TEXAS GOSPEL CANADA VOLUNTEER

There is a recognisable ritual in every household: the clearing out of things that no longer fit, no longer function, no longer belong to the life one is now living. The coat from a decade ago that sits unworn at the back of the wardrobe. The appliance that has not worked in years. These things accumulate quietly, occupying space that might otherwise serve the present.

First Peter 2 calls believers to a similar clearing out, but of a different and more consequential kind. The list Peter provides is precise: malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander. These are presented not as exotic vices belonging to extreme cases, but as familiar tendencies of the unrenewed heart. And the instruction is as direct as a cleared wardrobe: put them aside, renounce them, be done with them.

Each item on the list deserves honest examination. Malice is the settled desire to cause harm to another without any just cause. Deceit encompasses the many forms of dishonesty, large and small, that corrupt our dealings with one another. Hypocrisy is the adoption of a false appearance, presenting to the world a person we are not. Envy is the quiet bitterness that rises when another person achieves what we wanted. And slander is the willingness to damage someone’s name with our words.

These are the garments of the old life, and Peter’s counsel is not to modify them or wear them less frequently. It is to lay them aside completely.

What we once were, we need not remain.

 that, in reference to your former way of life, you are to rid yourselves of the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, and that you are to be renewed in the spirit of your minds,

Ephesians 4:22-23