*Servants, be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle but also to the unjust.For this is a gracious thing, when, mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly. For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure; this is a gracious thing in the sight of God.For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you,leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. 23 When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls. 1 Peter 2:18-25

The system of slavery doesn’t exist in the modern world but it was very much prevalent in the Greco-Roman world. Being a slave wasn’t a respected job in the first century in Greco roman world? they were not treated well in the society. Few obeservations. slaves were not directly addressed as free moral agents as we find in the new testament. In the Greek writings slaves receive instruction through their husbands because both slave thought to be deficient, though not in the same way. a slave must worship his or her master’s god and a wife must worship her husband’s. Slaves, the lowest social class in Greco-Roman society, have to submit to even unjust masters harsh treatment of slaves was socially acceptable and perhaps even expected by the Romans. In the first century, any religion that did not uphold the proper order between men and their slaves was severely criticized.

For centuries the Greek moral philosophers wrote about proper relationships within the household, slaves to masters, wives to husbands, and children to parents. Although these writers had different views on slaves, all shared a common belief that order in the household, which they believed to be divinely ordained, was the constituent basis for a strong, orderly, and prosperous society. Seneca writes: “No one will do his duty as he ought, unless he has some principle to which he may refer his conduct. We must set before our eyes the goal of the Supreme Good. Seneca further observes that humankind cannot make progress until it “has conceived a right idea of God.”

First Peter agrees that there is a right idea of God, which must guide all of life, but goes further by claiming that the right idea of God is to be found in Jesus Christ (1:3). It is not the philosophy of great thinkers but the new birth through Christ’s resurrection that is needed as the basis of ethics.

Peter bring the example of Christ to help the first century slaves who were part of the church, so that they could conduct themselves in the right way God wants them to be. Regardless of one’s social status, Christians are to consider themselves to be slaves to God, and so the actual slave who is obedient to his master exemplifies that role for the entire Christian community. Peter here makes the point that God sent his Son as one who would seemingly have so little socio-political power that he would end up dying a slave’s death by crucifixion.

Peter claims that slaves, and by extension all Christians (3:9), are called both to suffer unjustly and to continue to do right as they follow the example of Jesus Christ in his passion. Peter further exhorts the Christian to keep on doing good even when unjust suffering continues to be the result.

1 Pet. 2:21–25 highlights the extensive and creative use of Isaiah 53. Peter many quotations directly taken from the Isaiah 53 which is prophetical writing about the suffering Messiah.

1.Verbal abuse refers to slander by the Sanhedrin (Mark 14:65), ridicule by the Roman guards (Mark 15:12–20), and derision by the crucified thief (Mark 15:29–32).

2. Jesus accepts injustice without retaliating; in fact, he accepts it in silence (Mark 14:61; 15:5).

3. Jesus entrusted judgment to God, thereby leaving the preservation of justice to God the Father alone (Mark 14:62).

Peter presents the unjust suffering of slaves as the calling of all Christians because Jesus was called to suffer unjustly, he “who suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his footsteps”. If Christians are to live as servants of God (2:16), the essence of that identity is a willingness to suffer unjustly as Jesus did, exemplifying in suffering the same attitude and behaviour he did.