Daily Manna · Day 261 · September 18
Called to Inherit Blessing
“Not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing: but contrariwise blessing; knowing that ye are thereunto called, that ye should inherit a blessing.”
A woman in the queue at the pharmacy is spoken to as though she were slow. The reply arrives in her about a second and a half later. It is not cruel. It is accurate, which is worse, and it would leave the man holding it for the rest of the afternoon.
Peter is writing to Christians scattered across five Roman provinces, and the whole letter is addressed to people with no leverage. Just before this he has been speaking to household servants under harsh masters and to wives married to men who wanted nothing to do with the faith. These were not people who could have won the argument and nobly declined. They were people who would have lost, and who were being told what to do with a mouth that had no power in it.
Not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing. Railing is the small stuff, insult answered by insult, which is where nearly all of this actually happens. And then the reason, which is not that it works or that it wins anyone over: knowing that ye are thereunto called, that ye should inherit a blessing. It is the same word at both ends of the sentence. You are on the receiving end of one and you were called into the handing on of one, and Peter will not let you have the first without the second.
May the accurate sentence stay unsaid this week. May the one you say instead cost you something real. And may what you were called to inherit reach you along the same road you send it down.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 261 is I Did Eat Them (Jeremiah 15:16).