You aren’t from here are you? This was a question I came to dread. My husband and I have served congregations in various parts of the country. At times, our upper Midwest accent gave our origins away. We were in an area far from home, and the locals hesitated to accept us. They assumed we wouldn’t understand them because we had not grown up in the area. Often, they saw us as outsiders.
The recipients of Peter’s first letter were also considered outsiders because of their faith. 1 Peter 1:1 This letter is from Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ. I am writing to God’s chosen people who are living as foreigners in the provinces.[1]
This World is Only Temporary
As we become believers, we change. 1 Peter 1:14 So you must live as God’s obedient children. Don’t slip back into your old ways of living to satisfy your own desires. You didn’t know any better then.[2] Our priorities change because instead of worldly pursuits, we pursue God. We become citizens of heaven, as Paul tells us. Philippians 3: 20 But we are citizens of heaven, where the Lord Jesus Christ lives. And we are eagerly waiting for him to return as our Savior.[3]
The world becomes like a foreign land to followers of Jesus because they live for eternity and realize the world is temporary. 1 Peter 1: 23 For you have been born again, but not to a life that will quickly end. Your new life will last forever because it comes from the eternal, living word of God. 24 As the Scriptures say, “People are like grass; their beauty is like a flower in the field. The grass withers and the flower fades. 25But the word of the Lord remains forever.[4]
The World Doesn’t Understand Us
Often, the people of the world find us believers a strange group because we don’t think like them. 1 Peter 4: 3 You have had enough in the past of the evil things that godless people enjoy—their immorality and lust, their feasting and drunkenness and wild parties, and their terrible worship of idols. 4 Of course, your former friends are surprised when you no longer plunge into the flood of wild and destructive things they do. So they slander you. [5] As believers, we simply don’t belong to worldly things, and problems come when we try to be part of the world.
We have a new identity and purpose. 1 Peter 2: 9 But you are not like that, for you are a chosen people. You are royal priests, a holy nation, God’s very own possession. As a result, you can show others the goodness of God, for he called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light. 10 “Once you had no identity as a people; now you are God’s people. Once you received no mercy; now you have received God’s mercy.” 11 Dear friends, I warn you as “temporary residents and foreigners” to keep away from worldly desires that wage war against your very souls.[6]
Now, I don’t mind when, because of my faith, others ask “you aren’t from here, are you?”
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[1-6] Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188.