By Reinder Bruinsma
Seventh-day Adventists have often referred to themselves as a “peculiar people.” Just the other day, I noted that Ellen White wrote about Daniel as a “peculiar person.” (Signs of the Times, Nov. 4, 1899). Then I looked for other places where she used this word and found quite a few. She spoke, for instance, of several other Old Testament heroes as belonging to God’s “peculiar people” (Prophets and Kings, p. 148). In the fifth volume of her Testimonies for the Church, she writes: “Seventh-day Adventists have been chosen as a peculiar people, separate from the world.” The expression “God’s peculiar people” is perhaps less common today among Adventists, but it is still being used quite widely. First of all, we should note that the word “peculiar” has a number of different meanings. When something is strange or uncommon we refer to it as “peculiar.” But the word often has a rather negative and unpleasant connotation, and is more or less synonymous with “weird” or “bizarre.” And there are many people who feel that Adventists are indeed “peculiar” in that sense. (I must admit that I also know a few rather weird Adventists.)
In spite of all the public relations efforts of our church, Seventh-day Adventists are still, for many people around us, a rather unknown group. Often we find that, if people do know something about us, they mention things we do not believe in and things that we do not do, rather than the main points of our message and the positive things that Adventists do, in fact, do. Adventists, many websites contend, are weird. They do not eat pork or shrimp, they do not drink alcohol, they give ten percent of their money to their church, they keep Saturday as their Sunday, and they have a prophet. Such a group must be really weird!
When I grew up in a small place some twenty miles north of Amsterdam, our family was the only Adventist family in our village and we were quite “weird” in the eyes of the Christian Reformed and the Catholic people around us. In my class in secondary school, it was considered quite weird that I did not come to school on Saturdays (as was still common at that time in the Netherlands).
God’s special possession
The origin of the expression “God’s peculiar people” is found in two New Testament texts. The King James Version of Titus 2:14 reads: “[Christ] gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.” And in 1 Peter 2:9, the apostle Peter reminds his readers, “Ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people . . .”
In these Bible verses the word “peculiar” definitely does not have the connotation of “weird” or “bizarre.” This becomes crystal clear when we consult more recent Bible translations. The Greek term that the seventeenth century translators rendered as “peculiar” means “possessing, possession, property.” The New International Version of the Titus 2:14 translates it as “a people that are his very own,” and in 1 Peter 2:9 as “God’s special possession.”
How wonderful is it to know that those who have chosen to follow the Lord Jesus Christ are “God’s very own” and “God’s special possession!” This is fully in line with 1 John 3:1: “See what great love the Father has lavished upon us that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” Of course, Adventists should never claim that they are the only ones that are called “children of God.” But all of us must make sure that we belong in that category, and we may have the assurance that we do, if we in all sincerity choose to follow Christ.
Our Christian calling does not imply that we should become “weird,” and that we should live in pious isolation from society, even though in Adventist parlance we live in Babylon! When Jeremiah addressed his fellow Jews, who were living in ancient Babylon, he was adamant that they should live normal lives and do all they could to be a blessing to the society of which they were part (see Jer. 29:4-9). And that is what we are called to do in our Babylon of the twenty-first century.
Being special
Being “God’s very own” should not make us peculiar in the sense of being “strange,” but this assurance should constantly remind us that we are special. This certainty anchors our identity. In today’s world, many people experience an identity crisis and wonder who they are. Those who are “God’s very own” may also have all kinds of questions about themselves, but there is this one grand, underlying certitude that we know where we ultimately “belong.”
Being “God’s very own” gives us a clear sense of purpose. I feel inspired by the way in which the recently deceased Eugene Peterson paraphrased 1 Peter 2:9 in The Message, and by how he captured the meaning so well: “But you are the ones chosen by God, chosen for the high calling of priestly work, chosen to be a holy people, God’s instruments to do His work and speak out for Him, to tell others of the night-and-day difference He made for you—from nothing to something, from rejected to accepted” (italics mine).
As God’s instruments we have a mission to make this “day-and-night” difference in our own lives and in the lives of others around us. This means that we must, as Peterson puts it, tell others of how being “God’s very own” has made us different people. This not only means that as Seventh-day Adventists we have a distinct message that can help people find Christ and can help others who already have some knowledge of what it means to belong to Him enrich their sense of belonging and their Christian experience. But being “special” must also transform how we live. It must translate into a life that is inspired by the values and norms of the Kingdom of God that is awaiting us in the future but that, in a very definite sense, is also already within us (Luke 17:21). Above all, those who belong to God must reflect the love of God and must model the love and tolerance that was exemplified in the life of our Lord.
Open letters
In his second letter to the Corinthians, Paul used the metaphor of a “letter” to summarize what living as a Christian is all about: “You are a letter from Christ, . . . written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God” (2 Cor. 3:3). In other words, a Christian life is special in the sense that it clearly communicates something of who and what God is.
When people look at us, they must not see a weird or bizarre person, but they must see something special in us. We are reminded of what happened in Jerusalem when Peter and John witnessed fearlessly of their faith. Though they were “unschooled and ordinary” men, the people “were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus” (Acts 4:13). That awareness of the glorious fact that we are “God’s special possession” will make us different. People will take note that we, like Peter and John, have been with Jesus. A former generation would probably have said that this makes us “peculiar,” but we should perhaps simply say that it makes us very “special” indeed.
Reinder Bruinsma has served the Adventist Church in publishing, education, and church administration on three continents. He still maintains a busy schedule of preaching, teaching, and writing. He writes from the Netherlands where he lives with his wife Aafje. His two latest books are Facing Doubt: A Book for Adventist Believers “on the Margins” and In All Humility: Saying “No” to Last Generation Theology. Email him at: [email protected]