How to deal with those who don't believeThe picture presented in the context of 1 Peter 3:8-17 is that of disciples who are devoted to promoting what is good, but who are being persecuted for it. Their response, as Jesus had taught them, was to "rejoice and be glad" (Matt. 5:12). This led those looking on to inquire how the disciples could be joyousand hopeful in such circumstances. The question would, of course, be inevitable in an angry, hopeless, and joyless world. So the disciples were charged by Peter: "Be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and reverence. Keep your conscience clear" (1 Pet. 3:15–16). As we give our explanation, our apologetic, as an act of neighbor love with "gentleness and reverence," Jesus tells us we are to be "as shrewd as serpents" and "as innocent as doves" (Matt. 10:16, niv). The serpent's wisdom, shrewdness, is timeliness based on watchful observation. And doves are innocent in that they are incapable of guile or of misleading anyone. So are we to be. Love of those we deal with will help us to observe them accurately and refrain from manipulating them—at the same time that we intensely long and pray for them to recognize that Jesus Christ is master of the cosmos in which they live. From The Allure of Gentleness: Defending the Faith in the Manner of Jesus. Copyright © 2015 by Dallas Willard. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers.
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