INTRODUCTORY EXHORTATION FOUNDED UPON THE BENEDICTION 1 Peter 1:13 to 1 Peter 2:10 13–25. 13 The new life of hope, faith and privilege to which you have been begotten involves corresponding responsibilities on your part. You must gird up the loins of your mind in readiness for active service, have... [ Continue Reading ]
ἈΠΟΘΈΜΕΝΟΙ ΟΥ̓͂Ν. In the first three verses of this chapter St Peter shews (_a_) what must be put away (οὖν) as inconsistent with the strenuous love involved in the new life, (_b_) the spiritual hunger for divine food by which that life must be maintained and developed, and so in 1 Peter 2:4 reverts... [ Continue Reading ]
ὩΣ�, _as new-born babes_. The words evidently refer to ἀναγεγεννημένοι in 1 Peter 1:23. βρέφη is nowhere else used in this figurative sense, the usual word employed being νήπιοι. ἀρτιγέννητα also occurs nowhere else. The phrase must not however be exaggerated as implying that the readers were very r... [ Continue Reading ]
ΕἸ ἘΓΕΎΣΑΣΘΕ ὍΤΙ ΧΡΗΣΤῸΣ Ὁ ΚΎΡΙΟΣ. The words are doubtless borrowed from Psalms 34:8, “O taste and see that the Lord is gracious,” where χρηστός is merely the LXX. rendering for the Hebrew “good” and has not the special sense in which it is used of wine in Luke 5:39. In the N.T. χρηστός as used of G... [ Continue Reading ]
ΠΡῸΣ ὋΝ ΠΡΟΣΕΡΧΌΜΕΝΟΙ. The words were perhaps suggested by the LXX. of 1 Peter 2:5 of the same Psalms 34 which St Peter has just quoted προσέλθατε πρὸς αὐτὸν καὶ φωτίσθητε, where the Hebrew is “they looked unto him.” In other passages of the LXX. the word προσέρχεσθαι is used of _drawing near_ to Go... [ Continue Reading ]
ΟἾΚΟΣ ΠΝΕΥΜΑΤΙΚῸΣ, _a spiritual house_ as opposed to a “house made with hands” like the Jewish temple, in which God could never really dwell, cf. Acts 7:48. For the same idea that the Christian society is God’s true temple, cf. 1 Corinthians 3:16; Ephesians 2:22. ΕἸΣ ἹΕΡΆΤΕΥΜΑ ἍΓΙΟΝ. εἰς is inserted... [ Continue Reading ]
ΠΕΡΙΈΧΕΙ. The substantive περιοχή means (1) the contents of a book, (2) a clause or passage. It is used in Acts 8:32 of the passage which the eunuch was reading. Here the verb is intransitive and impersonal = _it stands thus in writing_, the best MSS. read γραφῇ without the article. The plural αἱ γρ... [ Continue Reading ]
ὙΜΙ͂Ν. The A.V. renders “unto you that believe He is precious,” _i.e._ in your eyes. The R.V. marg., “In your sight … is the preciousness,” or “For you … is the honour,” but the R.V. text is _For you is the preciousness, i.e._ the preciousness implied in the epithet ἔντιμον concerns you Christians;... [ Continue Reading ]
ΛΊΘΟΣ ΠΡΟΣΚΌΜΜΑΤΟΣ. The _stone of stumbling_ is the loose stone against which the traveller strikes his foot, while πέτρα σκανδάλου, the _rock of offence_, is rather the native rock rising up through the path, which trips him up. σκάνδαλον is constantly used of Christ as being a stumbling-block to t... [ Continue Reading ]
St Peter applies to his Gentile readers, as the new Israel of God rescued from the slavery of sin, titles of honour which were used (1) in Exodus 19:5 of Israel as the Covenant people rescued from Egypt, (2) in Isaiah 43:20 of the mission for which God was restoring them from Babylon. Just as withi... [ Continue Reading ]
ΟΥ̓ ΛΑῸΣ … ΟΥ̓Κ ἨΛΕΗΜΈΝΟΙ. In Hosea 1:6-7; Hosea 2:23, the faithlessness of Israel to Jehovah her true bridegroom is described under the figure of the prophet’s faithless wife who deserts him for false paramours. The children are therefore called by symbolical names, Lo-ammi = “not my people” and Lo... [ Continue Reading ]
Having described the high privileges of the new Israel of God, St Peter proceeds in this second section of the Epistle to draw various moral lessons from them. In 1 Peter 2:11-12 he describes the personal duty of the Christian as regards self-conquest, remembering the influence which his life will h... [ Continue Reading ]
A. EXHORTATION TO PURITY OF MOTIVE AND CONSEQUENTLY TO PURITY OF LIFE IN THE PRESENCE OF HEATHEN. 1 Peter 2:11-12 11 If you are God’s chosen people, citizens of heaven, your present surroundings are not your home; you are only, as it were, sojourners in a foreign land, living among strangers; I be... [ Continue Reading ]
ΤῊΝ� … ΚΑΛΉΝ. καλήν is the predicate. Your intercourse with the heathen round you must be such as commands their respect. In 1 Peter 3:16 the enemies of the Christians are described as reviling their ἀναστροφὴν�. ἀγαθός denotes that which is intrinsically good in itself and its results, whether it i... [ Continue Reading ]
St Peter now turns to the duties of Christians in the various social relations of life. He has shewn that this world is not their home and that they must not adopt the fashion of this world as their standard. But this does not imply disorder or anarchy. The necessary bonds of society are not to be d... [ Continue Reading ]
B. SOCIAL DUTIES. 1 Peter 2:13 to 1 Peter 3:12 13 This warfare against heathen principles of living does not mean the subversion of the necessary bonds of society. Rather it deepens and intensifies them. God has instituted various forms of authority among men, and to those you must submit yourselv... [ Continue Reading ]
ΒΑΣΙΛΕΙ͂ = here primarily the Emperor. If, as seems probable, the Epistle was written during the later years of Nero, loyalty to such an Emperor would be extremely difficult for Christians unless they regarded him, despite his unworthiness, as the representative of a divine institution. With St Pet... [ Continue Reading ]
ΟὝΤΩΣ may refer to the words which follow, viz. silencing ignorance by well-doing. But οὕτως is regularly used retrospectively to sum up some preceding statement. So here St Peter means that by employing civil magistrates for the praise of well-doers God indicates His own method of working. His plan... [ Continue Reading ]
ὩΣ ἘΛΕΎΘΕΡΟΙ. The nominative connects the verse with 1 Peter 2:13. In submitting yourselves to the institutions of human society you will not be reverting to the old bondage of your heathen life from which you have been ransomed. The service of God is “perfect freedom” (_cui servire est regnare_), t... [ Continue Reading ]
ΤΙΜΉΣΑΤΕ … ἈΓΑΠΑ͂ΤΕ … ΦΟΒΕΙ͂ΣΘΕ … ΤΙΜΑ͂ΤΕ. Here we have an aorist imperative followed by three present imperatives. The usual distinction between aorist and present imperatives is that the present is used in _general_ precepts and the aorist in _individual_ cases, the aorist denoting “point” action... [ Continue Reading ]
_The duty of Servants to Masters_ (cf. Camb. Gk. Test. _Col._ p. lxviii.; Lightfoot _Col._ 317 ff.) Slavery was interwoven with the texture of society under the Roman Empire. To prohibit slavery would have been to tear society into shreds, and bring about a servile war with its certain horrors and d... [ Continue Reading ]
ΤΟΥ͂ΤΟ ΓᾺΡ ΧΆΡΙΣ (see Robinson _Eph._ p. 221 ff.). Besides its special Christian sense of God’s free favour, especially as bestowed upon Gentiles, χάρις in the N.T. retains (_a_) some of its purely Greek significations, (_b_) the significations which it acquired in the LXX. as a translation of חֵן =... [ Continue Reading ]
ΚΛΈΟΣ occurs nowhere else in the N.T. and only once in the LXX., Job 28:22, where it means “fame.” Here it means that there is no credit, nothing which men count heroic in patient submission to punishment which is deserved. κολαφιζόμενοι from κόλαφος a fist, so “to buffet.” Cf. Matthew 26:67; Mark 1... [ Continue Reading ]
ΕἸΣ ΤΟΥ͂ΤΟ ἘΚΛΉΘΗΤΕ. The call to follow Christ is not only to imitate Him in well-doing but also to share His sufferings, cf. 1 Peter 5:10; Matthew 16:24; 1 Thessalonians 3:3; 2 Timothy 2:11; Hebrews 2:10. If the Captain of salvation was made perfect through suffering the same process is employed b... [ Continue Reading ]
ὋΣ ἉΜΑΡΤΊΑΝ ΟΥ̓Κ ἘΠΟΊΗΣΕΝ ΟΥ̓ΔῈ ΕὙΡΈΘΗ ΔΌΛΟΣ ἘΝ ΤΩ͂Ι ΣΤΌΜΑΤΙ ΑΥ̓ΤΟΥ͂. In the LXX. of Isaiah 53:9, the words are ὅτι�. The description in Isaiah 53 of the ideal servant of Jehovah, suffering as the representative of the people, is quoted by St Peter in these verses (22–24) as being fulfilled in Chris... [ Continue Reading ]
ΟΥ̓Κ�. The imperfects ἀντελοιδόρει, ἠπείλει, παρεδίδου are sometimes explained as denoting the habitual attitude of the life of Christ as opposed to the one definite act of the crucifixion ἀνήνεγκεν. But more probably the imperfects describe St Peter’s own recollections of our Lord’s sufferings of w... [ Continue Reading ]
ἈΝΉΝΕΓΚΕΝ is the word used in Isaiah 53:12, “He bare the sins of many,” and the numerous reminiscences of that chapter in this section make it almost certain that St Peter is borrowing the word from it, coupling with it the word ξύλον probably from Deuteronomy 21:23. The same phrase from Isaiah is a... [ Continue Reading ]
ἮΤΕ ΓᾺΡ ὩΣ ΠΡΌΒΑΤΑ ΠΛΑΝΏΜΕΝΟΙ (T.R. πλανώμενα). St Peter means, You Gentiles may well apply to yourselves the language of Isaiah 53 about those healed by the suffering Servant of the Lord, for you were indeed wandering like lost sheep, as the speakers in that chapter describe themselves. ΠΟΙΜΈΝΑ ΚΑ... [ Continue Reading ]