Are you peculiar? You should be.
More on that below–first, a word about grace. Grace is incredible. It is similar to forgiveness, but not the same. You might say forgiveness falls under the umbrella of grace. But grace is more than forgiveness. Grace is restoration. God does not simply forgive your sins. He restores your life—your soul—to something greater, something akin to what you might have experienced before the fall. God restores your life and redeems you—placing value in we who were once without value. Grace is God giving you esteem again. He removes your shame and fills you with esteem, with value, with purpose, with hope, with joy.
Grace is all the ways in which God makes right all that sin had made wrong.
But grace is not just about mankind, or about our standing with God. The large umbrella of grace also includes truths about God Himself.
He will not fit into the box we would like to place Him in. God surprises us in so many ways, not all of them pleasant. But they broaden our understanding of God—and that is another moment of grace.
Consider Hebrews 11:17-19. When Abraham is certain that Isaac must live because he is the child who fulfills God’s promise (Galatians 4:28), yet Abraham is also certain that Isaac must be sacrificed because God commanded it (Genesis 22:2)—these two mutually exclusive ideas forced Abraham to confront a God he could not possibly understand. And that is a God of Grace.
When I confront the truth that God is beyond my comprehension, I attribute that to God’s grace.
For me, every mystery of God is another tally mark in the God is a God of Grace column.
I understand one god. I might even understand three gods. But I cannot understand a three-in-one God. The Trinity is a mystery of grace.
I may comprehend predestination. I may comprehend free will. But if I believe that scripture supports both doctrines, I again confront a God of grace.
And most telling, I understand sin and hell. I understand a holy God. But I cannot fathom the mystery of a holy God who “knew no sin, yet became sin for us,” 2 Corinthians 5:21. How can holiness become unholiness? And why would God do it “while we were yet enemies” (Romans 5:8)? And how many truly horrible, murderous men, men of unfathomable evil will be in heaven? Surely heaven will include a shocking number of cruel, despicable, seemingly worthless sinners that God redeemed for no reason but His own glory. Think of the worst person you know. Imagine discovering that person in heaven. Because if they are not there, I guarantee someone equally unworthy will be. Why?
How do you reconcile such lavish grace, such reckless love? God is a God of great Grace. He is beyond our comprehension.
Such an eternal, unpredictable God, a mysterious God who insists on remaining invisible, and who refuses to explain so many mysteries—what else is He but a God of great grace. This is no binary, either-or, black-and-white God. This is not a series of ones and zeroes, switches that flip on or off. Decisions are not always yes or no. Nothing is as simple with God as we might like to believe.
God is good, of course. He loves you, absolutely. God will always be the loving One who said, “bring the children to me” Mark 10:14. God is loving and kind and compassionate and merciful and good. But He is not simple or predictable. He is beyond our definitions, our comprehension.
God will not fit into the box we have fashioned for Him. Because He is a God of great grace.
Consider one peculiar command.
“Ye shall not eat of anything that dieth of itself. Thou shalt give it unto the stranger that is in thy gates, that he may eat it, or thou mayest sell it unto an alien. For thou art a holy people unto the Lord thy God” Deuteronomy 14:21.
Moses has just reminded the people of Israel about all the kosher laws: eat only land animals with a cloven hoof that chew the cud. Eat only those fish with both fins and scales. You may eat birds, but none from a specific list (generally meat eaters and scavengers). The animals that do not make the cut are described as “abominable,” Deuteronomy 14:3.
But the passage concludes with a note about animals that die of natural causes. “Thou shalt give it unto the stranger that is in thy gates … or sell it unto an alien.” The standard seems different for the animal that dies. It is not described as an abomination—and you can share it with non-Jews. Let them benefit from the meat, if it interests them. But it is not for you.
Why not? What if a cow fell from a ledge, and you saw it happen? That’s a great deal of fresh meat—and not an insignificant loss to the owner. Why can’t a Jew eat the cow?
Because God says, “thou art a holy people … the Lord hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto Himself” Deuteronomy 14:2.
Holy and peculiar are similar words. “Holy” means “set apart.” It means being “called out” or different. God expects His children to be different, not just like everyone else. “Peculiar” means the same thing—in this arcane usage, “peculiar” means “special” or “particular.”
God’s children are to be set apart. Called out from the crowd. Different. Special.
We are “not of this world,” John 17:16.
For that reason, God commanded His children not to eat perfectly good meat if the animal died in any manner other than a ritual, kosher killing (there were rules for how it was to be done). The Jewish people were not hunters for the same reason—because wild animals could not be killed according to the rules.
But imagine what the foreigner would think. The Jewish farmer who pays you to pick his crops offers to give your Gentile family an entire cow simply because it stepped off a ledge and died? That is peculiar, is it not? The foreigner would ask questions. He would wonder if it was a trick. He would say “what’s the catch?” But there is no catch. The farmer is a Jew and His God will not allow him to eat this cow.
And that opens up an opportunity for a lot of conversations! The foreign man’s entire family will be talking about this—and all the friends with whom they share the meat. Everyone will be amazed by the Jewish man who gave away a perfectly good cow because his God said not to eat it. It is peculiar.
As I said above, I LOVE grace. I could talk about it forever. And I’m not the only one. Christians love grace. We bask in our freedom in Christ. We enjoy our freedom to eat what we want. Many Christians enjoy the freedom to drink whatever they might want. We enjoy many things once considered taboo not only for Christians but for all Americans: Piercings. Makeup. Two-piece swimsuits. Tattoos. Short sleeves. Mini-skirts. Four-letter words. Long hair on men. We even go to the movies (gasp!). It’s funny, but there was a time….
My great-grandmother (whom I never met) thought Christian girls should not be seen in short pants. My wife’s parents were raised in a church where the men sat on one side of the aisle and the women sat on the other. We can be a legalistic people. We love rules—and that can be a problem. Jesus did not redeem us from the law only to see us return to the law again, Galatians 5:1-4. We are not under a law. “All things are lawful for me” 1 Corinthians 6:12. No one extolled grace more than the Apostle Paul, and yet, no one placed higher expectations on other believers than Paul.*
The fact is, you can—you should—live a peculiar life, a set-apart life, a HOLY life, without living a life centered around rules.
And that is where grace comes into play. God would not place you under a series of rules. But you can make good choices. You can clean up your language, for example. Paul, the Bible’s great champion of grace, spoke many times about speech (see, e.g. Ephesians 4:29, 5:4, and Colossians 4:6). In fact, Paul spoke many times about a great many matters of good behavior and good habits. Like I said, no one explained grace better than Paul–and no one set higher standards for his Christian brothers and sisters than Paul. High standards–rules, if you will–do not conflict with grace.
I think the supposed tension between law and grace[1] makes it seem like a balancing act, as if it is two sides of the same coin, and we should try to be good, while also enjoying the freedom from all restraints that allows us to eat bacon-wrapped shrimp.
But this notion of a peculiar people is one of several things that persuade me that freedom from all restraints might not be Biblical.
I used to attend a men’s Bible study that was … unusual. It was held each Friday afternoon at an auto shop. After the day was done, the men would barbecue steaks and chicken, pass out cigars and beers, and sit down to talk about Jesus, often after watching scenes from movies that raised various men’s ministry-type of questions.
I remember watching some of the more PG-rated scenes from COOL HAND LUKE, followed by a Bible-oriented conversation from a retired pastor who had managed to incorporate into his Bible teaching every four-letter word in the English language. It was jarring. But it left me with a question:
If I am not peculiar in some way, if my life is not different or set apart or special, why would a lost person have any interest in what I have to say?
If my religion never requires me to do something peculiar such as giving away a cow that died in a sudden accident—then how will an unbeliever notice my witness?
I love grace! It is greater than and preferable to the law—though God’s law is of immense value and the Old Testament is a storehouse of (largely) untapped treasure. Jesus says we should master both law and grace, both the Old Testament and the New, Matthew 13:52.
But I also want to live a life that is different. I want to speak without cussing and do or not do a number of other things that signal to the lost that maybe my life is different somehow. I hope to be able to articulate the reason for the hope that I have (1 Peter 3:15), but I also want to let my light shine in a way that gives God glory and attracts others to His light, Matthew 5:16.
May God make us a peculiar people!
AΩ.
[1] There is no tension between law and grace, https://dadsdailydevotionals.com/2024/08/21/is-there-tension-between-law-and-grace-titus-214/
* Some of us have taken on a posture that deeply resists anything even remotely similar to a law. No personal goals, no New Year’s Resolutions, no rules of any kind. One example is my friend the seminary graduate who told me memorizing scripture was legalistic. I disagree. Legalism is adopting rules in order to be justified by them. Paul describes what we would call legalism this way: “You have been severed from Christ, you who are seeking to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace” Galatians 5:4.
No Biblical author expounds more brilliantly on grace than Paul. Yet, Paul commands believers to behave and follow all sorts of rules some of us today might describe as “legalistic.” The difference is this: Paul encourages us to live holy lives to give glory to God, not because we “seek to be justified by law.”
Christians should live holy lives. “Be holy as I am holy” 1 Peter 1:16. Make good choices. Follow the rules (yes, rules!). Here’s one of Paul’s many ‘rules’–“There must be no filthiness and silly talk, or coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks” Ephesians 5:4. Live right. Make good choices. Don’t shy away from ‘rules’ or goals or New Year’s Resolutions. Employ a rule for yourself now and then! It’s the fastest way to create good habits; it is the fastest way to grow. But don’t drift into the prideful self-delusion that tells you that your new good habit somehow makes you better in God’s eyes. That is, don’t fall from grace as you “seek to be justified by the law” that you invented.
Household Words: 