1 Peter 5:1

The elders which are among you Some of the better MSS. present the reading The elders therefore among you. If we adopt this reading we have the latent sequence of thought in the idea suggested by the word "well-doing" in chap. 1 Peter 4:19, or by the "judgment" of chap. 1 Peter 4:17. The work of the elders was to be directed to strengthen men in the one, to prepare them for the other. It is obvious that the Apostle addresses those who are "elders" in the special sense of the word, as in Acts 11:30; Acts 15:22; Acts 20:17. The last passage shews, as compared with Acts 20:28, that the term was interchangeable with "Bishops." See also Titus 1:5; Titus 1:7, and the notes on 1 Peter 5:2.

who am also an elder If the word was used in its official sense in the first clause it cannot well be taken in any other sense here. The Apostle, with a profound humility, strikingly in contrast with the supremacy claimed by his successors, puts himself, as a fellow elder, on a level with the elders to whom he writes, with duties to be fulfilled in the same spirit, subject to the same conditions.

a witness of the sufferings of Christ The words bring out the one point on which he lays stress as distinguishing himself from others. He was in a special sense a "witness" of the actual sufferings of the man Christ Jesus (Acts 1:8-22; Acts 13:31), while they were partakers of those sufferings as reproduced in the experience of His people. As in chap. 1Pe 1:11, 1 Peter 4:13, the thought of those sufferings leads, in immediate sequence, to that of the glory which is their ultimate issue. The Greek word for "partaker" (literally, a joint partaker, a fellow-sharer with you) implies that he is, as before, dwelling on what he has in common with those to whom he writes (comp. Philippians 1:7). Some interpreters of note have seen, even in the description which he gives of himself as a "witness," not that which was distinctive, but the work which he had in common with others, of bearing his testimony that Christ had suffered, and that His servants also must therefore expect suffering.