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Postured: Live as Foreigners and Exiles

Postured: Live as Foreigners and Exiles

Last updated on: October 25, 2026 at 11:44 pm by Jeff McLain

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Postured: Live as Foreigners and Exiles 2026-10-25T23:44:08-04:00 Jeff McLain

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Photo by Paul Garaizar on Unsplash. Postured: Foreigners and Exiles (1 Peter 2:11-17).

In a world competing for our allegiance, 1 Peter 2:11–17 calls followers of Jesus to remember who they are, resist the desires that pull them away from God, and live in ways that point others toward his kingdom

If you remember back to art class, you may have used an artist’s mannequin. It was a poseable model you could shape into different positions to help you learn to draw people in various poses. With a few twists, bends, and turns, you could position the mannequin just about any way you wanted.

The world tries to twist, bend, and turn us into what it wants us to be every day. When it wins, we are not the faithful, fruitful witnesses Jesus and the Scriptures desire.

When we approach the Scriptures with surrender, willingness, humility, and obedience, they too will twist, bend, and turn us back into the transformed shape that Jesus desires for us as God’s empowered ambassadors and witnesses in the world around us.

Through this series, Postured, we’ll explore seven passages from letters Peter and Paul wrote to the early church, and how followers of Jesus are called to live, speak, and respond to the world around us. Obviously, these are not the only ways the New Testament calls us to live faithfully, fruitfully, and differently in the world around us. However, these seven verses offer seven relevant postures that set us apart not to withdraw from the world, but so our lives can bear faithful witness to Jesus and the kingdom of God. Our calling is not to criticize the world, withdraw from it, or become like it, but to live distinctively as Jesus’ people and bear witness to him in the world around us.

These seven verses offer seven postures for how I think God wants us to live faithfully and fruitfully in this time and place.

In this post, we are reflecting on 1 Peter 2:11–17. Here, Peter calls us to live as foreigners and Exiles. We live in a world full of competing voices, values, and visions, from politics to culture to the constant pull to be noticed and fit in. Left unchecked, these shape us more than we realize, and we can end up looking, sounding, and acting like everyone else. Peter speaks directly to this. He calls his readers beloved, then foreigners and exiles, urging them to resist desires that wage war against the soul and to live good lives among those who do not share their faith, so others may glorify God. He then calls them, as free people, to submit to human authority for the Lord’s sake, to respect everyone, to love the family of believers, and to revere God. To understand why Peter writes this way, we need to know who he was writing to and what they were facing.

The important thing to remember is that we are always being formed. The question is not whether something is shaping us, but what is shaping us. Our habits, relationships, news sources, entertainment, political communities, and everyday conversations all shape who we become. Even how we respond to frustration, disagreement, and disappointment can reveal what has been shaping us.

Following Jesus requires us to pay attention to this process. We return to the Scriptures, listen to the Holy Spirit, pray, worship, and participate in a community that helps us grow in faithfulness. These practices do not earn God’s love. They help us stay attentive to the God who loves us and let his truth reshape how we think, desire, speak, and live.

The world is not the only influence at work in our lives. God is also at work, forming a people whose lives bear witness to Jesus. The question is whether we will surrender to that work or allow the surrounding culture to determine our posture.

I invite you to read 1 Peter 2:11–17.

The Context of 1 Peter: Writing to Persecuted Christians

The year is somewhere around 64 to 65 A.D. In this era and place, Jesus’ followers face many pressures, problems, and pains. Peter’s letter both encourages the people he loves and has invested in and calls them to live faithfully and fruitfully in these tough times, rejoicing as they share in the sufferings of Christ.

Into that suffering, Peter’s first word to them is not a command. It is a name.

Beloved First: Identity Before Instruction

Peter describes his readers as beloved before calling them foreigners and exiles. He roots their identity in love before telling them how to live. We are to live from a place of being beloved, despite our circumstances. We need people to remind us we are beloved when life tries to tell us otherwise.

Being beloved is where identity starts. Peter then describes where that identity puts us in the world.

What Does It Mean to Be Foreigners and Exiles?

Peter’s image is of God’s people scattered among the nations because they belong to Jesus, which puts them at odds with the world around them. Their identity and meaning do not come from the world they live in. We do not get our identity or ultimate allegiance from this world. Our citizenship is in the Kingdom of God and the new world to come, so we live as sojourners and passersby.

But this is not a call to withdraw from the world or become passive. We are called to live in ways that proclaim the citizenship we do have.

When Politics Begins to Shape Our Faith

One challenge of living as foreigners and exiles is recognizing when the world has begun to shape our understanding of faith. In our polarized culture, political loyalties can become so closely tied to our religious beliefs that we struggle to distinguish between them. We can begin to assume that faithfulness to Jesus requires allegiance to a particular political party, movement, or vision for society.

Peter reminds us that our ultimate allegiance belongs to Jesus and the kingdom of God. This does not mean Christians should stop caring about public life, justice, or the well-being of their neighbors. It means we must let Jesus shape our convictions rather than letting our political convictions determine how we read Scripture, treat our neighbors, or understand those with whom we disagree.

The question is not simply whether our political beliefs reflect our faith. We must also ask whether our political loyalties are shaping us into people who look, love, speak, and respond like Jesus. Are we becoming more patient, truthful, humble, and compassionate? Or are we becoming more suspicious, resentful, hostile, and eager to win?

We can hold convictions firmly without allowing them to become our identity. We can pursue what we believe is good without treating those who disagree with us as enemies. Our citizenship in God’s kingdom should show in how we engage the world, especially when cultural pressures tempt us to forget whose people we are.

Desires That Wage War Against the Soul

Our internal desires shape our external lives. The world lures us away from our identity and citizenship by offering competing visions, values, and voices. If our citizenship is in another kingdom, what pulls us back toward the world? Peter says it begins inside us. Our desires, ambitions, appetites, and need for affirmation can wage war within our souls, shaping what we crave, how we define ourselves, and where we seek belonging.

The way of Jesus is cruciform, shaped by the cross. But Jesus calls us to belong to something different. Resisting these desires isn’t just a private matter. How we live shows whose citizens we are.

Good Conduct as Worshipful Insurrection

Peter calls us to live well so that our citizenship in the Kingdom of God is on display. This is a kind of worshipful insurrection: living as citizens of God’s kingdom within the world we physically inhabit.

If we confess Jesus but live like citizens of the world around us, we end up looking, acting, sounding, and smelling like everyone else. When that happens, our witness becomes less effective. We are called to live in ways that make others question why we live differently—not because we criticize or condemn them, but because they see the goodness and good news of Jesus in our lives, even amid the problems we face.

Peter then applies this to one of the hardest places to live it out: our relationship to authority.

What Does the Bible Mean by Submitting to Authority?

This is a difficult and loaded passage. People have weaponized it, misused it, and sometimes ignored it. It is not a call to blind enslavement, nor is it a call to armed reformation of the system.

Living as citizens of one Kingdom under the laws of another is not ultimately about loyalty to governments, governors, or the world’s systems. Peter says we do this for the Lord’s sake, to do God’s will and live as God’s servants.

Peter calls believers to submit from a place of freedom. We are free people, but freedom doesn’t give us permission to pursue the world’s visions, values, and voices.

Freedom shapes how we treat governments and people. Peter closes this section by showing what this way of life looks like in our relationships.

Christian submission never declares earthly authority ultimate. Peter’s readers belong to Jesus, even as they live under the authority of the Roman Empire. Their obedience to human institutions is framed by their allegiance to God. They are to live as free people and as God’s servants, which means their freedom is directed toward doing what is good.

This distinction matters because authority can be used to protect and serve people, but it can also be used to exploit, oppress, and harm them. Peter’s words should not be used to silence those who experience injustice or to suggest that every exercise of authority is right. Instead, he calls Christians to live faithfully before God, do good, and treat others with honor, even in difficult circumstances. Our submission expresses our commitment to the Lord, not an abandonment of it.

Respect Everyone Without Being a Jerk

Peter calls us to respect everyone, not just Christians or people we know and like. It means standing up for what is right without being a jerk. Our lives should be marked by reverence for God, honor toward others, and love even for our enemies, including those who mistreat or oppress us.

Peter’s concern goes beyond how we treat people in obvious moments. It reaches the small, daily things that shape us.

Everyday Sins: How Culture Quietly Shapes Us

One way to recognize what is shaping us is to pay attention to our ordinary reactions. What happens when someone challenges our opinions? How do we speak about people who disagree with us? What do we find ourselves envying, resenting, or complaining about? Whose approval matters most to us? What makes us feel successful, secure, or important?

These questions can reveal the values we have absorbed without realizing it. We may confess that Jesus is Lord while letting our need for recognition, fear of losing control, or desire to prove ourselves direct our daily lives.

Spiritual formation involves bringing these ordinary patterns before God. We ask the Holy Spirit to reveal what needs to change, then practice responding in ways that reflect Jesus. We learn to speak truthfully rather than slander, to celebrate others rather than envy them, and to serve rather than compete for recognition. These small choices are not insignificant. They are among the places where our lives are being shaped into the likeness of Christ.

But Peter is speaking about more than the sins we consider especially serious or obvious. He is talking about the everyday desires and habits that pull us away from Jesus: gossip, slander, jealousy, resentment, complaining, impatience, quick-tempered speech, envy, greed, pride, the desire for recognition, and the need to be right.

The battle for our souls often happens in ordinary moments—in what we say, how we respond, look at people, and which desires we let direct us. “Culture influences us more than we will ever know.” The world can shape us without our realizing it.

So, what does it look like to live as foreigners and exiles in this world? I think that there are three practical ways we can live out what Peter teaches in 1 Peter 2:11-17.

Three Practical Ways to Live as Jesus People

As Jesus people, we live from a place of being beloved. We are beloved by God, and that identity shapes how we live. We don’t have to seek the world’s approval or prove our worth through our accomplishments.
As Jesus people, we live as those who belong to another kingdom. Belonging to another kingdom changes our values, priorities, and what we consider success. We remember that our ultimate allegiance belongs to Jesus, whose kingdom is not built on the world’s power.
As Jesus people, we live good lives as an act of worship so that others may worship God. Our good works are not an attempt to earn God’s favor. They are the fruit of belonging to Jesus. The goal isn’t for people to admire us, but to see something of God’s goodness through us.

A 30-Day Challenge: Notice What Competes for Your Allegiance

Here is one way to begin putting the second point into practice.

For the next 30 days, pay attention to what competes for your allegiance. When you notice yourself seeking approval, recognition, or security from the world, pause and pray.

What Is Posturing You?

Before moving on, take a moment to consider what is shaping you.

What voices are you listening to most closely? What values are directing your decisions? What visions of success, security, and belonging are competing for your attention? Where have you begun to resemble the surrounding culture more than Jesus?

These are not questions meant to produce guilt or despair. They are invitations to pay attention and return to the One to whom we belong. We do not have to be shaped by every voice competing for our allegiance. We can bring our desires, habits, convictions, and relationships before God and ask the Holy Spirit to keep forming us into the people Jesus calls us to be.

For the next 30 days, notice what competes for your allegiance. When you recognize yourself reaching for the world’s approval, recognition, or security, pause and pray. Ask God to reorient your heart toward his kingdom and show you one practical way to live differently.

The question is not whether we will be postured. We will. The question is whether we will let the world shape us in its image or surrender to God’s transforming work.

We belong to Jesus. Walk the way. Live the life God has prepared for you as those who belong not to the Kingdom of this world, but to the Kingdom of God.

This series summarizes a Sunday morning message at River Corner Church.

You can also hear it on audio.

If this post resonated, subscribe for future reflections, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. You can learn more about his journey to recover a rooted Christian way of life through the Lord’s Prayer, ancient habits, leading a quiet life, and simple Jesus communities online at JeffMcLain.com, the Lead a Quiet Life blog on Patheos, or the Discovering God Podcast.

General Christian

Family, Parenting and Religion

Home and Religion

Series: Postured

1 Peter 2:11–17

Evangelical

Foreigners and Exiles

Postured

About Jeff McLain

Jeff McLain is a Doctor of Ministry Student on the Lord’s Prayer at Kairos University, Director of Pastoral Ministries at Water Street Mission, and a pastor at River Corner Church. Mobilized by 1 Thessalonians 4:11-12, Jeff blogs about recovering a rooted Christian way of life through the Lord’s Prayer, ancient habits, leading a quiet life, and simple Jesus communities. You can read more about the author here.

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