1 Peter 2:17

2:13-17 A Christian conversation must be honest; which it cannot be, if there is not a just and careful discharge of all relative duties: the apostle here treats of these distinctly. Regard to those duties is the will of God, consequently, the Christian's duty, and the way to silence the base slanders of ignorant and foolish men. Christians must endeavour, in all relations, to behave aright, that they do not make their liberty a cloak or covering for any wickedness, or for the neglect of duty; but they must remember that they are servants of God.

{20} {d} Honour all men. Love the {e} brotherhood. Fear God. Honour the king. (20) He divides the civil life of man, by occasion of those things of which he spoke, into two general parts: that is, into those duties which private men owe to private men, and especially the faithful to the faithful, and into that subjection by which inferiors are bound to their superiors, but so that kings are not made equal to God, seeing that fear is due to God, and honour to kings. (d) Be charitable and dutiful towards all men. (e) The assembly and fellowship of the brethren. Zec 11:14

1 Peter 2:17 . Πάντας , all ) to whom honour is due: Romans 13:7 .— τιμήσατε , honour ) They who are unconnected with us, are to be treated with courtesy; brethren, with familiarity. This Aorist is followed by three Presents. The king must be honoured in such a way, that the love of the brotherhood, and the fear of God, be not violated.— τὸν ἀδελφότητα , the brotherhood ) The abstract, ch. 1 Peter 5:9 . Brethren are to be loved, because they are brethren.— τὸν Θεὸν , God ) Proverbs 24:21 , Septuagint, φοβοῦ τὸν Θεὸν , υἱὲ , καὶ βασιλέα , “Fear God, my son, and the king.”— τὸν βασιλέα , the king ) 1 Peter 2:13 .— τιμᾶτε , honour ) in action also, and not in feeling only.

Honour all men; viz. according as honour is due to them, according to their dignity, power, gifts, &c.: see Romans 12:10 Romans 13:7 Philippians 2:3 . Love the brotherhood; though all may challenge suitable respects, yet there is a more special affection owing to believers, 1 Peter 1:22 Galatians 6:10 . Fear God; with a filial fear or reverence. This command is interposed, either to show what is the true spring and fountain from which all the duties we perform to men are to proceed, viz. the fear of God, because where that doth not prevail no duty to men can be rightly performed; (they love the brotherhood best, and honour the king most, that truly fear God); or to show the due bounds of all the offices we perform to men, that nothing is to be done for them which is inconsistent with the fear of God. Honour the king; with that honour which is peculiarly due to him above all others.

1 Peter 2:17 . Sweeping clause based partly on Romans 13:7 f. ( cf. Matthew 22:21 ), partly on Proverbs 24:21 , φοβοῦ τὸν θεὸν υἰὲ καὶ βασιλέα καὶ μηθετέρῳ αὐτῶν ἀπειθήσῃς .— πάντας τιμήσατε . The aorist imperative is used because the present would be ambiguous; cf. ἀπόδοτε , Rom. l.c. , and for matter, Romans 12:10 , τῇ τιμῇ ἀλλήλους προηγούμενοι , since πάντας covers both the brotherhood and the emperor .— οἱ οἰκέται , vocative; the word is chosen as being milder than δοῦλος and also as suggesting the parallel between slaves and Christians who are God’s household ( 1 Peter 2:5 )— ὑποτασσόμενοι has force of imperative resuming ὑποτάγητε or goes with τιμήσατε ( 1 Peter 2:17 ) as being a particular application of that general principle.— τοῖς δεσπόταις , to your masters , not excluding God, the Master of all, as is indicated by the insertion of in all fear ( cf. 1 Peter 2:17 , etc.) and τοῖς ἀγαθοῖς καὶ ἐπιεικέσιν ( cf. Psalm 86:4 , σὺ κύριος χρηστὸς καὶ ἐπιεικής ).— τοῖς σκολιοῖς , the perverse, cf. Php 2:15 , ἵνα γένησθε … τέκνα θεοῦ ἄμωμα μέσον γενεᾶς σκολιᾶς καὶ διεστραμμένης , where the full phrase is cited from Deuteronomy 32:5 ( σκ . = עקש ), The Vulgate has dyscolis = δυσκόλοις ; Hesychius, σκολιός . ἄδικος ; Proverbs 28:18 , ὁ σκολιαῖς ὁδοῖς πορευόμενος χ . ὁ πορευόμενος δικαίως .

17. Honour all men—according to whatever honor is due in each case. Equals have a respect due to them. Christ has dignified our humanity by assuming it; therefore we should not dishonor, but be considerate to and honor our common humanity, even in the very humblest. The first "honor" is in the Greek aorist imperative, implying, "In every case render promptly every man's due" [Alford]. The second is in the present tense, implying, Habitually and continually honor the king. Thus the first is the general precept; the three following are its three great divisions. Love—present: Habitually love with the special and congenial affection that you ought to feel to brethren, besides the general love to all men. Fear God … the king—The king is to be honored; but God alone, in the highest sense, feared.

17 . Honour all men ] The universality of the precept is not to be narrowed by any arbitrary restriction of its range to those to whom honour was due. St Peter had been taught of God “not to call any man common or unclean” ( Acts 10:28 ). The fact that there were in every man traces of the image of God after which he had been created, and infinite undeveloped capacities which might issue in the restoration of that image to its original brightness, was in itself a reason for treating all, even the vilest and most degraded, with some measure of respect. It is obvious that the command is perfectly consistent with shewing degrees of honour according to the variations in men’s character and position. It would almost seem as if the Apostle chose the most terse and epigrammatic form for these great laws of conduct that their very brevity might impress them indelibly on the minds of his readers. Love the brotherhood ] In the Greek, as in the English, the abstract noun is used to express the collective unity made up of many individuals. Within the Christian society in which all were brothers, as being children of the same Father, there might well be a warmer feeling of affection than that which was felt for those who were outside it.

If St Peter’s rule seems at first somewhat narrower than that of Matthew 5:44 (“Love your enemies”), it may be remembered that the special love of the brethren does not shut out other forms and degrees of love, and that our Lord’s words are therefore left in all their full force of obligation. Fear God. Honour the king ] The king, as before, is the Emperor. The two verbs seem deliberately chosen to express the feelings of man’s conduct in regard to divine and human authority. They are to fear God with the holy reverential awe of sons, with that fear which is “the beginning of wisdom” ( Psalm 111:10 , Proverbs 1:7 ). They are not to fear man more than God, however great may be the authority with which he is invested. St Paul’s conduct before the high-priest, Felix, Festus and Agrippa (Acts 23-26.) may be noted as a practical illustration of St Peter’s precept. We may, perhaps, trace in the juxtaposition of the two precepts a reproduction of the teaching of Proverbs 24:21 .

Verse 17. - Honor all men. St. Peter illustrates the well-doing which he enjoins in ver. 15, drawing out his general exhortation into four rules of conduct. First, he bids us give honor to all men. The Christians of Asia Minor saw heathenism and vice all around them; they heard of the abominable life of Nero and his courtiers at Rome. They were conscious of a great and elevating change which had passed over themselves; St. Peter has just been enumerating the dignities and privileges of the Christian life. But they must not be lifted up; they must despise no one, but honor in all men the handiwork of God, created after God's own image, though sadly marred and defaced by sin. Respect is due to all men, of course in varying degrees and to be shown in different ways; but in some sense it is due to all, to the humblest and even to the worst. The aorist imperative ( τιμήσατε ) seems to lay down this principle as a sharp, definite rule, to be accepted at once, and to be applied as need arises, according to the circumstances of each case. The three following imperatives are present; the duties which they prescribe are viewed as continuous, recognized elements in well-doing. There was something new and strange in the command to honor all men; it is expressed forcibly, once for all, by the aorist imperative. Love the brotherhood . The word ἀδελφότης , brotherhood, is peculiar to St. Peter; it stands for the aggregate of Christian brethren regarded as one body in Christ.

The Lord bids us "love our enemies." St. Peter's rule does not weaken the force of the Savior's precept. But love must vary in depth and degree according to the varying relations of life; and the love which true Christians feel for the like-minded must be one of its strongest forms. Fear God. Honor the king. The holy fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. The fear of God as the King of kings will lead us to give due honor to earthly princes, who rule by his controlling providence. It was especially necessary to urge the fear of God as a motive, when the king to be honored was such as Nero. 1 Peter 2:17

(17) Honour all men. —“These words have very briefly, and yet not obscured by briefness, but withal very plainly, the sum of our duty towards God and men; to men, both in general, honour all men, and in special relations, in their Christian or religious relations, love the brotherhood; and in a chief civil relation, honour the king. And our whole duty to God, comprised under the name of His fear, is set in the middle betwixt these, as the common spring of all duty to men, and of all due observance of it, and the sovereign rule by which it is to be regulated” (Leighton). St. Paul had said that this honour was to be paid to those to whom it was due; St. Peter says that this includes all men; there is not one who can be entirely despised, not one who has quite lost the likeness of Christ; Jews are not at liberty to despise even the idolatrous Gentiles. Love the brotherhood.—See 1Peter 5:9, and Note on 1Peter 1:22. The brotherhood means, of course, all Christian men, who (mystically even now that the Church is divided, but then actually) formed a single confraternity. “All men,” Christian or heathen, are to be “honoured,” but there is a special sense in which love is only possible between fellow-Christians. For the converse proposition, see Matthew 5:44. Fear God.—This enforces reverence for every law and ordinance of God, and therefore serves fitly to introduce the next precept. Rebellion against Nero is rebellion against God (Romans 13:2. Bengel compares Proverbs 24:21).

Honour the king.—This is the climax. Logically, the foregoing commands have only been inserted for the purpose of bringing out this last more clearly. This was the point on which the Christian religion was assailed, and the putting the readers through their catechism (as it were) of duties in other respects awakes their conscience to receive this precept. 1Peter 2:13-16 have insisted on the duty of political submission, and then the writer steps back, so to speak, for a final thrust: “so—as to all men you must pay reverence; as to the Christians, love; as to God, fear—so to the emperor you must pay constant reverence.” It is hardly right to say with Bengel that this paragraph is specially written because of the usual disaffection of Jews towards the Roman government; rather it is called for (like the warning of 1Peter 2:11-12), not by any special temptation within them, but by the particular circumstances of the time, i.e., the calumnies that were afloat against Christians.