In 2:12 Peter goes on to say, “Having your manner of life excellent among the nations, that wherein they speak against you as evildoers, they may, by observing your good works, glorify God in the day of visitation.” The manner of life here must be the holy manner of life (1:15) and the good manner of life in Christ (3:16), a life not only for God but filled and saturated with God. This manner of life is versus the vain manner of life of the unbelievers (1:18). The believers’ manner of life should be excellent; that is, it should be beautiful in its virtues. We need to have such a life among the nations, among the Gentiles. Many versions render the Greek word for nations in verse 12 as Gentiles. Actually, the Greek word means nations. All the nations are Gentiles.
According to verse 12, if we have an excellent manner of life among the nations, they, by observing our good works, will glorify God in the day of visitation. The Greek word translated “visitation” is episkopes. The basic meaning of this word is to observe, inspect, oversee, look upon. The day of visitation is the day when God will look upon His pilgrim people, as a shepherd over his wandering sheep. He will look upon them and will become the Shepherd and Overseer of their souls (2:25). Hence, the day of visitation is the time of God’s overseeing care.
Concerning the understanding of the day of visitation mentioned in verse 12, there are different schools of interpretation. One school says that the day of visitation is the day of judgment. However, if we look into the meaning of the Greek word, we shall find that it does not convey the thought of judgment. As we have pointed out, the basic meaning is to observe, inspect, oversee, look upon. (In the New Testament elders are called overseers, those who oversee.) The root of the Greek word for visitation is the same as that of the Greek word for overseers. Peter’s thought here is that the day of visitation is the time when God will look upon His pilgrim people as a shepherd looking upon his sheep. Then God will become to them the Shepherd and Overseer of their souls. With this understanding of the word visitation as our basis, we may go on to say that the day of visitation is the time of God’s overseeing care. To make the matter simple, we may say that the day of God’s visitation is the day God comes to visit us. When God pays us a visit, that is the day of visitation.
Have you not experienced God’s visitation in the meetings of the church or of the ministry? I can testify that as I am ministering the Word to the saints, deep within I often have the feeling that God is visiting us in His overseeing care. In meeting after meeting, God comes to pay us a visit. Many of us can testify that we have experienced Him as the divine Visitor in recent days.
What does God intend to do when He comes to visit us? Does He come to judge us? No, instead of coming to judge us, God visits us for the purpose of looking upon us and observing how we are doing and what we are doing. It may seem that He says to us, “How is everything with you? What are you doing? Is everything all right?” God’s visitation is like that of a shepherd. It is also the visit of an overseer. This is the reason Peter speaks of the Lord as the Shepherd and Overseer of our souls (2:25). Our Savior is the Shepherd and Overseer. He shepherds us and oversees us in order to take good care of us. This is the proper understanding of the word visitation in verse 12.