The Christian Who Refuses to Hit Back

There is a peculiar pleasure in getting even. Someone speaks badly about us, and almost instinctively we begin composing the response. Someone embarrasses us publicly, and we want the record corrected publicly. Someone wounds us, and even if we would never admit that we want revenge, there is something satisfying about seeing them wounded in return.

Our culture has found sophisticated ways of legitimising this instinct. We call people out. We expose them. We quote-post their foolishness for thousands of strangers to mock. We keep screenshots. We assemble evidence. Sometimes there are legitimate reasons to expose wrongdoing, particularly where others need protection. But something darker can easily hide beneath the language of accountability: the ancient human desire to make the person who hurt me hurt too.

Peter knew that instinct. He was writing to Christians who had considerably more reason to feel aggrieved than most of us do. They were “sojourners and exiles,” increasingly maligned because they belonged to Christ. Peter has already acknowledged that they might be spoken against as evildoers. More suffering is coming. 

What should Christians become when the world treats them badly? Peter's answer is startling. “Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless” (1 Peter 3:9). Not merely refrain from retaliation. Bless.

There is a world of difference between those two things. It is one thing to grit your teeth and walk away from someone who has insulted you. It is another thing altogether to desire their good. Yet this is the strange ethic of Christianity.

The Instinct to Return What We Receive

Human relationships operate naturally on reciprocity. We tend to return what we receive. Be kind to me and I will probably be kind to you. Respect me and I will respect you. Encourage me and I will find it easier to encourage you.

But reverse the treatment and the same principle operates. Speak sharply and I sharpen my response. Question my motives and I question yours. Gossip about me and suddenly I feel remarkably free to explain your faults to someone else.

Before long, nobody remembers where the conflict began. We only know that everyone has reasons for what they did. Peter breaks the cycle. Someone must absorb the blow without returning it. For the Christian, that someone is often us.

This is not cowardice. Nor does it mean pretending that evil is good. Scripture gives us categories for confronting sin, pursuing justice, protecting the vulnerable, and exercising church and civil discipline. Peter himself could speak with remarkable directness when truth required it.

But there is a difference between seeking what is right and seeking revenge. The Christian has surrendered the right to personal vengeance because judgment belongs to God. That is why Peter can tell us to bless.

Learning This From Jesus

Peter had seen this lived before he ever wrote it. Only a few verses earlier, he reminded his readers of Christ: “When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten” (2:23). Peter was there. He had watched Jesus arrested. He knew about the false accusations, the mockery, the spitting, the beating, and the crucifixion. Peter himself had responded to the arrest of Jesus by reaching for a sword.

Jesus responded differently. He entrusted himself “to him who judges justly.” That sentence explains Christian non-retaliation better than almost anything else could. Jesus could refuse revenge because He trusted His Father with justice. So can we.

Much of our anger comes from the fear that if we do not defend ourselves, nobody will. If I do not correct this story, perhaps people will believe it. If I do not make them pay, perhaps they will get away with it. If I do not answer the insult, perhaps everyone will think I am weak.

Faith answers: God sees. Peter ends this section by quoting Psalm 34: “For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayer.” That changes everything.

The insult nobody else heard was heard by God. The injustice nobody else noticed was noticed by God. The motives nobody else understands are known perfectly by God. You do not have to be your own judge, jury, advocate, and executioner. There is a Judge. And He judges justly.

A Different Kind of People

Peter's command concerning retaliation does not stand alone. He begins this paragraph by describing the kind of community capable of living this way: “Have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind” (v. 8).

These virtues belong together. A proud person finds it extraordinarily difficult not to retaliate because pride demands vindication. A hard-hearted person finds it difficult to bless an enemy because he has ceased to see his opponent as a human being. A person without sympathy can justify almost any cruelty because the other side has become nothing more than “them.”

Humility changes the calculation. The Christian remembers that he too lives entirely by mercy.

We know what it is to stand guilty before a holy God. We know what our sins deserved. We know that Christ did not treat us according to what we had done. The gospel therefore removes one of the great fuels of vengeance: moral superiority.

This does not mean that there are no victims and perpetrators, no right and wrong, no truth and falsehood. It means that even when I am genuinely wronged, I remain a sinner who has received astonishing mercy. It is difficult to stand at the foot of the cross and feel smug.

The Age of Outrage

This may be one of the most important Christian virtues in our present moment. Outrage has become an industry. Entire media ecosystems depend upon keeping us angry. Social media rewards the sharp response far more readily than the gentle one. Political discourse increasingly teaches us not merely to disagree with our opponents but to despise them.

Christians are not immune. We can baptise the same behaviour with theological language. Cruelty becomes “boldness.” Mockery becomes “discernment.” An inability to control our tongue becomes “contending for the faith.”

There certainly is a time to contend for the faith. There is a time to name error and oppose wickedness. Peter is hardly advocating doctrinal softness or moral indifference.

But Christian courage should still smell like Christ. If our defence of truth consistently produces arrogance, contempt, cruelty, and delight in humiliating opponents, we should at least consider whether something other than zeal for God's glory is driving us.

Peter calls us to something harder. “Seek peace and pursue it” (v. 11).

Peace does not always come. Paul wisely adds elsewhere, “If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all” (Romans 12:18). Sometimes another person will refuse reconciliation. Sometimes truth itself creates division.

But the Christian should never be the one secretly delighted that peace failed. We pursue it.

Called to Bless

Peter gives one final reason for this strange way of life: “for to this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing” (v. 9). Christians bless because Christians have been blessed.

We were enemies, and God reconciled us. We were guilty, and God pardoned us. We were far off, and Christ brought us near. We reviled God by our sin, yet the Son bore our reviling and carried our guilt in His own body on the tree.

The gospel is the story of Someone who had every right to condemn us choosing instead to bear condemnation for us. That gospel creates a different sort of person.

Not a weak person. Not a person indifferent to justice. Not someone incapable of speaking firmly when truth requires it. But someone who no longer needs to win every personal battle.

Someone who can be misunderstood without becoming consumed by self-vindication. Someone who can receive an insult without immediately returning one. Someone who can pray for an enemy and actually mean it. Someone who can bless.

Our world knows how to return evil for evil. It has been doing so since Cain. What it finds much harder to understand is a person who has every opportunity to strike back, and does not.

And perhaps that is precisely the point. For when Christians refuse to return reviling for reviling, we are displaying something that cannot finally be explained by temperament, politeness, or good manners.

We are showing the world something of Jesus Christ.