Chosen for What?
But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light . 1 Peter 2:9
Just a few months back an Australian politician tried to put the church in its place. A church leader had criticised the Government position on an issue. The politician came back with a statement something like “The church shouldn’t be telling us what to do. They should stick to what they’re meant to be doing. They should go out and help a few people.” In his mind the church’s purpose on earth was to “go out and help a few people.”
What the world thinks the church should be doing is different to what the church itself thinks it should be doing. Why is that?
The question “What should the church be doing?” is an extraordinarily important one. But before we answer that we have to answer an even more fundamental question: “Who are we doing it for?”
The world does what it does to satisfy itself but the church does what it does to satisfy God.
In our passage above the NIV uses the term “a people belonging to God.” As any Greek interlinear New Testament will show you, Peter actually wrote “a people for possession.” He saw God’s people as “a people for (God’s) possession.”
God’s people do what they do for an audience, not of millions or even billions, but for an audience of one – and that makes us different.
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