1 Peter 2:13-14

Submit to Every Human Institution: The Scandal of Christian Freedom Expressed as Voluntary Subordination

Peter commands free people to submit — not because the emperor deserves it, but because God's mission requires it.

Therefore subject yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake: whether to the king, as supreme; or to governors, as sent by him for vengeance on evildoers and for praise to those who do well.
1 Peter 2:13-14 · ESV

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The Trigger: Diaspora Christians Under Suspicion, Told to Voluntarily Lower Themselves

Peter writes to believers scattered across five Roman provinces in Asia Minor — people he calls "elect exiles" (1:1) and "sojourners" (2:11). These are not ethnic Jews in diaspora but predominantly Gentile converts whose social world has collapsed. Former friends now slander them as evildoers (2:12, 4:4). Roman society viewed new religious movements with deep suspicion: they disrupted household order, threatened civic religion, and destabilized patron-client networks. Christians who refused emperor worship, avoided public festivals, and reorganized household loyalties looked like social anarchists. The immediate trigger is a survival crisis: how do freed people — people liberated from "futile ways inherited from your forefathers" (1:18) — live inside an empire that is already watching them? Peter's answer is counterintuitive. He does not say "lie low." He does not say "resist." He says submit — and he grounds it not in the emperor's legitimacy but in God's purposes. This command lands inside a section (2:11–3:12) that systematically addresses how Christians engage every layer of Roman social structure: government, slavery, marriage. Verses 13-14 open that sequence. They set the theological logic everything else depends on.

The Specific Crisis

The letter's recipients live in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia — provinces spanning modern Turkey. The dating likely falls in the early-to-mid 60s AD, before Nero's formal persecution but during a period of escalating social hostility toward Christians. Pliny's later correspondence with Trajan (c. 112 AD) about Christians in this same region — Bithynia-Pontus — reveals what was already brewing: Roman officials suspicious of an unauthorized association (collegium) that met secretly, refused to honor the gods, and disrupted social hierarchies.

Peter's audience has been converted out of Greco-Roman paganism. He explicitly references their former "passions of your former ignorance" (1:14), "the futile ways inherited from your forefathers" (1:18), and their past life of "debauchery, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry" (4:3). These are not Jewish converts. They are Gentiles who have exited the Roman social-religious ecosystem — and their neighbors have noticed. The phrase in 4:4 is devastating: "They are surprised when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery, and they malign you."

The slander is not generic. Romans accused Christians of being ἄθεοι (atheists — rejecting the gods), practitioners of incest (they called each other "brother" and "sister" and met for love feasts), and cannibals (eating "body" and "blood"). More practically, Christians who refused to participate in trade guild sacrifices lost economic standing. Women who converted independently of their husbands violated household order. Slaves who worshipped a crucified criminal destabilized the master-slave hierarchy.

What Peter Is Trying to Accomplish

Peter is not writing a political treatise. He is solving a missionary and survival problem. The thesis statement for this entire section appears in 2:12: "Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation." The strategy is: disarm the accusation by living so visibly well within Roman structures that the slander collapses under the weight of observable evidence.

Verses 13-14 open the specific behavioral instructions that execute this strategy. They are not an independent theological unit — they are the first move in a sequence: submit to government (2:13-17), submit within slavery (2:18-25), submit within marriage (3:1-7), and a summary for the whole community (3:8-12). Every instruction in this sequence serves the same telos: make the gospel credible by making Christian behavior incontestable.

What Immediately Precedes

Verses 11-12 set up the entire section. "Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable..." The metaphor of sojourning is critical. A sojourner (πάροικος) in the ancient world was a resident alien — someone living in a place with limited legal rights, dependent on the goodwill of the host community. Peter has just redefined his audience's fundamental identity: you are not citizens of this empire. You are resident aliens passing through. And resident aliens who cause trouble get expelled.

Common Misreading

The most common misreading treats 2:13-14 as a universal political theology — a timeless divine endorsement of governmental authority. This flattens the passage into a proof-text for unconditional obedience to the state. Peter's argument is far more specific and far more subversive than that. He is telling free people to choose subordination for strategic and theological reasons — and he will limit that subordination sharply when it conflicts with God's commands (cf. Acts 5:29, which Peter himself modeled). The submission is voluntary, purposeful, and bounded — not unconditional, passive, or rooted in the state's inherent legitimacy.

What the Greek Actually Says: The Words That Turn Submission from Passive Compliance into Active Mission

The passage hinges on ὑποτάγητε — an aorist passive imperative of ὑποτάσσω, meaning "place yourself under in proper order." This is not ὑπακούω (obey). Obedience implies a hierarchy of authority; submission here is a voluntary act of positioning — free people choosing to rank themselves under someone for a purpose. Peter then uses ἀνθρωπίνῃ κτίσει — "every human institution" or "every human creature" — a phrase that relativizes every government by naming it as human, not divine. The emperor is not God's anointed; he is a human arrangement. Governors exist εἰς ἐκδίκησιν κακοποιῶν ἔπαινον δὲ ἀγαθοποιῶν — "for punishment of evildoers and praise of those who do good." Peter describes the designed function of government, not its actual performance. This is aspirational, not descriptive — and that gap is where the passage gets dangerous.

2A. Load-Bearing Words

1. ὑποτάγητε (hypotagēte) — "submit yourselves"

Root: ὑποτάσσω (hypotassō) — compound of ὑπό (under) + τάσσω (to arrange, to order). Military origin: to arrange troops under a commander.
Form: Aorist passive imperative, 2nd person plural. The aorist signals a decisive act — not an ongoing process but a definitive posture. The passive voice is significant: it carries a middle/reflexive sense — "arrange yourselves under" — rather than "be subjected." Peter commands self-initiated subordination.
Semantic range: In the NT, ὑποτάσσω covers a wide spectrum: cosmic powers subjected to Christ (1 Peter 3:22, Ephesians 1:22), wives to husbands (Ephesians 5:22, Colossians 3:18), slaves to masters (1 Peter 2:18), younger to elder (1 Peter 5:5), citizens to government (Romans 13:1). The constant is ordering within a structure, not obedience to commands.
Critical distinction: Peter does NOT use ὑπακούω (hypakouō — "to obey, to listen under"). He uses ὑπακούω for children obeying parents (cf. Ephesians 6:1) and for obedience to God (1 Peter 1:22). The word choice is deliberate. Ὑποτάσσω preserves the agent's freedom and dignity while positioning them within a structure. Ὑπακούω implies the authority has the right to command and the subject must comply. Peter is saying: position yourself willingly within the Roman order — not: do whatever the emperor says.
How translations render it: ESV: "Be subject to"; NIV: "Submit yourselves"; NASB: "Submit yourselves"; KJV: "Submit yourselves." Most modern translations capture the reflexive sense. The danger is that English "submit" carries connotations of powerlessness that the Greek does not.
Why This Detail Changes Everything: If Peter commanded obedience, Christians would need to obey every imperial edict — including emperor worship. By commanding submission (voluntary positioning within a structure), he preserves the freedom to disobey specific commands while maintaining a posture of respect toward the institution itself. This is not a blank check to the state. It is strategic positioning by free agents.

2. ἀνθρωπίνῃ κτίσει (anthrōpinē ktisei) — "every human institution/creature"

Root: ἀνθρώπινος (anthrōpinos — "human, belonging to human beings") + κτίσις (ktisis — "creation, creature, institution").
Semantic range of κτίσις: This word normally means "creation" in the NT — the act of God creating (Romans 1:20), or a created thing (Romans 8:39), or the entire created order (Mark 16:15). Its use for a human institution or arrangement is highly unusual. Some scholars read it as "every human creature" (i.e., every person in authority), others as "every human institution." The ambiguity may be intentional.
Theological weight of ἀνθρωπίνῃ: This adjective does massive theological work. By calling government a human institution/creation, Peter relativizes it. Compare Romans 13:1 where Paul says authorities are "appointed by God" (ὑπὸ θεοῦ τεταγμέναι). Peter does not say that. He calls government human. This is not a contradiction with Paul — it's a different emphasis. Peter acknowledges God's purpose behind government (v. 15) but refuses to grant it divine status. Every emperor, every governor, every institution — human. Made by people. Temporary. Limited.
Why This Detail Changes Everything: If government were a divine institution, resistance to it would be resistance to God (Paul's argument in Romans 13:2). But Peter frames it as a human arrangement that serves God's purposes. This creates space for recognizing that human institutions can fail their purpose — and when they do, the obligation shifts. Peter himself modeled this in Acts 5:29: "We must obey God rather than men."

3. βασιλεῖ (basilei) — "to the emperor/king"

Root: βασιλεύς (basileus — "king, emperor, sovereign").
Cultural weight: In Peter's context, this is Nero. Not a theoretical monarch — Nero, who would soon burn Christians as human torches. Peter says ὡς ὑπερέχοντι — "as supreme" or "as being preeminent." The participle ὑπερέχοντι (from ὑπερέχω — "to hold above, to surpass") describes the emperor's position in the social hierarchy, not his moral character. Peter acknowledges Nero's rank without endorsing his person.
Why This Detail Changes Everything: Peter tells persecuted believers to submit to the man who will kill them — not because he deserves it but because his position in the human ordering serves God's larger purpose. The submission is to the structure, not to the tyrant's character. This prevents both uncritical state-worship and anarchic rebellion.

4. ἐκδίκησιν κακοποιῶν (ekdikēsin kakopoiōn) — "punishment of evildoers"

Root: ἐκδίκησις (ekdikēsis — "vengeance, punishment, vindication") + κακοποιός (kakopoios — "evildoer, one who does evil").
Semantic range: ἐκδίκησις carries a strong sense of justice — not arbitrary punishment but retributive vindication. The κακοποιός is significant because Peter has just told his audience that Gentiles speak against them ὡς κακοποιῶν — "as evildoers" (2:12). The same word. Peter is making a sharp move: government exists to punish actual evildoers and praise those who do good. If Christians are doing good, then the system — when functioning properly — should vindicate them, not condemn them.
Why This Detail Changes Everything: Peter is not naïve. He knows the system frequently fails. But by naming government's designed function, he sets up a framework: when government punishes the good and praises the evil, it has departed from its purpose. The submission command operates within the assumption that the system functions. When it doesn't, the believer's allegiance to God takes precedence — as Peter himself demonstrated before the Sanhedrin.

5. ἀγαθοποιῶν (agathopoiōn) — "those who do good"

Root: ἀγαθοποιός (agathopoios — compound: ἀγαθός [good] + ποιέω [to do/make]).
Significance: This word appears only here in the NT as a noun. Peter is coining a category. And it connects directly to his strategy in 2:12 and forward to 2:15 where he says "by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people." The ἀγαθοποιός is not passively good — the compound demands active, visible, public good-doing. This is the Christian weapon: not argument, not withdrawal, not rebellion — but conduct so obviously beneficial that it silences accusation.
Why This Detail Changes Everything: The entire passage is not about political theology in the abstract. It's about a specific strategy: do good so visibly and so publicly that the designed function of government — praising those who do good — kicks in and vindicates you. The submission is in service of mission, not in service of the state.

2B. Verb Tense Analysis

ὑποτάγητε (aorist passive imperative): The aorist imperative signals a decisive action — "take this posture" rather than "keep being submissive" (which would be present imperative). Peter is calling for a definitive decision: adopt this stance. The implication is that the audience may be considering alternatives — withdrawal, resistance, assimilation — and Peter says: no, choose submission as your posture. Now. Decisively.

πέμπω (present active participle: πεμπομένων — "being sent"): Governors are described as "being sent" — present tense, indicating the ongoing Roman practice of dispatching provincial governors. This grounds the command in real political reality, not abstraction. Peter is talking about actual Roman governors arriving in these provinces with actual power.

2C. Untranslatable Moments

The phrase πάσῃ ἀνθρωπίνῃ κτίσει — "every human institution" — is nearly untranslatable because κτίσις in every other Petrine and Pauline use refers to God's creation. To use it for a human political arrangement is jarring. It simultaneously evokes creation language (these structures exist within God's created order) while insisting on their human character (they are not divine). English has no single word that carries both "created thing" and "human arrangement." Every translation choice loses half the meaning.

2D. Textual Variants

No significant textual variants affect the theological reading of these two verses. The manuscript tradition is stable across major witnesses (P72, Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, Alexandrinus). Minor variations in word order exist but do not alter meaning.

Scripture Connections: Peter Rewrites Daniel's Exile Theology and Reframes Romans 13

The controlling OT connection is Jeremiah 29:4-7 — the letter to exiles commanding them to seek the welfare of Babylon. Peter's audience are "exiles" (1:1); they live in a hostile empire; they are told to engage its structures for good rather than withdraw or revolt. Peter transposes Jeremiah's exile theology into a Roman key. The critical NT parallel is Romans 13:1-7, where Paul also commands submission to governing authorities — but with a crucial difference. Paul grounds submission in divine appointment: "there is no authority except from God." Peter grounds it in God's will (2:15) but calls the institution human. Paul says resist = resist God. Peter says submit = silence foolish accusations. Same behavioral outcome, radically different theological framing. Reading one without the other produces a lopsided political theology — either uncritical state-worship (Romans 13 alone) or merely strategic calculation (1 Peter 2 alone). Together they hold the tension.

Selection Test Applied

Three connections pass the test: removing any of them materially changes the passage's theological claim.

Connection 1: Jeremiah 29:4-7 — The Exile Template

Source passage in context: Jeremiah writes to the Judean exiles in Babylon after the deportation of 597 BC. False prophets are telling the exiles that God will bring them home soon. Jeremiah's letter crushes that hope: "Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters... seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare" (29:5-7). This is not accommodation — it's a radical theology of engaged exile. God's people serve their mission by investing in the structures of their captors.

Source → This passage: Peter's entire theological framework in 2:11-3:12 is a Christianized version of Jeremiah's exile letter. Peter's audience are "exiles" (1:1, παρεπιδήμοις); they live under a pagan empire; they face the temptation to either withdraw into a holy ghetto or assimilate into paganism. Jeremiah's command — seek the city's welfare — becomes Peter's command: submit to its institutions, do good within them, let your visible conduct speak. The "seeking welfare" becomes ἀγαθοποιΐα — active good-doing. Peter is not inventing a new political theology; he is extending the oldest one Israel had for living faithfully under hostile power.

This passage → Source: Peter's use of the exile template reveals something latent in Jeremiah's letter that readers often miss: the exile posture was never meant to be temporary. Jeremiah told the exiles to invest for seventy years — multiple generations. Peter tells Christians to adopt the same posture with no end date given. The exile template becomes the permanent Christian political posture, not a temporary survival strategy. This retroactively shows that Jeremiah 29 was describing not just a phase in Israel's history but a paradigm for how God's people always relate to earthly power: engaged, invested, but never belonging.

Connection 2: Romans 13:1-7 — Paul's Parallel with Different Foundations

Source passage in context: Paul writes to Roman Christians — living in the capital itself — and commands submission to governing authorities. His grounding is theocentric: "there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God" (ὑπὸ θεοῦ τεταγμέναι εἰσίν). Resistance equals resistance to "what God has appointed" (13:2). The authority is God's servant (θεοῦ διάκονός) bearing the sword for justice.

Source → This passage: Paul's framing adds a theological depth that Peter's text alone does not provide. Peter calls government "human" but says submission is "God's will" (2:15). Paul explains why it's God's will — because God stands behind the ordering function of government even when the government itself is pagan. Without Romans 13, Peter's command could sound purely pragmatic. With Romans 13, it gains cosmic grounding: the ordering function of government reflects God's ordering of creation.

This passage → Source: Peter's framing corrects a dangerous reading of Romans 13. If you only have Paul, you risk absolutizing state authority — "every government is divinely appointed, so resist nothing." Peter's ἀνθρωπίνῃ κτίσει inserts a critical qualifier: it is a human arrangement serving a divine purpose. Human arrangements fail. They break. When they punish good and reward evil — the opposite of their designed function (v. 14) — they have departed from the purpose that grounds the obligation. Peter himself demonstrated this boundary: "We must obey God rather than men" (Acts 5:29). Reading Romans 13 through 1 Peter 2 prevents theocratic state-worship. Reading 1 Peter 2 through Romans 13 prevents reducing submission to mere social strategy.

Connection 3: Genesis 1-2 / Creation Theology — The κτίσις Echo

Source passage: The creation narratives in Genesis 1-2 establish κτίσις as God's act of bringing order from chaos. Every subsequent use of κτίσις in the NT carries this resonance.

Source → This passage: By using κτίσις for human government, Peter locates political structures within the creation order — not as divine institutions but as human responses to the same impulse God displayed in creation: bringing order from chaos. Government's function (punish evil, praise good) mirrors God's creation function (separate light from darkness, order from disorder). The language dignifies government without divinizing it.

This passage → Source: Peter's usage reveals that the creation-ordering impulse didn't stop with Genesis 2. Human beings, made in God's image, continue the ordering work through institutions — but always as human imagers, not as divine agents. The institution inherits creation's purpose but not creation's authority.

Further Echoes

Proverbs 24:21 ("Fear the LORD and the king") — Peter echoes this pairing in 2:17 ("Fear God. Honor the emperor"), but significantly distinguishes the verbs: fear belongs to God alone; the emperor gets honor, not fear.
Daniel 2:21, 4:17 — God "removes kings and sets up kings" / "the Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will." Peter's passage assumes this sovereignty without stating it.
Isaiah 10:5-6 — God uses Assyria as "the rod of my anger" even though Assyria does not know it. This parallels the idea that pagan government can serve God's purposes without being God's people.

Book Architecture: The Submission Code as the Engine of Peter's Entire Letter

First Peter has a clear two-movement structure: chapters 1:1–2:10 establish identity (you are elect exiles, living stones, a royal priesthood), and 2:11–5:11 establish conduct (this is how that identity plays out under pressure). Verses 2:13-14 open the conduct section's first and most programmatic unit — the "submission code" (2:13–3:12) that systematically addresses government, slavery, marriage, and community. This is not one instruction among many. It is the first instruction, and every subsequent instruction depends on the logic it establishes: voluntary submission as the mechanism by which the Christian community silences slander and displays God's character. Remove these two verses, and the entire conduct section loses its foundational principle. Peter builds from public (emperor) to domestic (slaves, wives) to communal (all of you) — each ring of submission grounded in the logic first articulated here.

Author, Date, Audience, Occasion

Author: The letter claims Petrine authorship (1:1) and associates Silvanus as amanuensis (5:12) and Mark as companion (5:13). The Greek is too polished for a Galilean fisherman writing alone, which the Silvanus mention likely explains. The theology is consistent with Petrine preaching in Acts.

Date: Most likely early 60s AD — before the Neronian persecution of 64 AD (the letter assumes social hostility, not state-sponsored execution) but during a period of mounting suspicion. Some scholars push to the late 60s or even post-70 AD, but the absence of any reference to organized persecution or martyrdom beyond social ostracism argues for the earlier date.

Audience: Gentile converts in five Roman provinces of Asia Minor (1:1). Their former paganism is explicit (1:14, 18; 4:3-4). They are experiencing social alienation, economic pressure, and verbal slander — not (yet) imprisonment or execution.

Occasion: The letter addresses a community under social pressure that threatens to destabilize their faith and their witness. Peter writes to give them both theological grounding (you know who you are) and behavioral instruction (here is how to live so that your identity becomes visible).

The Book's Central Argument

First Peter's thesis can be stated: Because you are God's elect exiles — chosen, reborn, and destined for an imperishable inheritance — you can endure present suffering by living so visibly well within hostile structures that your conduct becomes an argument for the gospel.

Structural Outline

1:1-2 — Greeting: elect exiles
1:3-12 — The living hope: imperishable inheritance kept in heaven
1:13-2:3 — Therefore: holiness, love, growth
2:4-10 — Identity: living stones, chosen race, royal priesthood, holy nation
2:11-12 — Thesis statement for conduct: honorable behavior among Gentiles
2:13-17 — Submit to government ← OUR PASSAGE opens this
2:18-25 — Submit within slavery (with Christ as suffering paradigm)
3:1-7 — Submit within marriage
3:8-12 — Summary: conduct within community
3:13-4:6 — Suffering for doing good (theological grounding)
4:7-11 — Community life in the last days
4:12-19 — Suffering as participation in Christ
5:1-11 — Instructions for elders and the community
5:12-14 — Closing

Why Position Matters

Verses 2:13-14 sit at the hinge between identity (who you are) and conduct (how you live). The identity section climaxes in 2:9-10 with the most exalted language imaginable: "a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession." Immediately after this — literally the next behavioral instruction — Peter says: submit to the emperor. The juxtaposition is deliberate and devastating. You are royalty — now voluntarily place yourself under a pagan king. You are a holy nation — now arrange yourself within a profane empire. The submission command gets its power precisely from its position: it follows the highest possible identity claim with the lowest possible posture.

What This Passage Accomplishes That Its Neighbors Don't

Verse 12 states the principle: live honorably so pagans see good works. But it gives no specifics. Verses 13-14 are the first concrete application. They establish the mechanism — submission to human institutions — and the logic — these institutions exist to punish evil and praise good. Every subsequent instruction (slaves submit, wives submit) extends this mechanism into progressively more intimate social spaces. Without 2:13-14, the reader has a principle without a method.

What Modern Readers Miss: Peter Commands Free Royalty to Bow — and That Was the Point

Modern Western readers hear "submit to the government" and think of democratic citizens obeying traffic laws. Peter's audience heard something explosive: people who had just been told they are a royal priesthood and holy nation — language drawn from Israel's covenant identity at Sinai — are now commanded to submit to a pagan emperor who claims divine status. This is not a call to patriotism. It is a command to royalty to voluntarily lower themselves for strategic purposes. The shock is not "submit" — the shock is who is submitting and to whom. A holy nation bows to an unholy empire. A royal priesthood arranges itself under a ruler who worships false gods. And the reason isn't that the emperor deserves it — it's that God's mission requires it. Peter has weaponized submission: the act of voluntary self-lowering by people who don't have to becomes the most powerful testimony available.

What the Original Audience Understood Automatically

The emperor cult. In Asia Minor, the imperial cult was not a distant abstraction — it was the civic religion. Temples to Augustus and Rome dotted every major city in these provinces. Provincial councils organized festivals, sacrifices, and games in the emperor's honor. Participation was expected. Refusal was noticed. The βασιλεύς Peter names is not a benign constitutional monarch — he is a figure claiming divine prerogatives in a system where loyalty to Rome and worship of Rome were functionally identical.

The household code tradition. Greco-Roman ethical instruction regularly included "household codes" (Haustafel) — instructions for how members of a household should relate: husband-wife, parent-child, master-slave. Peter is adopting and adapting this existing literary form. His audience would have recognized the genre immediately. But Peter does something the pagan codes never did: he addresses the subordinate parties directly as moral agents. Roman codes addressed the paterfamilias (male head of household) and told him how to manage subordinates. Peter addresses the subordinates themselves — slaves, wives — and gives them agency. This is quietly revolutionary.

The patron-client system. Roman society ran on patronage. You attached yourself to a patron of higher status who provided protection, resources, and social standing. In return, you offered loyalty, service, and public honor. Exiting this system — which conversion often required, since patrons expected participation in their household religion — meant losing protection. Peter's audience is navigating life without patrons, without the social safety net. His instruction to submit to government is partly about survival within a system that has no category for unattached individuals.

Shock Value

The shocking element: People designated as βασίλειον ἱεράτευμα ("royal priesthood," 2:9) — language drawn from Exodus 19:6, where God constitutes Israel as a kingdom of priests at Sinai — are commanded to submit to a pagan emperor who styles himself Pontifex Maximus (chief priest) of Rome's state religion. The original audience has just been told they are the true priests; now they must arrange themselves under a false one.

What existing belief it threatened: The Jewish precedent for this identity was resistance. When Antiochus IV Epiphanes demanded that Israel submit to pagan worship, the Maccabean response was armed revolt. When Rome demanded compliance with emperor worship, Jewish zealots chose war. Peter's audience — now inheritors of Israel's priestly identity — would have expected a similar call to resistance. Instead, they get submission.

Why modern readers miss it: We have no experiential equivalent of the emperor cult. Our governments do not claim divinity. We hear "submit to government" and think "pay taxes and obey laws." Peter's audience heard "submit to a man who calls himself God." The distance between those two hearings is enormous, and it changes everything about how the command functions.

Modern Distortions

Distortion 1: "This verse teaches unconditional obedience to all governments"

The modern assumption: The passage is a universal, timeless political principle — Christians must always obey their government.
How it distorts: It ignores that Peter himself disobeyed the Sanhedrin (Acts 4-5), that the verb is submit not obey, and that Peter describes government's designed function (punish evil, praise good) — which implicitly creates a standard against which government can be measured and found wanting.
What the text says: Voluntarily position yourself within the ordering structures of society because your visible good conduct within those structures serves God's purposes. The submission is purposeful, strategic, and bounded by God's prior claim on your allegiance.

Distortion 2: "This passage endorses the divine right of kings / legitimizes state power"

The modern assumption: Submission to government means government has divine authority.
How it distorts: Peter calls government ἀνθρωπίνη κτίσις — a human institution/creation. He does not call it God's institution. He says submission to it is God's will (2:15), but the institution itself is human. The distinction matters: a tool can serve God's purposes without being God's creation. A hammer serves the carpenter without being the carpenter.
What the text says: Government is a human arrangement that, when functioning properly, serves God's ordering purposes. Christians submit to it not because it is divine but because God's mission is served by their visible, voluntary engagement with it.

Distortion 3: "Peter is just being pragmatic — this has no theological depth"

The modern assumption: This is survival advice, not theology.
How it distorts: It misses that Peter grounds the command in Christological imitation (2:21-25 — Christ submitted to unjust suffering), in creation theology (κτίσις), and in divine purpose (2:15 — "this is the will of God"). The pragmatic element is real but it sits inside a thick theological framework: Christians submit because they are imitating Christ, who submitted to injustice for redemptive purposes. The strategy is the theology.
What the text says: Voluntary submission to human institutions is a participation in the pattern of Christ, who entrusted himself to the one who judges justly (2:23) rather than retaliating or seizing power.

The Unified Argument: Peter Weaponizes Weakness and Makes Submission the Church's Most Dangerous Tactic

The telos of this passage is not compliance — it is credibility. Peter is engineering a situation where the accusation "Christians are evildoers" collapses under the weight of observable evidence. The mechanism is submission: voluntary, visible, consistent engagement with Roman structures that forces observers to confront the gap between the slander and the reality. The existential wound in the audience is this: they have been told they are royalty, priests, God's own possession — and they are being treated like criminals. These two realities cannot coexist under the framework they're carrying, which says divine favor means social vindication. Peter breaks that framework. He says: your identity is not validated by your treatment. Your identity is validated by God's election (1:1-2). And precisely because your identity is secure, you can afford to submit — because submission costs you nothing essential. The free person who voluntarily lowers themselves demonstrates a security that coerced compliance never could.

6A. The Telos

One-sentence telos: This passage commands the Christian community to adopt voluntary submission to human governing structures as the primary mechanism for silencing slander, demonstrating the gospel's social credibility, and participating in Christ's own pattern of redemptive self-lowering.

Implication 1: Submission is offensive, not defensive. Peter does not say "submit so you don't get hurt." He says submit so that your good conduct silences accusation (2:15) and so that pagans glorify God (2:12). The submission is an evangelistic weapon. It forces observers to deal with the gap between what they've heard about Christians and what they see Christians doing. This is not retreat — it is advance by self-lowering.

Implication 2: The command assumes secure identity. Only people who know who they are can afford to submit. If your identity depends on social status, submission is annihilation. If your identity rests in divine election, submission is a tactical choice made from a position of unassailable security. The identity section (1:1-2:10) is not just prelude to the conduct section — it is the prerequisite. Without 2:9 ("royal priesthood"), 2:13 ("submit") would be degrading. With it, submission becomes the act of a king who chooses to serve.

Implication 3: Government is measured against its function. By naming what government is for — punishment of evildoers, praise of good-doers — Peter creates a standard. He does not say "submit because government is always right." He says submit because government's purpose is justice. When the audience later faces persecution by the government (4:12-19), this standard remains: the government has departed from its function. The submission command does not apply to active participation in evil — it applies to the ordering function of government when that function is intact.

Implication 4: Freedom is expressed through voluntary restraint. Peter will explicitly say in 2:16: "Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God." Freedom is not the absence of constraints — it is the power to choose constraints for a higher purpose. Slaves cannot submit; they can only comply. Free people submit, and the voluntariness of it is the testimony.

6B. The Existential Wound

The wound: Peter's audience holds two convictions that are tearing them apart.

Conviction A: "We are chosen by God, reborn into a living hope, constituted as a royal priesthood and holy nation. Our identity is the highest identity available in the cosmos."

Conviction B: "We are being slandered as evildoers, excluded from social life, economically marginalized, and treated as subversives by the very empire we're told to submit to. Our experience is the lowest experience available in the empire."

Under the framework they inherited — from both Jewish theology (covenant faithfulness = blessing, disobedience = curse) and Roman culture (divine favor = social prosperity) — these two convictions cannot coexist. If God has chosen them, why are they suffering? If they are suffering, has God abandoned them?

How the passage addresses it: Peter's move is not to resolve the tension by removing the suffering or by questioning the identity. He resolves it by redefining what identity requires. The royal priesthood does not demand social elevation. It demands faithful presence within hostile structures. The model is Christ himself — the supremely chosen one who submitted to the most unjust treatment imaginable (2:21-25). Peter links identity-plus-submission directly to Christ's own pattern: chosen by God, rejected by men, faithful in suffering, vindicated by God.

The resolution offered: The new posture is this: your identity is not threatened by your treatment. Your treatment is the context in which your identity becomes visible. A royal priest who submits voluntarily to a pagan emperor precisely because she knows she is royalty — that is the testimony. The wound heals not by removing the suffering but by reframing it: the suffering is the display case for the identity, not its contradiction.

What This Changes: Living as Tactical Agents, Not Political Theorists

False Application 1: Unconditional obedience to every government action

What people do: Cite this verse to argue Christians must never resist, protest, or disobey government — including unjust laws, corrupt officials, or commands that violate conscience.
Why it fails: Peter uses ὑποτάγητε (voluntary positioning within a structure), not ὑπακούω (obey commands). He describes government's designed function (punish evil, praise good), creating an implicit standard. Peter himself defied the Sanhedrin in Acts 5:29.
The text says: Position yourself within governing structures voluntarily because doing so serves God's mission — not because every government action reflects God's will.

False Application 2: This is just survival advice with no theological content

What people do: Treat the passage as pragmatic street-smarts for an oppressed minority — useful advice but not theology. They separate the "submit" command from the identity claims that precede it.
Why it fails: Peter grounds submission in God's will (2:15), in creation language (κτίσις), and in Christ's own suffering pattern (2:21-25). The pragmatism sits inside a Christological and creational framework that gives it theological weight.
The text says: Submission to human institutions is participation in Christ's pattern of voluntary self-lowering for redemptive purposes — not merely a tactic for avoiding trouble.

True Application 1: Engage institutions rather than withdraw from them

The text says: ὑποτάγητε πάσῃ ἀνθρωπίνῃ κτίσει — "submit to every human institution." The scope is comprehensive and the verb demands active engagement, not passive retreat.
This means: The Christian posture toward government, civic life, and social institutions is engagement from within — even when those institutions are hostile, flawed, or pagan. Withdrawal into a Christian subculture is not Peter's command.

Tomorrow morning: Identify one civic institution or social structure you have mentally written off as "too secular" or "too broken" to engage — a local government body, a professional organization, a community initiative — and commit to one specific act of constructive participation this week, not to "fix" it but to be visibly present and doing good within it.

True Application 2: Your security determines your capacity for submission

The text says: The submission command (2:13) comes immediately after the identity declaration (2:9-10: royal priesthood, holy nation). The sequence is deliberate: know who you are, then submit.
This means: If you cannot submit to flawed authority without feeling diminished, the problem is not the authority — it's that your identity is still anchored to social standing rather than divine election. Secure people submit freely; insecure people either rebel or grovel.

Tomorrow morning: The next time a decision at work, in your church, or in your community goes against your preference and a person with authority over you makes a call you disagree with, notice your internal response. If the dominant feeling is threat or diminishment — not just disagreement — that's diagnostic. Your identity is still tied to being right or being recognized. The text says your identity is settled. Act from that settlement.

Extended Rationale: False Application 1

The history of this passage's misuse is long and bloody. It has been cited to justify passive acceptance of Nazi governance, apartheid, chattel slavery, and authoritarian regimes of every kind. The interpretive error is always the same: collapsing ὑποτάσσω into ὑπακούω, treating voluntary positioning as unconditional obedience. But Peter's own life refutes this reading. In Acts 4:19-20, Peter tells the Sanhedrin: "Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge, for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard." In Acts 5:29: "We must obey God rather than men." Peter knew the boundary. He placed himself within the ordering structure of Jewish governance — he appeared before the Sanhedrin, he didn't flee — but he refused specific commands that violated God's prior claim. The submission is to the structure; the obedience is to God. When they conflict, God wins. This is not civil disobedience in the modern activist sense. It is a principled limit on an otherwise comprehensive posture of engagement.

Extended Rationale: False Application 2

The "just pragmatism" reading fails because it cannot explain the Christological grounding that Peter provides in 2:21-25. If this were merely survival advice, Peter would not need Christ as a paradigm. The fact that he immediately follows the submission instructions with "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" (2:21) transforms the instruction from pragmatic to participatory. When you submit to unjust structures, you are doing what Christ did. The suffering that results is not incidental — it is Christiform. You are literally following in his footsteps. This makes submission a form of discipleship, not a form of cowardice.

Extended Rationale: True Application 1

Peter's comprehensive scope — πάσῃ ("every") — leaves no category of human institution unaddressed. The Christian separatist impulse — build our own schools, our own businesses, our own political party, our own parallel society — is precisely what Peter forbids. Not because those institutions are wrong, but because the strategy depends on visibility within pagan structures. If Christians withdraw, pagans never see the good deeds. The silencing of accusation requires proximity. You have to be close enough to be observed.

Extended Rationale: True Application 2

The identity-submission sequence (2:9-10 → 2:13) is psychologically precise. People who do not know who they are experience authority as threat. Every demand for submission triggers an identity crisis: am I less than this person? Does my compliance mean I don't matter? Peter preempts this by saturating his audience with identity language before making a single behavioral demand. You are chosen. You are royal. You are priestly. You are God's own possession. Now submit. The submission cannot touch your identity because your identity is not in their hands.

Additional True Application 3: Evaluate institutions by their function, not just their existence

The text says: Governors are sent εἰς ἐκδίκησιν κακοποιῶν ἔπαινον δὲ ἀγαθοποιῶν — for a specific function: punish evil, praise good.
This means: Christians are not commanded to pretend institutions are functioning when they aren't. Peter names what government is for. When an institution systematically punishes good and praises evil, naming that failure is not rebellion — it's holding the institution to its own purpose.

Tomorrow morning: When you evaluate a political leader, a policy, or an institutional decision, stop asking "Do I agree with this?" and start asking Peter's question: "Is this punishing evil and praising good?" That functional standard — drawn from this text — cuts across partisan loyalty. Apply it to the political leader you support, not just the one you oppose.

Additional True Application 4: Make "doing good" your primary political strategy

The text says: The ἀγαθοποιός — the one who does good — is the category Peter is constructing. Government exists to praise such people (v. 14). Christian conduct is meant to be so visibly beneficial that the system vindicates it.
This means: The Christian political witness is not primarily argumentative (winning debates), electoral (winning elections), or cultural (winning influence). It is behavioral: do good so consistently, so publicly, and so undeniably that it becomes the unanswerable argument.

Tomorrow morning: Identify the person in your workplace or neighborhood who most dislikes Christianity or distrusts the church. Instead of arguing with them or avoiding them, do something concretely good for them this week — not as a conversion tactic but as the enactment of what Peter commands. Your conduct is your argument. Let it speak.

Additional True Application 5: Submission as the exercise of freedom, not its surrender

The text says: Peter will say in 2:16: "Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God."
This means: The submission Peter commands is the proof of freedom, not its negation. Only a free person can truly submit; a slave can only comply. When you submit voluntarily — to an authority you could theoretically resist, to a structure you could withdraw from — you display a freedom that compliance can never demonstrate.

Tomorrow morning: Identify one area where you are resisting legitimate authority not because of conscience but because of pride — you don't want to be told what to do. A boss's reasonable request, a church leader's guidance, a community norm you find inconvenient. Choose to submit to it, not because you have to but because you can. Let the voluntariness of it reveal where your freedom actually lies.

Questions That Cut: Testing Whether You Actually Believe You're Free Enough to Submit

Peter calls government a human institution (ἀνθρωπίνη κτίσις), not a divine one. If you genuinely believed that every government — including the one you most admire — is merely a human arrangement serving temporary purposes, what would change about the emotional energy you invest in political outcomes?
The submission command (2:13) comes immediately after Peter calls you "a royal priesthood" (2:9). Where in your life are you refusing to submit to flawed authority not because of conscience but because submission feels like it diminishes your identity — and what does that refusal reveal about where your identity actually rests?
Peter describes government's function as "punishment of evildoers and praise of those who do good" (2:14). Apply that standard to your own government: where is it fulfilling this function, and where is it failing — and does your answer track with your political tribe's talking points, or with Peter's actual standard?

Full Question Set

1. (Confrontational) Peter calls government a human institution (ἀνθρωπίνη κτίσις), not a divine one. If you genuinely believed that every government — including the one you most admire — is merely a human arrangement serving temporary purposes, what would change about the emotional energy you invest in political outcomes? Anchoring context: The word ἀνθρωπίνη ("human") does theological work by relativizing all political power. It prevents the deification of any government — left, right, democratic, authoritarian. The question tests whether the reader's functional allegiance to a political system exceeds what Peter's theology allows.

2. (Confrontational) The submission command (2:13) comes immediately after Peter calls you "a royal priesthood" (2:9). Where in your life are you refusing to submit to flawed authority not because of conscience but because submission feels like it diminishes your identity — and what does that refusal reveal about where your identity actually rests? Anchoring context: The identity-then-submission sequence is architecturally deliberate. Peter assumes secure identity as the prerequisite for submission. Resistance rooted in ego rather than conscience indicates an identity anchored to social standing rather than divine election. This question forces the reader to distinguish between principled resistance and prideful refusal.

3. (Confrontational) Peter says to submit for the Lord's sake (2:13, διὰ τὸν κύριον). When was the last time you chose submission specifically because you believed it served Christ's purposes — not because it was convenient, not because you agreed, but because you recognized that your voluntary self-lowering in that moment would make the gospel visible? Anchoring context: The prepositional phrase διὰ τὸν κύριον grounds the entire command. Submission is not for the government's sake or for self-preservation — it is for Christ's sake. This transforms every act of submission into an act of worship and witness. The question tests whether the reader has ever actually practiced this or merely assented to it theoretically.

4. (Exploratory) Peter uses ὑποτάσσω (submit / arrange under) rather than ὑπακούω (obey). How does this distinction change the range of Christian responses to unjust government? Where is the line between submission and obedience, and can you identify a concrete situation in your life where you should be submitting (positioning yourself within the structure) while refusing to obey (a specific unjust command)? Anchoring context: The lexical distinction between these two verbs is theologically load-bearing. It preserves space for prophetic resistance within a posture of structural engagement. The question pushes the reader to apply this distinction practically.

5. (Exploratory) Peter says government exists for "punishment of evildoers and praise of those who do good" (2:14). This is government's designed function, not necessarily its actual performance. What does this gap between design and performance mean for how you evaluate, engage with, and (where necessary) challenge governing authorities? Anchoring context: The purpose clause (εἰς ἐκδίκησιν... ἔπαινον δέ...) creates an evaluative standard. Peter is not describing what government always does — he is describing what government is for. The question invites the reader to use this functional standard as a tool for political discernment.

6. (Exploratory) Peter is writing to people whose neighbors call them "evildoers" (κακοποιῶν, 2:12) — the same word he uses for the people government is supposed to punish (2:14). How does this wordplay reshape the urgency of the command? If the accusation is that you're an evildoer, and the system is designed to punish evildoers, what is Peter really saying about why good conduct is not optional but existentially necessary? Anchoring context: The verbal echo between 2:12 and 2:14 is deliberate. The Christians are being called what the system is designed to punish. Their conduct is literally a matter of survival — but Peter frames it as a matter of mission.

7. (Exploratory) Peter will ground this entire submission code in the example of Christ's suffering (2:21-25). If submission to flawed authority is participation in Christ's pattern, does that change how you experience your current frustration with authority — in your workplace, your church, or your government? Can you identify one situation where reframing your submission as Christiform participation would transform complaint into worship? Anchoring context: The Christological grounding in 2:21-25 transforms the behavioral command into a discipleship framework. The question invites the reader to connect their daily experience of submission to Christ's paradigmatic self-lowering.

8. (Confrontational) Peter says "live as people who are free" (2:16) and then immediately says "live as servants of God." If the truest expression of your freedom is voluntary service and submission, where are you currently using "freedom" as a justification for doing whatever you want — and calling it Christian liberty? Anchoring context: The juxtaposition of freedom and servanthood in 2:16 dismantles the modern equation of freedom with autonomy. Peter's freedom is expressed through chosen constraints, not despite them. The question targets the common misuse of Christian freedom as license.

Canonical Connections: How the Whole Bible Talks About Power, Submission, and the Exiles Who Change Empires

The canon holds a sustained conversation about God's people living under hostile power. Jeremiah 29 tells exiles to invest in Babylon. Daniel models faithful service within a pagan court while drawing clear lines at idolatry. Romans 13 grounds governmental submission in divine appointment. Revelation 13 depicts the state as a beast demanding worship. First Peter 2:13-14 sits at the center of this conversation, contributing the unique claim that submission is neither naïve endorsement nor resigned compliance but a missionary tactic rooted in Christological paradigm — free people choosing self-lowering because Christ did it first and because the watching world needs to see it. Without this passage, the canon's political theology oscillates between Paul's "appointed by God" and John's "the beast from the sea." Peter provides the practical middle: engage every human institution voluntarily, do good relentlessly, and let the conduct speak.

Connection 1: Jeremiah 29:4-7 — Parallel (same claim, different era)

Direction A (Jeremiah → 1 Peter): Jeremiah's command to seek Babylon's welfare provides the template Peter is working from. Without Jeremiah, Peter's command to submit to a pagan empire looks unprecedented. With Jeremiah, it looks like the extension of Israel's oldest strategy for exile: invest in the empire's flourishing because your flourishing is bound up with it. The Jeremiah template gives Peter's command historical depth and theological precedent.

Direction B (1 Peter → Jeremiah): Peter's appropriation reveals that Jeremiah 29 was never just about one exile in one empire. It was a paradigm. By applying it to Gentile Christians in Asia Minor under Rome, Peter shows that "seek the welfare of the city" is the permanent posture of God's people in every empire — not a seventy-year sentence with an expiration date. This retroactively elevates Jeremiah 29 from historical instruction to canonical paradigm.

Contribution: This connection establishes that Christian political engagement has roots deeper than the New Testament — it is a continuation of Israel's exile theology, universalized through Christ.

Connection 2: Romans 13:1-7 — Elaboration (same behavioral command, different theological grounding)

Direction A (Romans 13 → 1 Peter): Paul provides the cosmic grounding that Peter does not explicitly state. Paul says authorities are "appointed by God" (ὑπὸ θεοῦ τεταγμέναι) and that the ruler is "God's servant" (θεοῦ διάκονος). This adds theological weight to Peter's command: the reason submission to human institutions serves God's will is that God stands behind the ordering function of government, even when the specific government is pagan.

Direction B (1 Peter → Romans 13): Peter's ἀνθρωπίνη κτίσις ("human institution") prevents the dangerous misreading of Romans 13 that absolutizes state authority. If you only have Romans 13, you risk the conclusion that every government action is divinely ordained and resistance is always sin. Peter's framing — calling it human, naming its function as the standard, and modeling resistance in his own life (Acts 5:29) — inserts the critical qualifier that Romans 13 alone does not provide. Peter makes Romans 13 safe to use.

Contribution: Together, these passages create a two-axis political theology: government has divine grounding (Paul) but human limitation (Peter). Remove either axis and you get either theocratic state-worship or cynical pragmatism.

Connection 3: Daniel 1-6 — Parallel (faithful service with clear limits)

Direction A (Daniel → 1 Peter): Daniel provides the narrative embodiment of what Peter commands. Daniel served Babylon and Persia faithfully — rising to the highest levels of government, administering pagan empires competently and honestly. But he drew absolute lines at worship: he would not eat the king's defiled food (ch. 1), he would not worship the statue (ch. 3 — his friends), he would not stop praying to YHWH (ch. 6). Daniel shows what submission-without-obedience looks like in practice. He was submitted to the structure (he served within it) but refused specific commands that violated God's exclusive claim.

Direction B (1 Peter → Daniel): Peter's Christological grounding adds something Daniel's narrative lacks: a paradigm for suffering that results from this faithful resistance. Daniel was delivered from the lions' den. But Peter's audience may not be delivered. Peter adds 2:21-25 — Christ's suffering as the model — precisely because his audience needs a paradigm for when the Daniel ending doesn't happen. When the lions do bite, what then? Peter answers: you follow Christ into suffering, entrusting yourself to the one who judges justly.

Contribution: Daniel provides the behavioral model; Peter provides the Christological framework for when the model results in suffering rather than deliverance.

Connection 4: Revelation 13 — Contrast (the state as beast, not as servant)

Direction A (Revelation 13 → 1 Peter): Revelation presents the state as a beast from the sea, demanding worship and making war on the saints. This stands in sharp tension with both Peter and Paul's instructions to submit. The tension is resolved by recognizing that the same entity — government — can serve two functions: God's servant for order (Romans 13, 1 Peter 2) and the dragon's instrument for persecution (Revelation 13). The difference is not the institution but its posture: when government fulfills its designed function (punish evil, praise good), Peter's command applies. When it demands what belongs to God alone (worship, ultimate allegiance), it has become the beast, and resistance is required.

Direction B (1 Peter → Revelation 13): Peter's description of government's designed function (εἰς ἐκδίκησιν κακοποιῶν ἔπαινον δὲ ἀγαθοποιῶν) provides the precise diagnostic for recognizing when a government has crossed from servant to beast. A government that punishes good and praises evil — that inverts its function — has entered Revelation 13 territory. Peter's functional standard is the tripwire.

Contribution: This connection completes the canon's political theology by holding together two truths: government is a human institution that can serve God's purposes (Peter, Paul) AND government can become a monstrous parody that demands what belongs to God alone (Revelation). The same institution, two possible trajectories. Peter provides the standard for discerning which trajectory is in play.

Connection 5: Exodus 19:5-6 — Fulfillment (the royal priesthood now scattered among the nations)

Direction A (Exodus 19 → 1 Peter): Peter directly quotes Exodus 19:6 in 2:9 — "a royal priesthood, a holy nation." At Sinai, this identity was given to a nation with its own land, its own law, its own political structures. Israel was a nation among nations, not scattered exiles within a pagan empire. Peter applies this same identity to people who have no land, no political power, and no self-governance.

Direction B (1 Peter → Exodus 19): Peter's application reveals that the Sinai identity was never ultimately about political nationhood. It was about covenantal relationship with God that could be expressed in any political context — including submission to a pagan empire. The royal priesthood does not need a kingdom to be royal. This retroactively reframes Exodus 19: the priesthood and holiness were never dependent on the land or the state. They were always about identity in God, portable and indestructible.

Contribution: This connection resolves the apparent contradiction between royal identity and voluntary submission. The priesthood carries its authority from God's election, not from political position. A priest who submits to an emperor is still a priest — and the submission itself becomes a priestly act, mediating God's presence to the watching world.

Further Connections

Titus 3:1 — Paul echoes the same instruction ("be submissive to rulers and authorities, be obedient, be ready for every good work"), confirming this was standard apostolic teaching, not unique to Peter's situation.
Matthew 22:15-22 — Jesus' "render to Caesar" instruction establishes the distinction between God's claim and Caesar's claim that underlies Peter's bounded submission.
1 Timothy 2:1-4 — Paul commands prayer for kings and those in authority "that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life" — the same strategic logic Peter employs: engage the system so the mission can proceed.
Acts 16:35-40 — Paul uses his Roman citizenship to hold magistrates accountable after unjust imprisonment, modeling submission to the structure while insisting on the structure's own standards — precisely the kind of bounded engagement Peter's text enables.