1 Peter 4:7 Christ's Absence and Return. All the practical exhortations of this passage are founded upon the truth that "the end of all things is at hand." Yet, strange to say, there is hardly any passage of Scripture which has given rise to more frequent cavils than this simple assurance. I. Som... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Peter 4:8 It is quite evident that the sins spoken of here are not our own sins, but the sins of other persons, and that the intention is to say that as hatred brings causes of quarrel to the surface, so love puts the faults of other people down out of sight. I. Love shall cover multitudes of sin... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Peter 4:10 Combination. I. Religion is, in one sense, a hidden thing "a life hid with Christ in God." Acts rather than words are the invigorating exponents of emotion. And doubtless it is the consciousness of this law of our being which in great measure accounts for that delicate reserve which ma... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Peter 4:11 God's Scholars. Consider: I. Our labours of the understanding. May I say, "If any man read, let him read as if his book were God's work," or as if he were God's scholar? We cannot make a Christian use of other books, if the book of God Himself be not familiar to us. Nor, again, can w... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Peter 4:13 Consider: I. What Christ could not, as a perfectly pure and holy Being, have suffered for sins. (1) One element of suffering for sin, and that a most bitter one, of which Christ could have no direct experience, is conscious guilt. Wide as is the range of its sympathies with the sinful,... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Peter 4:14 The Ennobling Power of the Gospel. I. Externally these kings and priests, these bearers on their heads of the Spirit of glory and of God, are invested with no dignities. Strangers and scattered, pained by ever-varying temptations, many of them slaves in the households of the heathen, a... [ Continue Reading ]