It was Peter who wrote that about behavior, not my idea. My questions is, what do you think he meant when he said, “be holy yourselves also in your behavior”?

Hello Tim,

but like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior; because it is written, “YOU SHALL BE HOLY, FOR I AM HOLY.” 1 Peter 1:15-16

It’s only because we have heard the words of Peter from a lifeless, fleshly viewpoint that we could possibly overlook the miraculous distinction of what is meant by “but like the Holy One who called you.” But notice how his statement rests upon his previous claims:

Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who reside as aliens, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, who are chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, by the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with His blood: May grace and peace be yours in the fullest measure. (1 Peter 1:1-2)

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, (1 Peter 1:3)

and though you have not seen Him, you love Him, and though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, (1 Peter 1:8)

Didn’t many of us learn to properly nestle these amazing manifestos within the context of separate doctrines rather than to view them as all working together in proclaiming this “joy inexpressible”?

• Imagine if Peter’s reference to “those who reside as aliens” actually set the stage for everything that came after, so that they understood all he wrote in view of not being of this world.
• Imagine if Peter’s “who are chosen” could only be understood in view of a union with the chosen one, rather than to be separated and discussed as an isolated doctrine that lacks any real life.
• Imagine if the “sanctifying work of the Spirit” was declared as a real and living act of separating the chosen ones from the “former lusts which were (theirs) in ignorance”.
• Imagine if the statement “to obey Jesus Christ” was so interconnected with the reality of the sanctifying work of the Spirit of God that it could not be viewed according to their previous impotence but as a demand of the work of God in doing so.
• Imagine if the “living hope” was not restricted to fleshly perceptions of the afterlife, but rather to their new life in the heavenlies.
• Imagine if Peter’s written words about loving him and believing in him without seeing him were understood according to the miracle of this same living hope within them.

Because the religious, fleshly mind has forced a false perception upon Peter’s words, we must use different words to express the same realities to many of the people we come in contact with, while at the same time making the demand that if one desires to understand what Peter wrote it must go hand-in-hand with a determined withdrawal from the religiously-embedded assumptions we learned in this world. For what if many who believe they understand Peter’s letters really only understand the lie as it applies to Peter’s translated words?

“be holy yourselves also in your behavior” is a proclamation of our true freedom in the one who brought us into the realm where we are as he is. It is the constant demand before us as to who we really are and to whom we are truly connected; for we live from and according to another life that has no connection to the world in which we live, to the world that at one time defined us. The phrase does not suggest that we now need to “act” according to the world that tells us what acting is supposed to look like. It has nothing to do with how “holy” has come to be defined in the world, for it speaks of our being chosen out of this world through the death and resurrected life of another … not of some progressive form of betterment. For don’t we all understand the world’s demands of what it means to act right, even in using Peter’s (or Jesus’) words to support that perception? To be holy in one’s behavior is the ongoing demand that we act according to our true reality as those made alive in Christ, as those no longer of this world. How that may look according to an appearance-based perspective may differ as to who is looking. But faith, hope and love are still faith, hope and love, despite one’s judgment to the contrary. How often have those who falsely judged the behavior borne out of holiness been later overcome by the truth of that behavior?

Jim