"Having your conversation honest among the Gentiles;

that whereas they speak against you as evil doers,

they may by your good works, which they shall behold,

glorify God in the day of visitation."

I Peter 2:12 (KJV)

"Keep your behavior excellent among the Gentiles,

so that the thing in which they slander you as evildoers,

they may on account of your good deeds, as they observe them, 

glorify God in the day of visitation."

I Peter 2:12 (NASV)

We've heard it said, "If you are going to talk the talk, you need to walk the walk."

There is no respect for any whose profession is all there is.  The KJV calls this "honest conversation," while the NASV calls it "excellent behavior."  Slander is inevitable, but actions speak louder than words; therefore do not leave them anything to convict you with.  On the other hand, if you sound like, smell like, and walk like an evildoer, then most likely you are one and an accounting is coming.  Evildoers have short memories in that there is coming a day when the Lord will return to visit upon the earth His judgement.  

John Wesley defines "honest," "Not barely blamable, but virtuous in every respect."

Adam Clarke reminds us, "'Having your conversation honest'--Living in such a manner among the Gentiles, in whose country ye sojourn, as becomes the Gospel which ye profess.  'That whereas they speak against you as evil doers'--In all the heathen countries, in the first age of the Church, the Christians and the Jews were confounded together; and as the latter were everywhere exceedingly troublesome and seditious, the Christians shared in their blame, and suffered no small measure of ….persecution on the this very account.  It was doubly necessary, therefore, that the Christians should be exceedingly cautious; and that their conduct should prove that, although many of them were of the same nation, yet they who had embraced Christianity differed widely in their spirit and conduct from those, whether Jews or Gentiles, who had not received the faith of Christ."  

This same commentator believed that in one sense, "the day of visitation," was when "all the former (Jews)were either destroyed or carried into slavery (the destruction of the temple and takeover of Jerusalem around 70 A.D. a time when the Christians had already escaped because of the persecution by the Jews)....for not one of them (Christians) had joined in the sedition against the Roman government."  Isaiah 10:3 says, "And what will ye do in the DAY OF VISITATION, and in the desolation which shall come from afar?  To whom will ye flee for help?  And where will ye leave your glory?" 

Regardless, Peter has said this with the hope that their witness would cause the pagans to glorify God, and even be converted such as the Roman soldier who beheld Christ die on the cross realizing He was the real thing.  That is how Peter envisioned the Romans to be overthrown, by conversion, not subversion.  When Peter was condemned to die on a cross of his own, it is said he did not want to be crucified like His Savior, so he chose to be hung upside down on a cross, his way of glorifying God.

Sometimes when we have been persecuted or displaced, God is using it because His desire is that His glory would be hovering over us and in us.  Are we willing to still shine?  We should not be called "Icabod," which means no glory.  (The child so named, the grandson of Eli, was birthed while the Hebrews were being slain by the Philistines, including his father, and the ark of the covenant was taken, the symbol of the glory of God among His people.)

Sometimes in ministry, we left shaking the dust of our sandals behind us.  Have you ever left a job, a relationship, a place called home because God has chosen to take your discomfort to make you more comfortable in the comfort of the Holy Spirit so that His glory may shine through you?