Episode Details

Our text today is 1 Peter 4:3-6:

For the time that is past suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry. With respect to this they are surprised when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery, and they malign you; but they will give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. For this is why the gospel was preached even to those who are dead, that though judged in the flesh the way people are, they might live in the spirit the way God does. — 1 Peter 4:3-6

Some people are most comfortable with the version of you that requires nothing to change.

They knew how to relate to you when you laughed at the same things, pursued the same pleasures, and participated in the same activities. But then Christ changed your convictions. You began saying no to things you once accepted, and suddenly your new life felt like a rejection of theirs.

Peter understood this relational tension.

He writes, "The time that is past suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do." In other words, enough time has already been spent living for desires that lead away from God. Peter lists sensuality, drunkenness, drinking parties, and idolatry—patterns often woven into the social and religious life of the Roman world.

When believers stopped participating, their change was impossible to hide. They were not simply adopting private beliefs. Their new allegiance to Jesus altered their habits, relationships, and social lives.

And then Peter writes, "They are surprised when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery, and they malign you."

Peter has repeatedly called Christians strangers (exiles). Now their former companions think their new behavior is strange. That is what happens when citizens of God's kingdom begin living by a different set of values.

I also think the image of a "flood" is striking after Peter's reference to Noah. These believers had once been carried along by the same current as everyone around them. But Christ had rescued them from a destructive way of life, and Peter was warning them not to jump back into the waters simply because others were surprised by their absence.

This does not mean every negative response from others proves we are being faithful. Once in a while, Christians are rejected because they are harsh, arrogant, or judgmental. Peter is not giving us permission to behave badly and to call the consequences "persecution".

Listen carefully—the offense should always be our allegiance to Christ—not our lack of grace.

We can love people from our past without returning to the life Christ rescued us from. We can remain humble without surrendering conviction. We can refuse sin without treating sinners as enemies.

Peter also reminds these believers that others' opinions are not final. Those who malign them "will give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead." Peter is not encouraging revenge. He is releasing believers from the burden of having to deliver the final verdict themselves.

God sees clearly.

God judges justly.

Then Peter adds a statement that can be confusing: "This is why the gospel was preached even to those who are dead." He is not teaching that people receive another opportunity to believe after death. Most likely, he is referring to people who heard and believed the gospel while they were alive but had since died.

Though they were judged in the flesh as human beings are—they experienced physical death, and some may also have endured human condemnation—they now live before God by the Spirit.

Their death did not prove the gospel had failed.

The world may have looked at their graves and concluded that following Jesus accomplished nothing. Peter says otherwise. Human rejection was not their final verdict, and physical death was not the end of t