, too, presents a temptation which the devil works on. The temptation suffering presents is to weaken in faith, as though suffering suggests that God does not love us as we believed, and that He is not being faithful to His promises.
Peter would have us understand that suffering is not inconsistent with the promises. Indeed, that we shall suffer is one of the things God has promised! One of Peter's primary aims in writing this epistle, as we have seen, was to show that suffering is both inevitable and to be rejoiced in because in a hostile world it is love's pathway to victory. Beware pride, anxiety and discouragement. When they beset you, recognise where they come from and say, "Boo to you!"
One of the best "shots" we can receive to give us some "resistance" to the devil's temptations in these areas is a good dose of I Peter! I hope we shall live on with it.
Rev. Paul T. Harrison B.D. © 1999
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