Living as a Christian Community

Welcome to another edition of The Rap Report. I'm your host Andrew Rapoport, the Executive Director of Striving Fraternity and the Christian Podcast Community, of which this podcast is a proud member.

Now right now I am traveling in Arizona for the Christian Responsibility in an Un-Christian World Conference, probably having a great time. But what do I have for you? Well, I have a Bible study I did on 1 Peter chapter 3, and as we go through this, this was done in my home church, Oxford Valley Chapel in Pennsylvania, and this was a Bible study we had through 1 Peter.

I hope that you will find this, well, very helpful. There's a lot of good teaching that I think was in here, so I hope that you will enjoy this. And remember that we are supported by MyPillow. MyPillow is running a great sale right now.

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But go to MyPillow .com, use promo code SFE, get yourself a pillow, a blanket, a dish towel, a mattress topper, a mattress even. They have a lot of products, a ton of products, so go check them out, and enjoy this Bible study that I had from 1 Peter chapter 3.

I hope you enjoy it.

Welcome to The Wrap Report with your host, Andrew Rapoport, where we provide biblical interpretation and application. This is a ministry of Striving for Eternity and the Christian Podcast Community. For more content or to request a speaker for your church, go to StrivingForEternity .org.

Now, so this is the conclusion of what actually started all the way back in 1 Peter chapter 2, verse 13. He starts off by saying, finally. Finally what? Well, he takes us all the way back there to be subject, a command.

And he went through and gave us different ways that we are to be subject, for the Lord's sake, to every human institution. He started off with government. I know we don't like that one, but we need to be subject to government.

He then talked about servants and masters, and another institution that's what we would think of as our employer-employment relationship. Again, one that we don't always want to submit to and be subject to.

Then he went on to talking about wives, or really the family, with wives and husbands. So we can see three institutions that he talks about. The government, the employment, and the family. Now he's wrapping it up by saying, finally.

So these are all the different ways we're to be subject to one another, in different ways. And now he's concluding that and giving us the synopsis of it. Okay, so it's one of the things we always got to remember.

We don't want to just read a Bible verse, right? We got to read the context. And so sometimes when we take this in small snippets, we always want to go back and make sure we get the context, right? And so this is him concluding this section on being submissive.

We all love to be submissive, right? Okay, let's not exaggerate. Right? And what Peter did, similar to what Paul does in Ephesians, is give us like the worst-case scenario is to be submissive. Saying, okay, because it's easy to be submissive to someone who is showing your best interests first, right?

If you had a governor or king that is always putting the people first, that would be easy, right? An employer who is thinking first of his employees and putting the employees before himself becomes an easy person to work for, right?

Same thing within the marriage. So those are easy, but Paul gives us the worst-case scenarios, right? So that we can understand that we are to be submissive in all things. Because ultimately we're submissive to people.

When we're submissive to others, who are we really being submissive to? God. And that's what he said in chapter 2, verse 13. So it's under God that we're submissive. So if we have a job, you know, to polish shoes or clean the toilet or any pick up trash, whatever the society might think is a menial task, we do it unto the Lord.

We do it to the best of our ability. So he says here, finally, have unity in mind. And that just, you know, seems so easy, doesn't it? What does it mean to have unity in mind or unity in spirit? What do you think when you hear that?

Does it mean everyone always agrees in everything? So it's a unity of spirit. So the example I always give is when I'm doing marriage counseling, is I'll usually take three objects. So I'll take these three water bottles and say that's Christ, that's the husband, and that's the wife.

Husband and wife are kind of far apart because they're having disagreements because when they come to me for counseling they're obviously not in agreement, right? But if each of them is both focused on getting closer to Christ, what happens to husband and wife as they both get closer to Christ?

They get closer to one another. That is what a unity of mind is, a unity of spirit is. Unity of spirit, if we are focused on the same thing that we're unified over, even though we may have disagreements, we ultimately come together because as we continue to draw closer and closer to Christ, well, if we draw closer and closer to Christ, usually the things we disagree about, we find out, we realize, eh, that really didn't matter much.

I don't know, maybe you guys never had this, maybe it's just me, that I've had times where I went to prayer because I had disagreements with someone, and as I went to the Lord thinking I need to tell the Lord to straighten that person out, the Lord kind of really straightened me out, and I ended up realizing, yeah, the other person wasn't the problem, it was me.

I know you guys never had that experience, it was just me, but that happens, why? Because as we try to get unified with Christ, we kind of realize the things that we think are big issues because we're thinking selfishly are suddenly not as big of an issue.

And so the first of seven things that he's concluding with here is a unity of mind. That's the first. And a unity of mind is, the Greek word has the idea of like-minded, having similar thoughts, it can mean agreeing, but I don't think that it requires that we're always in 100 agreement to be like-minded.

But if we are focused on the same thing, we'll come to, if we're focused on Christ, we start to realize what Christ wants rather than what we want. And that's, I think, an important one for him to have first, because he's kind of giving this as submission in everything else.

Like anything he did, this is kind of him picking up, anything I left out, type of thing. How do we have submission? Well, we have to be united in our thinking. In the church, this is essential. It's essential for the church to be like-minded.

Not that we agree on everything, but the reality is that I've never seen in all the years that I've counseled with churches and pastors that have gone through church splits, I've never once seen a church split that occurred because all parties were interested in what Christ wanted for the church.

Every single church split I've ever had to deal with and counsel people through has always been where one side or both sides are acting selfishly. They don't like the way something was done, they expect others to live to their standard, and they fight over it.

And so, the unity of mind is something that's essential to a church, because it keeps the church together. And it keeps the church being able to do what the church should be doing, because when the church starts having people that focus on self, all of a sudden it becomes a distraction from what the church should be doing.

Because now all of a sudden, the leadership has to deal with individuals who are causing disruption because they're wanting their way. And that can even be a deal with one church right now, where it's the church leadership that's acting selfishly against people.

It seems they've disciplined a man out of the church, and maybe rightfully so, but they're not willing to let it go after he repented. And that's now problematic, right? They are wanting to exactly have a flashback.

And that then presented a conflict within the church where now they're not united. And now the church spends a lot of time doing that. I found out about it just because I posted a picture having a meal with the guy that was disciplined out.

And they contacted me because they had to warn me about the guy. And I'm like, I have no reason to know. I don't have any need to know this information. They contacted me recently when I was speaking at a conference with this same guy.

So they contacted me again, and I'm like, okay, maybe I have a reason to look into it, but still. He's not even in that church, and he's now a member of a church with a standard, right? But that church, they're not doing fully what the Lord would want because they're distracted by this unity, right?

And so unity is an essential thing. And I think that's probably why Paul mentions that one first. So it is, again, it's a state of mind, though. It's not something that we just say, well, you know, it's an action.

A lot of this is going to be our state of mind, our thinking. Okay. The second of the seven things that he gives here is sympathy. You know, like a sympathy or an understanding, being sympathetic. That is, I really think what this one is, this is hard for a lot of people, I've discovered, is to be sympathetic to others.

What most people, I think, end up doing is what they want, they think others think like them. Okay. I often say that I think the reason, being raised in a Jewish household, one of the things that Jewish people tend to do is debate.

Not for any other purpose, but to sharpen thinking skills, to help with understanding opposite ways of thinking. Therefore, why is it so many Jewish people become lawyers? It's the only job you get to debate all the time, right?

It's the only professional debating job. Well, maybe politicians. But what ended up happening, at least in my household, is by debating things, positions I wouldn't point to, got me to think the way other people think.

And a lot of people don't do that. A lot of people think the way they do. If you want to know, this is a truism I think right now, but if you want to know what the Democrats are planning to do in the next election, just look at what they say the Republicans are going to do.

And it tells you what they're doing. It's pretty easy. People end up projecting their own thoughts on others, their own behavior on others. I see it on social media all the time. People will accuse you of something that they're actually doing.

As they lie about your character, and they accuse you of slander. I don't think that word means what you think it means. I don't think you're looking at your behavior when you're saying that. And that's a problem most people have.

We have a hard time looking at our behavior. One of the ways I point this out all the time when I evangelize, is I'll ask someone, have you ever told a lie? They'll say yes. I'll say, what does that make you?

The number one answer I get is human. The number two answer I get is sinner. And I will ask them, if they say that, I'd say, if I lied to you, what would you call me? And it is very rare that the answer is not liar.

And I point that out to them. Isn't it so hard for you to call yourself a liar, but it's so easy to recognize me as one? Because I want them to recognize that they have a hard time seeing themselves as a liar under God's judgment.

But they can see others, and we all struggle with that. When we can see what someone else is doing, it's like, hey, that's clear as day. This is why the Lord had to say, you've got this log in your eye, and you can't see this log in your eye, but you look at this little speck of wood that's in someone else's.

In other words, someone might have this huge beam that they can't see because they're so busy looking at everyone else. And so if we're going to have a spirit of submitting to one another, we have to be sympathetic to one another.

We have to understand how someone else is thinking. So a husband comes home from a hard day at work, and the wife has been with the kids all night. So what happens? Well, sometimes the wife may be like, I'm sick of the kids.

You take them on. They've been driving me crazy all day. The husband's like, I just walked in the door, and I've just been going busy at work all day. Right?

Well, it's interesting you never hear a wife saying, you know, wife coming home from a hard day's work. It's always the husband.

Well, it would be. I mean, you could both have it. Nowadays, we both feel like we're home from a hard day at work. When there's kids in the house, you know, at least in my house, Jim was always home. I remember once we had, okay, so this is, Eric may get this, and Connors might get this as developers, but I came home once, and Jim being a developer, she was like, how was your day?

I was doing documentation all day, which is like documenting all the code. And she just goes, oh, let me get you your dinner. My son was like, after dinner, he's like, Daddy, what's documentation? It sounds really bad.

So Jim responded like, oh, you poor thing. She was sympathetic. She understood that as a programmer, we don't like to document. You know, it's like, yeah, just write the code, and that's what I was doing with it.

But she understood that. She was sympathetic. She was like, oh, let me get you your dinner. Sit down.

My son picked up on the sympathy, but didn't understand the why, right?

But we have to be understanding with one another. This is essential for the church. It's also essential within your marriage or any relationships that you have. I've said this before, I think here, but if I haven't, it'll be the first time here, but I can guarantee you to never have an argument in your household.

If you just follow one principle, I guarantee you, you'll never have an argument, ever. If everyone in the household is showing more love than they receive, you'll never fight. Because every fight is based in me wanting to get my way, right?

That's why we have fights. Because one or both parties are wanting to get their way, and they're not willing to understand or be sympathetic to someone else. And so, sympathy is something that prevents the fighting that way.

So if we have a unity of mind, we're headed toward the same goal, we're sympathetic and understanding how each other is thinking, what each other is going through, not making demands on others. This is what the word intolerance actually means.

It's not the way that our culture has completely reversed it. Tolerance is the idea that I will tolerate or deal with where we disagree the accepting of your position. The way the culture defines it today as tolerance is, you must accept my position.

The exact opposite of the definition. So, first, unity of mind. Second, sympathy. The third one is a brotherly love. Now, we living here all know this word. Which Greek word is this? Philadelphia, right?

It's philos, the Greek word brotherly love. Where did this city get its name? Philadelphia, right? So, this is a familial love. What is it that we refer to each other in church? Those who are in Christ?

Brothers and sisters. Why do we do that? The idea of having a familial love. The idea that a family sticks together. It doesn't matter what happens when someone attacks a family member, the family sticks together.

When somebody is regardless of what might happen within a family, the idea being that the family sticks together. You can argue, you can fight, but you're also always there for one another. The very thing that would keep a family together that brotherly love is what would keep a church together.

Having a love for one another, even though we may not be blood relatives, but having that mindset that we are all in the same family. Because we are, in Christ. Do any of us deserve to be adopted into the family of God?

No. So, the fact that we are should amaze all of us. How do we look at someone else and go well, they don't deserve to be in. Well, Christ saved somebody.

We didn't deserve it either. It should put us in awe that he saved.

Us, rather than being like, well, why did God save that person? We should be having a love for one another within the church. That we recognize that when it comes to the church we should be together. I always think about, when I think of this is, a friend of mine, Matt Slick, he's nuts by the way, I don't know who he is, but he decided to do two debates against two different atheists on two different nights back to back.

So we flew out to Texas and he did a Saturday night debate and a Sunday night debate. Or no, it might have been a Friday night debate, Saturday night debate. So he did two debates on two totally different topics.

For us, it was about evangelism. We went to a bunch of atheists that were there and we went to evangelize them. We got to talk to a bunch of them. It's been so long, I forgot when it happened, but there was an atheist that did something that was sort of immoral, like he had an affair or whatever, where I was asking each of the atheists what they think about the guy.

Was it right what he did? And one of the atheists had an interesting point. He said to me, Andrew, I'm not going to comment on that. Because whether I like it or not, this guy is, you know, I like you, but you're the enemy.

He said, and this guy is doing great work at destroying Christianity. So I'm not going to do anything that would undermine him in what he's doing. And I went and I talked to the other Christians and we went out for dinner and I went, that atheist understands Christian brotherly love better than most Christians.

Because most Christians, especially social media, you see there's like, it's tribalism. Are you in my camp? Everyone's dividing each other into camps. Oh, you're in that camp. I can't work with you. And so this atheist understood how we should be within the church.

Not saying we excuse immorality, but Christians are way too easy to go after someone to attack someone they don't like. I'm interviewing Friday, Megan Basham. She works, I don't even know who she is, but she works for The Daily Wire.

She's got a book coming out, Shepherds for Sale. And so I'm interviewing her about a new book that is going to be coming out soon. So I posted it on Twitter, or X now. I said, anyone have any questions that I should ask?

And all these people just come out of the woodworks. Yeah, ask her why she's supporting someone that protects abusers, which is referring to the fact that her book is supported by John MacArthur. So they're all attacking John MacArthur because there was an incident where in his church, they basically, the husband and wife, were both abusing their adopted kids.

The husband, after the fact,.

Was also sexually abusing them and went to jail for it. But they put both of them, they put the woman out of.

The church because she refused to repent. And so they're saying that they're protecting the guy in this situation. Now the irony is, the woman who has made this public has also admitted that she's also been an abuser in her life, and protective.

Abusers. So it's like, well,.

It's wrong for one person to do it and not the other. And John MacArthur actually wasn't directly involved in that council, so why is he getting laid? But the reality is that there's all this, like, they don't even want to look at what the book is just because, well, the forward, it's got to be wrong.

That's kind of the tribalism that I see. It's like, look, I'll give another example of Alistair Beck. He gave some counsel to a grandmother to he counseled this specific grandmother to do. She had a grandson that was having a same-sex wedding.

And he said, you should go and you should give a gift. And people start coming out of the woodworks, and they called for him to be removed from a conference because of this 40 years of solid mission. He had just gotten done preaching, not too long ago, against homosexuality, but because of one thing he said.

They're like, that's it. He's got to be canceled. And I said, you know, I can't see a good reason for encouraging someone to go to a same-sex wedding, but when you hear what he says, he said he wouldn't give that counsel to others.

There's something he knows about this family, and as a pastor, he doesn't and shouldn't share the details of counsel he may give to people. Right? There's maybe a specific reason for this grandmother he gave that counsel.

There's something he knows about the family that he doesn't need to make public. But people showed no grace toward him. I mean, people were, you know, on social media were like throwing out his books.

Podcasters are saying he just went from trusted resource to questionable. You know, I'm like, for one thing, like, there's not any grace shown with it. Where's the brotherly love for a guy who's got 40 years of solid mission?

This is what ends up happening when you don't have a brotherly love for one another. Trying to think the best of one another. So, that was number three. So, unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love. Number four is a tender heart.

This is a compassion. A tender heartness. As a church, if we're going to submit to one another, we have to be compassionate for one another. We're not going to be sympathetic. We're not going to have brotherly love.

We need to be thinking of others, especially when people are hurting to be like, you know what, someone does something wrong and they come to you and they ask your forgiveness. You could be compassionate and say, oh, you know what, you must have been going through a hard time.

I recognize it was a rough day. Or you could be like, you should ask forgiveness. Right? Unfortunately, sometimes we indirectly without realizing go to the latter because we want to feel that we're justified, we're right.

I told you that was going to happen. So, we need to be compassionate. That's one, that's something we have to do in submitting to one another. Is being tender-hearted toward one another. I wanted to get through all seven of these, so only two verses.

So, unity of mind, one. Two is sympathy. Three, brotherly love. Four is a tender heart. Five is a humble mind. Now, we were joking earlier, what is humility? Right? Having a humble mind, well, the way our culture defines humility and the way the Bible defines humility is not exactly the same.

As Eric said earlier, there's the self-deprecation. People think that's humble. When I'm on the streets and I'm evangelizing, I do a lot of self-deprecation because it's a way of using humor where people can laugh and they don't take it personal.

When I'm doing open air and I'm raising my voice, I've discovered it's really hard to use humor because voice inflection is required. When you're raising your voice, it's harder to do voice inflection.

So I've discovered that by making fun of myself, it lightens the mood for people so that it's less combative and where they're trying to debate with me. And people have mistakenly thought that I'm humble because in our culture, self-deprecation is not done.

Right? Now, I admit that I have the advantage of a lot of material to work with that you guys don't, so I have a lot I can make fun of that you guys can't. I get it. But, you know, the reality is that what the Bible refers to as humility would be not just like the lowly of mind and the self-deprecation, but it's partially the idea of thinking of others rather than yourself.

But more specifically, I would say it's the opposite of pride. Pride puts self first. Humility is going to put others first. Pride is going to say, everything's about me. Humility is going to say, everything's about others.

If we're working, this is the idea, if you're showing more love than you receive, you don't fight. If everyone within the household is showing true humility, you won't fight. It'll be easy. I was preaching through Matthew 18, which deals a lot about pride and humility, and I was struggling with the fact that humility is a mark of Christian maturity.

But I was struggling with the sense of, I can understand that humility is the opposite of pride, but as we look at ourselves, how can we measure our humility? You ever think about that? We can see pride, especially in others, easily.

We can see pride in ourselves a lot harder. Why? Because pride always tells us we're right. So we're never going to see what others do. When others point things out to us, pride says, no, we're right, and we'll justify everything that we do.

But how do we measure? How do we measure humility? And this may not be perfect, and Pastor Dan will probably give me five better ways.

Than this, but we'll see.

But the only way I've thought of to measure humility is, how do we react when people come to us with courage? How fast am I to justify my behavior versus listening to what they're saying and considering the correction I'm making?

The quicker I am to listen to them, and the slower I am to justify myself or defend myself, the more humble I am. The quicker I am to defend myself, the less humble I am. And so when people come and correct me, a lot.

Of times what I'm looking at is, how fast was I to.

Defend self or just to listen? And it doesn't matter the source. It could be a non-believer. A non-believer can spot something in your behavior or my behavior. That's true. So we shouldn't reject it just because of the source.

But how quick are we to.

Listen to correction? Often we're quick to defend ourselves. So, one is unity of mind. Two, sympathy. Three, brotherly love. Four, a tender heart. Five, humble mind. Number six in verse nine is, do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling.

Huh, that one hurts. How often does someone do something to us? And boy, we want to see them, we want to see them just get it, right?

I was talking with a pastor I've gotten to know. I introduced him to.

Pastor Dan and Robin, because they're new to the area. And I said to him, he's pastoring a church where they were looking for someone, and I clicked a friend of mine who was looking. You know, he put, you know, got his resume to the church.

So he now took their current pastor and my friend. And so I went to lunch with this pastor, and he totally understood what I was saying, but I just said, you know, I'll be honest, part of me really wanted to see you fail.

And he knew exactly what I meant. He goes, I know, you wanted to see your friend in the position. I said, I know, but everything he's doing with that church, he's turning that church around. They had a lot of real problems.

And I said to him, I said, the reality you're handling this better than my friend would have. I don't think my friend would have been, he would have handled it, but not as well as this guy. And I said, you know, I, in my flesh, wanted to see my friend here in the area, but realized he, God put this guy in that church because he's doing a better job at turning the church around.

Right? And so he understood what I meant. That's that, it's sort of that evil for you, like, not that I really wanted evil for him, but I really was like, I wanted to see my friend, you know, like, that's why I like to see you.

I should have hired my friend. Right? And, but there is this sense where when someone does wrong to us, we want to repay evil. Especially within a family. You know why? Because we know everyone's buttons to push.

We know those things that can dig in and hurt husbands and wives, parents and children. We know the things that will upset people. Right? And the things we would never say to a co-worker. Right? That's the, we, that's that, you know, when someone hurts us, we just gotta get back at them.

You know? That is something that we shouldn't be doing. Repaying evil for evil or reviling for reviling. It's the idea of, we shouldn't be trying to return bad thinking. You know, if someone has evil intentions toward us, evil thoughts toward us, we don't return with evil thoughts back.

Okay? So that's number six, and caveat to six is six is the negative side and the positive side is seven. Bless those for to this you were called that you may obtain a blessing. So the last two are a negative and positive to one another.

The negative side is you don't return evil for evil. The positive side is you bless those who do evil. Right? The Proverbs would talk about you know, pouring, you know, water on the wet coals of someone who has evil intentions for you.

Maybe that's what, you know, House of Begg was thinking with that family. Maybe there's something in that family he knows that he would, because he ended up saying that in that situation it would remove the ideas of the grandmother hating the grandson.

And so maybe, you know, the way he saw it was a way of blessing those who have evil intentions. When that whole issue came out, I was dealing with it on my podcast and I had mentioned the fact that, you know, I had a I have a cousin who practices homosexuality and she invited us to her wedding with another woman.

She knew full well that my bride and I were not going to go. She felt that she should invite us, but how did we deal with it? Well, we sat down with her and her partner and explained why we wouldn't be able to go.

And then, you know, I said, look, they were supposed to be in town a few months from then, and I said, when you come back to town, how about you and I take you out for dinner? You see, I don't need to go to the wedding to show love to them.

I can do other things. And, you know, I still have a good relationship with both my cousin and her partner. But, you know, they both are friends with me on Facebook. It's kind of interesting because I used to sit there and do a live class and we got the subject of homosexuality and it was interesting because a whole bunch of atheists were slamming me on my views on homosexuality, and my cousin, who practices homosexuality, was defending me to them.

And when they started commenting, she was like, I'm not only his cousin, but I'm in a same-sex marriage. And they were just like, oh, what do we do now? Right? And she was able to say he chose me and my partner love.

Right? So I'm not going to, I don't condone their behaviors, but I'm not going to, they know I'm not going to return, you know, I'm going to try to bless them. Right? And this is the idea. We're going to have people throughout our life that are going to do evil things for us.

And if you don't, well, it means you're probably not very active on social media. Or B, you're just, you know, not telling anyone what you think. Right? But we're all going to have someone that does, has evil thoughts for us.

Because basically every person we come in contact with is a sinner. Right? But how are we going to respond? So six and seven are opposite. When that evil comes, we don't return evil, we do bless. Okay?

So he's wrapping this up and he's saying finally he gives us seven things to do. Okay? Seven essentials, if we're going to submit to one another, especially within the church. Have a unity of mind. Be like-minded.

Be like-minded in Christ. Number two, be sympathetic with one another. Have an understanding of what others are thinking and going through. Number three, have a brother with love for one another. Number four, be tender-hearted with one another.

Number five, be humble-minded. Putting others first. Number six, don't repay evil with evil. And number seven, bless those who do evil. If we could as a church always be doing these seven things, not only will we all get along, but I can tell you that when people come in the church, it would stand out.

John MacArthur tells a story of how a Jewish woman was just walking down the street on a Sunday. I forget the exact instance, I think she either just found out her husband was divorcing her or he died, I forget the reason.

But she was just walking as everyone was going into Grace Community Church for church. And she just got caught up in the crowd and ended up in church. And she sat there and claimed that she ended up coming forward that day into the counseling room because she saw the love that church had for one another.

And she said, this is not something I've seen in the synagogues, this is not something I've seen anywhere. A genuine love for one another. And it was that that drew her in to want to know more about Christ.

And eventually get saved and baptized. That type of, this type of behavior within our church would be a lighthouse to the community. When we have our picnic and people come in, they would see that. They would see it because we wouldn't be just like in a social club talking amongst ourselves, we would be reaching out to others.

But they would see how we care for one another.