Absolute Standard

My friend, Jeff, was an architect and a builder who loved adding rooms or additions to his house. Whenever I visited him, I helped him with his projects – handing him hammers, nails, and nail guns. One summer, he built a playhouse for his children, a replica of their large house. This playhouse was the size of a tiny house, roughly 40–50 sq meters (430–530 sq feet), with an upstairs. One Saturday, he decided to put up the four walls. We needed more people to help, but Jeff didn’t want to ask others. Instead, we used our two vans to help. It was a sight to see. After hours of working, we got the four walls up. Then Jeff measured it. To my dismay, he said, “We must take the walls down. They are one-eighth [of an inch] off.” I thought, “One-eighth! A playhouse! What’s the difference?” Jeff saw that on my face and drew on the ground to explain to me how one-eight off at the base will become four or five inches off at the roof, and the weight of the roof with that one-eighth off at the base would collapse the entire structure. I learned a valuable lesson on precision that day.

Peter asked his readers to be a set apart or holy people (1 Pet 1:13–15). And the measuring rod or leveler of such precision was:

“the one who called you ‘holy.’” (1:15)

God was the leveler or measuring rod for the believers’ lifestyle. The Hebrew audience knew that. God had said to them through Moses:

“You be holy as I am holy” (Lev 11:44–45; 19:2; 20:7, 26; 21:8; Deut 23:14; 1 Pet 1:16)

The multiple repetitions of this phrase emphasized how God considered their holiness significant. These passages revealed they were to be set apart in what they ate (Lev 11:44–45) and how they kept the Ten Commandments, and more, including how they loved their parents, kept the sabbaths, didn’t make idol-gods but gave acceptable sacrifices, took care of the poor, didn’t steal, didn’t lie, didn’t deceive or defraud one another, didn’t swear falsely, didn’t withhold justice, didn’t harm others including animals, and protected foreigners and refugees (Lev 19:2–21–24). God’s holiness demanded that they keep the campground clean by burying their feces deep underground and away from the camp (Deut 23:14). All these were done because God lived among them, in his tent among their tents.

Peter’s audience knew these and would have observed them. But Peter wanted to remind them again that their call to be followers of Christ was to live with God residing among them, and their absolute standard was God and his holiness.

In the modern individualized world, we treat these laws as “moral” – laws somehow make us moral people. But God presented them, and the Hebrews accepted them as “communal” laws. They taught how a covenantal community lived each day. One buried the feces not for moral reasons but for the community’s health – for deceases not spread. One protected neighbors, refugees, or animals because that was the commission of humanity. The laws were given to help God’s people live in peace more than make a person a morally good person.

Our holiness is not a moral uprightness but a communal love for humanity. Of course, such love reflects the truth that we belong to the one who called us holy, and we are like Him.