Any Gentile (pagan) society will have some values that overlap with godly values. (Precisely what they are may vary from culture to culture.) Peter’s point is that his readers, though they stick out as being different (i.e., aliens and strangers) and thus experience a degree of marginalization in their community, need to make a point of excelling in the values they share with the society that is marginalizing them—even as they avoid those values that contradict their new identity.
In the Old Testament, though Abraham was a sojourner and exile in Canaan society (Genesis 23:4), he took the initiative to pursue the five kings who took “all the possessions of Sodom and Gomorrah, and all their provisions” (Genesis 14:12) in order to rescue not just his nephew Lot but the entire captured population. More, when he came back triumphant and the king of Sodom told him to “give me the persons, but take the goods for yourself,” Abraham declined (Genesis 14:21–24). Even Canaan’s pagan society understood this self-denial as “good,” “honorable.”
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.