Will paused after reading the missions newsletter, and tossed it to me. “Hey did you read this?”

I picked it up, and read the article. It was about “peculiar people,” taken from the King James Version of 1 Peter 2:9.

But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light:

The emphasis of the article was on being peculiar, or weird for Jesus. But it was based on a poor interpretation of the verse. Look at a newer translation of the Bible (and I will use NKJV to show you this, in case you are of the KJV only persuasion).

But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light;

Did you notice that? It’s not about being peculiar, but about being “His own special people.” ESV translates it as “a people for his own possession.”

So what’s the big deal? We Christians are weird, aren’t we? Nothing wrong with that, huh?

It IS a big deal. A chasm yawns between a life focused on being peculiar, and a life that springs from being God’s special possession. If being a Christian is all about being strange, we ought to put a lot of effort into maintaining our strangeness, trying to convert others to be at least as strange as we are, and edging out people we think just aren’t strange enough.

If we live as God’s special people, our lives will be all about knowing Him, hearing His voice, and partnering with Him to bring redemption to the world. Sure, doing that will make us odd, but weirdness will be an unimportant detail.

We have only so much time and energy to invest in our lives. Are we going to waste it all on being peculiar, or are we going to enjoy being God’s?