1 Peter 2:11

2:11,12 Even the best of men, the chosen generation, the people of God, need to be exhorted to keep from the worst sins. And fleshly lusts are most destructive to man's soul. It is a sore judgment to be given up to them. There is a day of visitation coming, wherein God may call to repentance by his word and his grace; then many will glorify God, and the holy lives of his people will have promoted the happy change.

{9} Dearly beloved, {10} I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, {11} abstain from fleshly lusts, {12} which war against the soul; (9) He returns to that general exhortation. (10) A reason why we ought to live holy, that is, because we are citizens of heaven, and therefore we ought to live not according to the laws of this world, which is most corrupt, but of the heavenly city, although we are strangers in the world. (11) Another argument: The children of God live not according to the flesh, that is, according to that corrupt nature, but according to the Spirit. Therefore fleshly actions should not rule us. (12) The third argument: for although those lusts gratify us, yet they do not cease to fight against our salvation.

1 Peter 2:11-12 . I beseech you, as strangers — Or sojourners; and pilgrims — Who have no inheritance on this earth, but are travelling to the heavenly country. The former word, παροικοι , properly means those who are in a strange house, a house not their own: the second, παρεπιδημοι , those who are in a strange country, and among a people not their own. We sojourn in the body; we are pilgrims in this world; abstain from fleshly lusts — Or carnal desires; from inordinate desires of any thing in this country. “The settled inhabitants of a country are anxious to acquire riches, to purchase lands, and to build houses. But they who stay but a few weeks in a country, or who only travel through it, are commonly not solicitous to secure to themselves accommodations which they are so soon to leave. In the same manner, believers, being only sojourners on earth, and travellers to a better country, ought not to place their happiness in the enjoyment of those objects by which carnal desires are gratified, and which are peculiar to this earthly state, but in securing themselves possessions in the heavenly country, the proper habitation of the righteous.” — Macknight. Which carnal desires, though pleasant to the senses, war against the soul — Against the health, the strength, the liberty, the purity, the usefulness, the comfort of the soul.

Having your conversation — Your whole behaviour; honest — Greek, καλην , amiable, excellent, commendable, and honourable, pious and virtuous in every respect. But our language sinks under the force, copiousness, and beauty of the original expressions; among the Gentiles — Your heathen neighbours, who narrowly watch you; that whereas they speak against you as evil-doers — As seditious persons and atheists, because ye do not worship their false gods, and because you join yourselves with what they presumptuously call the impious sect of Christians; they may by your good works — Your unblameable, useful, and holy conduct, your obedience to the just laws of the state, your submission to magistrates, and your patience and meekness when unjustly punished; which they shall behold — Shall be eye-witnesses of; may not only lay aside their blasphemous reproaches and bitter enmities, but may exchange them for commendations and praises, and so may glorify God — By owning his grace in you, being induced to believe and obey the truth, and to imitate your example; in the day of visitation — During the season in which the gospel is preached among them, whereby they are visited with the offers of pardon and salvation.

Beloved (ἀγαπητοί) A favorite term with Peter, occurring eight times in the epistles. See the phrase, our beloved. Barnabas and Paul, Acts 15:25, in the letter sent by the council at Jerusalem to the Gentile Christians, the account of which, doubtless, came from Peter. Compare our beloved brother Paul, 2 Peter 3:15. Strangers (παροίκους) Rev., sojourners. Compare 1 Peter 1:17, "the time of your sojourning (παροικίας)." Which (αἵτινες) The compound pronoun denotes a class, of that kind which, classifying all fleshly desires in one category.

1 Peter 2:11 . Ἀγαπητοὶ , dearly beloved ) A friendly and well-disposed exhortation.— παρακαλῶ , I beseech you ) So ch. 1 Peter 5:1 . [A great exhortation, of which the former part begins here; the second part in the middle of 1 Peter 2:15 , ch. 3. Both parts have ἵνα ἐν ᾧ , κ . τ . λ ., ch. 1 Peter 2:12 , and 1 Peter 3:16 .— Not. Crit .]— παροίκους καὶ παρεπιδήμονς , strangers and foreigners ) A gradation: ye are not only as in a strange house , but even as in a foreign city , ye who believe of the Jews and Gentiles. The reason why ye should abstain . Leviticus 25:23 , Septuagint, προσήλυτοι καὶ πάροικοι ὑμεῖς ἐστε ἐναντίον ἐμοῦ , ye are strangers and sojourners before Me . Psalm 39:12 , ὅτι πάροικος ἐγώ εἰμι ἐν τῇ γῇ καὶ παρεπίδημος , καθὼς πάντες οἱ πατέρες μον , for I am a stranger on the earth and a sojourner, as all my fathers were . Comp. Hebrews 11:13 , note.— ἀπέχεσθε , abstain ) The Imperative,[17] as ch. 1 Peter 5:1-2 , I exhort — feed . Thus cohere the words, having your conversation , etc., 1 Peter 2:12 , and ch. 1 Peter 3:7-9 , and the word ready [ ἕτοιμοι coming after the previous Imperative, as ἔχοντες here], ch. 1 Peter 3:15 .— σαρκικῶν , carnal ) 2 Peter 2:10 ; 2 Peter 2:18 .— στρατεύονται , war ) Not only do they hinder, but attack. A fine word. [17] Not the Infinitive ἀπέχεσθαι , as B Vulg. and Rec. Text. But ἀπέχεσθε in AC, both Syr. Versions, Memph. and Cyprian.—E.

Strangers and pilgrims; not only strangers in the several countries where ye inhabit, (being out of your own land), but strangers in the world, as all believers are, 1 Chronicles 29:15 Psalm 39:12 Psalm 119:19 Hebrews 11:13,14 . Abstain from fleshly lusts; not only sensual desires, but all the works of the flesh, Galatians 5:19-21 , the carnal mind itself being enmity against God, Romans 8:7 . Which war; as enemies, oppose and fight against, Romans 7:23 Jam 4:1 . Against the soul; the inner man, or regenerate part, or Spirit, which is opposed to fleshly lusts: see Galatians 5:17 .

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 ; Psalm 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. Jam 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 ).

11. As heretofore he exhorted them to walk worthily of their calling, in contradistinction to their own former walk, so now he exhorts them to glorify God before unbelievers. Dearly beloved—He gains their attention to his exhortation by assuring them of his love. strangers and pilgrims—(1Pe 1:17). Sojourners, literally, settlers having a house in a city without being citizens in respect to the rights of citizenship; a picture of the Christian's position on earth; and pilgrims, staying for a time in a foreign land. Flacius thus analyzes the exhortation: (1) Purify your souls (a) as strangers on earth who must not allow yourselves to be kept back by earthly lusts, and (b) because these lusts war against the soul's salvation. (2) Walk piously among unbelievers (a) so that they may cease to calumniate Christians, and (b) may themselves be converted to Christ. fleshly lusts—enumerated in Ga 5:19, &c. Not only the gross appetites which we have in common with the brutes, but all the thoughts of the unrenewed mind. which—Greek, "the which," that is, inasmuch as being such as "war." &c. Not only do they impede, but they assail [Bengel]. the soul—that is, against the regenerated soul; such as were those now addressed. The regenerated soul is besieged by sinful lusts.