Contemplative Bible Reading

1 Peter 4:3-4 (New International Version 2011)

³ For you have spent enough time in the past doing what pagans choose to do—living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing and detestable idolatry. ⁴ They are surprised that you do not join them in their reckless, wild living, and they heap abuse on you.

I “grew up in the church.” I guess those words in the quotes are accurate. My parents attended church services every Sunday and worked in many areas of the churches we attended. In grades 1 through 5 I attended a small, private school operated by a group of churches. The friends of my parents were all attending church services regularly and doing pretty much the same things that my parents did.

I never met any adults who lived in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing and detestable idolatry.

Still, I attended elementary school in the 1960s. Looking back on news video of the 1960s, the drug culture was born and the sexual revolution took place, so there seemed to have been a bunch of debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing and detestable idolatry. I, however, never knew any of these people.

I attended a small high school in a rural area of southeastern Louisiana. Some kids I knew got drunk on the weekends, and some girls I knew got pregnant. That means that some of the debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing and detestable idolatry was occurring, and I knew some of the people involved. But they didn’t seem to be terrible people. If you pinned them down long enough to have a real conversation, they would say that they believed in God and in that light they really couldn’t explain what they were doing.

Detestable idolatry? No, I really have never met anyone who did that.

This little contemplation must be leading somewhere, so let’s try this path: Peter was writing to a group of people who actually did all the stuff in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing and detestable idolatry. That was the way of life in the time and place they lived. Then Jesus the Christ entered the scene and their world changed. Their world changed so much that it is difficult for me to comprehend it.

I can’t find a way to read these words of Peter to anyone today who is “growing up in the church.” The words just don’t apply. They aren’t in a struggle to move from a world of debauchery and idolatry to a world of light and grace. Sin? Yes, they have sin. They are jealous, they hate people now and then, they lack good judgment in some situations. I guess pride and ego take hold more than anything else.

I think these grown-up-in-the-church kids will encounter situations where

They are surprised that you do not join them in their reckless, wild living, and they heap abuse on you.

That challenge remains for them. It remains for me from time to time these days. I pray for them and for me to have strength in those times.