Dear Friend:

WHAT A CURIOUS, even odd, peculiar word St. Peter addresses to the Christian folks in Rome as he writes to them. I think he understands that he is an outsider to their experience - - he is not a household slave as many, many of them are; he is not an alien, not one, presumably whose family has turned thumbs down on him because of his new-found Christian beliefs. He has NOT, yet, shared, so much in the name-calling, the persecutions, the punishments so many of them have. He speaks NOT as one who knows what it is like to be them. But speak he does; and most of it is highly encouraging, greatly supportive. Take their share of opposition and suffering as good soldiers; it will give them a fresh appreciation of what the Lord Jesus went through, he says. It will bind them to Christ ever more closely. It will draw them, these persecutions and troubles, will draw them closer to God, he says. All of that, very encouraging. I think he might ask to hear a report of their pains and troublers, he might expect a rehearsal of efforts and achievements. Maybe a word about all they have lost and lost out on. None of that. “Be ready” St. Peter says, “to give an account of the HOPE that is within you.” Tell us, having come up against such great disaster, what gives you Hope. Tell us, mired in a pagan empire, with government enmeshed in its own self-importance and arrangement, what gives you Hope. Tell us, pushed further and further by greater expenses and fierce and fearsome hatred of other regions, other races, other religions, what gives you Hope?! What is the Hope that draws your hearts and your hands, tell us that. Much to ask of those who have already given much. And then he adds, and here displays his great wisdom, adds - - “but do so with gentleness and reverence”. That is, permit us to come to our own mind about matters, that maybe we too can make a difference, offer a service, let a light shine. This, in fact, is what I heard in church last Sunday, from our New Orleans Missionaries. They did not tell us what any of us should now think or believe or even do. They showed us their Hope and their Hearts, and let us tell them what that led us to believe and think we could do. In other words, they gave an account of THEMSELVES not an account of what the rest of us are supposed to look like. We’ll see what we then believe and what we then do, and leave to God to decide if it is faithful. Great wisdom.

Sincerely, Pastor Condon