I’ve had one of those beautiful “ahh!” moments tonight, my eyes opening to see just a little bit more of God’s vision for his people in his world.

What does the Apostle Peter mean by the following sentences?

“Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.” (1Pet 2:11-12 NIV)

How are we as Christians to relate to the world around us? Do we reinforce a distinct identity from the world? Or do we embrace them - becoming socially and politically winsome?

This week’s reading for Social Ethics was an article by Miroslav Volf call Soft Difference where he considers these questions. It’s opened my eyes to 1 Peter and to the way I relate to the rest of the world.

Volf observes in 1 Peter a vision of the Christian life in a community of believers that sums what people mean by “in the world but not of the world”. These Christians find their purpose and significance in God, living without the pressures from the world around them to break away for survival or to accomodate their beliefs for approval. They have a quiet and gentle confidence in God’s future for them. The boundaries they form around them are not hard in order to isolate themselves, nor absent in order to be absorbed in world, but soft. Not soft as in weak. But soft as in ‘not hard’. Not born from fear or indignance, but soft and born from above into a Christ-given hope and love (1:3). What results is a Christian community refreshingly different, born from above, properly outrageous and winsome to the world around and about.

It’s difficult to reproduce the profundity of it, but here is section that I thought hit a nerve for me as I try to relate properly with my neighbours:

The distance from society that comes from the new birth into a living hope dies not isolate from society. For hope in God, the Creator and Savior of the whole world, knows no boundaries. Instead of leading to isolation, this distance is a presupposition of mission. Without distance, churches can only give speeches that others have written for them and they only go places where others lead them. To make a difference, one must be different. (p24).