Respect for Authority

2:13  What living the Christian life entails is now spelled out in some practical detail. Peter applies the admonition Submit yourselves to a series of relationships: to civil government (vv. 13–17), to slavery (vv. 18–20), to Christ himself (vv. 21–25), and to marriage (3:1–7).

The relationship of Christians to the state was one which soon became problematic, for in the early centuries of the church all states not only were governed by pagans but included pagan worship within their social, economic, and political systems. A collision with the church, owing its primary allegiance not to the state but to Jesus Christ, was inevitable. Added to this was the fact that even before Christianity broke completely with Judaism, the Jewish hierarchy perceived a powerful rival in …