Expositor's Greek Testament (Nicoll)

1 Peter 2:11

f. indicate generally the subject to be discussed. Beloved I exhort you to abstain from the lusts of the flesh, because they wage war against the soul. Standers and even torments can only affect the body. But the lusts natural or acquired which you have renounced may hinder your salvation, as they have already impeded your mutual love. For the sake of your old friends and kinsfolk refuse to yield to their solicitations. If rebuffed they resort to persecution of whatever kind, remember that it is only a passing episode of your brief exile. Let your conduct give them no excuse for reproach; so may they recognise God's power manifest not on your lips but in your lives. ἀγαπητοί, not an empty formulæ but explanation of the writer's motive. He set before them the great commandment and now adds to it as Jesus did, Love one another as I have loved you, John 13:34. ὡς π. καὶ παρεπιδήμους with ἀπεχ. (motive for abstinence in emphatic position) rather than παρακαλῶ (as νουθετεῖτε ὡς ἀδελφόν, 2 Thessalonians 3:15 the motive of exhortation is here expressed by ἀγ.) echoes παρεπιδήμοις of 1 Peter 1:1 and παροικίας of 1 Peter 1:17. The combination (= גר וחושב) occurs twice in LXX (Genesis 33:4; Psalms 39:13). Christians are in the world, not of the world. ἀπέχεσθαι, cf. Plato, Phaedo, 82 C, true philosophers, ἀπέχονται τῶν κατὰ τὸ σῶμα ἐπιθυμιῶν ἁπάσων not for fear of poverty, like the vulgar, nor for fear of disgrace, like the ambitious, but because only so can he, departing in perfect purity, come to the company of the gods”. τῶν σαρκικῶν ἐπιθυμιῶν, the lusts of the flesh. St. Peter borrows St. Paul's phrase, ἡμεῖς πάντες ἀνεστράφημέν ποτε ἐν ταῖς ἐπιθυμίαις τῆς σαρκὸς ἡμῶν ποιοῦντες τὰ θελήματα τῆς σαρκὸς καὶ τῶν διανοιῶν (Ephesians 2:3), but uses it in his own way in a sense as wide as τὰς κοσμικὰς ἐ. (Titus 2:12). For the flesh is the earthly life (cf. Colossians 3:5) the transitory mode of existence of the soul which is by such abstinence to be preserved (1 Peter 1:9). αἵτινες … ψυχῆς, because they are campaigning against the soul. στρατεύονται (cf. 1 Peter 4:1 f., for military metaphor) perhaps derived from Romans 7:23, “I perceive a different law in my members warring against (ἀντιστρατευόμενον) the law of my mind;” cf. James 4:1, the pleasures which war in your members, and 4Ma 9:23, ἱερὰν καὶ εὐγενῆ στρατείαν στρατεύσασθε περὶ τῆς εὐσεβείας. κατὰ τῆς ψυχῆς. The lusts of this earthly life are the real enemy for they affect the soul. Compare Matthew 10:28, which may refer to the Devil and not to God, and the Pauline parallel, ἡ σὰρξ ἐπιθυμεῖ κατὰ τοῦ πνεύματος … ταῦτα γὰρ ἀλλήλοις ἀντικεῖται (Galatians 5:17).

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Expositor's Greek Testament (Nicoll)

1 Peter 2:11

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