What a big ask! (Actually, it’s a command). If yesterday’s ask was huge, today’s, it seems to me, is even huger (I think that’s a word). Submitting to every human authority (even when that authority is Nero), as Peter commanded in yesterday’s reading, ain’t no gimme. But to submit also to some nobody, cruel taskmaster? Really? Yeah, really.

Why? What’s in it for me?

Other than obeying the God who is to be obeyed? Well, there’s grace.

Household slaves, submit to your masters with all reverence not only to the good and gentle ones but also to the cruel. For it brings favor if, because of a consciousness of God, someone endures grief from suffering unjustly. For what credit is there if when you do wrong and are beaten, you endure it? But when you do what is good and suffer, if you endure it, this brings favor with God.

(1Peter 2:18-20 CSB)

It brings favor . . . this brings favor with God. That’s what I’m chewing on this morning.

5485, that’s the Strong’s number here for favor. Charis, that’s the original word, the word used commonly throughout the New Testament for grace. So, where the CSB (and NASB) say that such unwarranted submission is a favor thing, the ESV says it’s a “gracious thing.” The NIV and NKJV say it’s a “commendable” thing. I’m just thinking it’s an amazing thing.

God has established lines of authority, all lines of authority. In its time, domestic servant to domestic servant’s master was permitted to be one of those lines. Not a line dependent on the human character of the master, but a line determined by the sovereign purposes of the Creator. And in that line, slaves submit to masters. And when they do, whether to masters kind or cruel, it brings favor, favor with God.

The sense here among the translators is that it pleases God when, because of a conscious desire to obey God, “we endure undeserved pain without vindicating self or fighting back” (William MacDonald). But isn’t there also the sense that when doing that which is at the limits of what we think we can do as humans it also brings favor from God? It beckons grace? It invites a strength and a power beyond ourselves to do that which we are not sure we can do by ourselves? I’m thinking.

In only doing what we want to do, in only doing what we’re pretty sure we can do, we succumb to the temptation towards self-sufficiency, and can fall to the sin of self-reliance. But to submit to someone else, especially when that someone else is a creep boss, is to put ourselves in a place of compromise, a place of vulnerability, a place of weakness, a place of needing something more than us. Cue Paul . . .

Therefore, so that I would not exalt myself, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to torment me so that I would not exalt myself. Concerning this, I pleaded with the Lord three times that it would leave me. But He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is perfected in weakness.” Therefore, I will most gladly boast all the more about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may reside in me. So I take pleasure in weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and in difficulties, for the sake of Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

(2Corinthians 12:7b-10 CSB)

Paul’s willingness to concede to his thorn in the flesh brings favor — not only favor with God but favor from God. His submission, despite his insufficiency, effectively attached himself to a divine fire hose from which abundant grace, sufficient grace, power-giving grace could overflow into his compromised and weak situation. While he knew the cruelness of this taskmaster sent from Satan, he also knew experientially the power of the risen Christ in him as the Spirit of God lived through Him.

Doing the hard thing because of a consciousness of God invites the favor thing, beckons the grace thing, gets us ready for the-power-of-Christ-in-me thing. It brings not only favor with God, but also brings first hand experience with favor from God.

Such is His amazing grace. To Him be all the glory.