Have you ever had anybody criticize you? No fun, is it? Well, there is a way to eliminate criticism. Don’t give them anything to be critical about.
In 1 Peter 2:15, Peter says that one of the consequences of doing right, is that you shut the mouths of your critics. He says, “For such is the will of God, that by doing right you may silence the ignorance of foolish men.”
Back in Peter’s day there were foolish people who in their ignorance, criticized the Gospel of Christ, and the Christians who were sharing that Gospel. Some Christians retaliated and did some things that were not good. That, of course, gave the critics even more to be critical about. But Peter’s counsel to the Christians was that by continuing to do right, the ignorant talk of foolish people would be silenced.
The word here for “doing right” is the word “agathopious,” which really means, “doing good.” It is the verb “to do” connected to the adjective “agathas,” which means “good” or “beneficial.” Therefore, the compound word literally means, “by doing good, or by doing beneficial things.”
A lot of people criticize Christianity today because of the dumb things that some Christians do. But suppose we always sought to do things that were good for others—that were beneficial to our neighbors or community? Listen—that would certainly go a long way toward silencing the ignorant criticism of foolish people. Think about it! God wants you to “do good.”
Say—what good thing have you done today that would make people think better of Christians?