1 Peter 4:3

4:1-6 The strongest and best arguments against sin, are taken from the sufferings of Christ. He died to destroy sin; and though he cheerfully submitted to the worst sufferings, yet he never gave way to the least sin. Temptations could not prevail, were it not for man's own corruption; but true Christians make the will of God, not their own lust or desires, the rule of their lives and actions. And true conversion makes a marvellous change in the heart and life. It alters the mind, judgment, affections, and conversation. When a man is truly converted, it is very grievous to him to think how the time past of his life has been spent. One sin draws on another. Six sins are here mentioned which have dependence one upon another. It is a Christian's duty, not only to keep from gross wickedness, but also from things that lead to sin, or appear evil. The gospel had been preached to those since dead, who by the proud and carnal judgment of wicked men were condemned as evil-doers, some even suffering death. But being quickened to Divine life by the Holy Spirit, they lived to God as his devoted servants. Let not believers care, though the world scorns and reproaches them.

{2} For the time past of our life may suffice us to have wrought the {b} will of the Gentiles, when we walked in lasciviousness, lusts, excess of wine, revellings, banquetings, and abominable idolatries: (2) By putting us in mind of the dishonesty of our former life led in the filth of sin, he calls us to earnest repentance. (b) Wickedly and licentiously after the manner of the Gentiles.

1 Peter 4:3-5. For the time past of our life may suffice us — Αρκετος ημιν , is sufficient for us; to have wrought the will of the Gentiles — The expression is soft, but conveys a very strong meaning, namely, that in no period of our lives ought we to have wrought the will of the Gentiles; and that whatever time we spent in so doing was too much. When we walked in lasciviousness — In various kinds and degrees of it; lusts — Inordinate desires; excess of wine — Οινοφλυγιαις , being inflamed with wine; revellings — Κωμοις , luxurious feastings; see on Romans 13:13 ; banquetings — Ποτοις , drunken entertainments; and abominable idolatries — With all the shameful vices connected therewith. Wherein they think it strange, &c. — The word ξενιζονται , thus rendered, was used by the Greeks to express that admiration and wonder with which a stranger is struck, who beholds anything uncommon or new. The meaning here is, On account of your former manner of life, they wonder that you now shun their company, and run not with them to the same excess of riot you formerly ran into; speaking evil of you — As proud, singular, silly, wicked, and the like; who shall give account — Of this as well as all their other ways; to him that is ready — So faith represents him now; to judge the quick and the dead — Those who are now alive, and those who shall be found alive at his coming to judgment.

For the time past, etc Compare Romans 13:13. Us (ἡμῖν) The best texts omit. Of our life (τοῦ βίου) The best texts omit. Will (βούλημα, the better reading for θέλημα) Desire, inclination. See on Matthew 1:19. When we walked (πεπορευμένους) Rev., rightly, ye walked. Construe with to have wrought. The time past may suffice for you to have wrought the desire, etc., walking as ye have done; the perfect participle having an inferential reference to a course of life now done with. Lasciviousness (ἀσελγείαις) The following enumeration of vices is characteristic of Peter's style in its fulness and condensation. He enumerates six forms of sensuality, three personal and three social: (1) Ἀσελγείαις, wantonness. See on Mark 7:22. Excesses of all kinds, with possibly an emphasis on sins of uncleanness. (2) Ἐπιθυμίαις, lusts. See on Mark 4:19. Pointing especially to fleshly lusts, "the inner principles of licentiousness" (Cook). (3) Οἰνοφλυγίαις, excess of wine. Only here in New Testament. The kindred verb occurs in the Septuagint, Deuteronomy 21:20; Isaiah 56:12. From οἶνος, wine, and φλέω or φλύω, to teem with abundance; thence to boil over or bubble up, overflow. It is the excessive, insatiate desire for drink, from which comes the use of the word for the indulgence of the desire - debauch. So Rev., wine-bibbings. The remaining three are revellings, banquetings, and idolatries.

Revellings (κώμοις) The word originally signifies merely a merry-making; most probably a village festival, from κώμη, a village. In the cities such entertainments grew into carouses, in which the party of revellers paraded the streets with torches, singing, dancing, and all kinds of frolics. These revels also entered into religious observances, especially in the worship of Bacchus, Demeter, and the Idaeau Zeus in Crete. The fanatic and orgiastic rites of Egypt, Asia Minor, and Thrace became engrafted on the old religion. Socrates, in the introduction to "The Republic," pictures himself as having gone down to the Piraeus to see the celebration of the festival of Bendis, the Thracian Artemis (Diana); and as being told by one of his companions that, in the evening, there is to be a torch-race with horses in honor of the goddess. The rites grew furious and ecstatic. "Crowds of women, clothed with fawns' skins, and bearing the sanctified thyrsus (a staff wreathed with vine-leaves) flocked to the solitudes of Parnassus, Kithaeron, or Taygetus during the consecrated triennial period, and abandoned themselves to demonstrations of frantic excitement, with dancing and clamorous invocation of the god. They were said to tear animals limb from limb, to devour the raw flesh, and to cut themselves without feeling the wound.

1 Peter 4:3 . Ἀρκετὸς , sufficeth ) A lowering of expression [MEIOSIS. See Append.]: for not even ought the past times to have been wasted in sins. At the same time a loathing of sin is expressed on the part of those who repent.— κατεργάσασθαι , to have wrought ) namely, for you [36] to have wrought. This is shortly afterwards explained.— πεπορευμένους , when ye walked ) advanced madly. The antithesis to this word is πορευθεὶς , He went and, is gone and , ch. 1 Peter 3:19 ; 1 Peter 3:22 .— οἰνοφλυγίαις , κώμοις , πότοις , in excess of wine, revellings , and banquetings ) Those before mentioned are practised by individuals, these by clubs.— ἀθεμίτοις , in abominations ) by which the most sacred law of God is violated: Romans 1:23-24 .— εἰδωλολατρείαις , idolatries ) of various kinds. So, in the antithesis, the word manifold or various , 1 Peter 4:10 . [36] Rec. Text reads ἡμῖν after ἀρκετὸς γάρ , with C alone of the oldest authorities But AB Vulg. and both Syr. omit ἡμῖν . So Beng. understands the “ you .”—E.

For the time past of our be may see: the apostle doth not mean by this expression merely that they should forbear their former lusts out of a satiety and weariness, as having had their fill of them, but to stir them up to holiness by minding them of their former sinful life; q.d. Ye are concerned to run well now, when ye have for so great a part of your time run wrong. It is a figure whereby he mitigates and lenifies the sharpness of his reproof for their former sinful life: see the like, Ezekiel 44:6 45:9 Mark 14:41 . Us; some copies read, ye, and that agrees with the following verse, where the second person is made use of: or if we read, according to our translation, us, it is a figure called anacoenosis, whereby Peter assumes to himself in common with them what yet, in his own person, he was never guilty of, as Isaiah 64:6,7 Da 9:5 , &c.; or else it may be an analogy of the person, whereby the first is put for the second. To have wrought the will of the Gentiles; viz. those that were profane and ignorant of God and Christ, and so it is the same as the lusts of men, 1 Peter 4:2 . When we walked; had our conversation, as Ephesians 2:3 , walking being taken for the course of man’s life; and sometimes in an evil way, as 2 Peter 2:10 3:3 Judges 1:16,18 ; and sometimes in a good, as Luke 1:6 . In lasciviousness; especially outward acts, here set in distinction from lusts, which implies those inward motions from which those outward defilements proceed.

Excess of wine, revellings; unseasonable and luxurious feasting, Romans 13:13 Galatians 5:21 . Banquetings: compotations, or meetings for drinking, Proverbs 23:30 Isaiah 5:11,12 . And abominable idolatries: Question. Why doth Peter charge the Jews with idolatry, who generally kept themselves from it after the Babylonish captivity? Answer. 1. Though most did, yet all might not. 2. It is a sort of idolatry to eat things sacrificed to idols, which many of the Jews, being dispersed among the idolatrous Gentiles, and being invited by them to their idol feasts, might possibly do; and, being under the temptation of poverty, might too far conform themselves to the customs of the nations among which they were. 3. Probably this idolatry might be the worship of angels, frequent among the Gentiles, particularly the Colossians, inhabiting a city of Phrygia, which was a part of Asia where many Jews were, 1 Peter 1:1 . 4. The churches to which he wrote might be made up of Jews and Gentiles, and the apostle may, by a synecdoche, ascribe that to all in common, which yet is to be understood only of a part.

1 Peter 4:3 . The use of the rare ἀρκετός indicates the saying which St. Peter here applies, sufficient unto the day [that is past] its evil . Compare Ezekiel 44:6 , ἱκανούσθω ὑμῖν ἀπὸ πασῶν τῶν ἀνομιῶν ὑμῶν . The detailed description of the evil follows the traditional redaction of the simple picture of absorption in the ordinary concerns of life which Jesus is content to repeat ( Matthew 24:37 , etc.). Eating, drinking, marrying were interpreted in the worst sense to account for the visitation and become gluttony, drunkenness and all conceivable perversions of marriage; see Sap. 14:21–27, followed by Romans 1:29 , etc.— τὸ … πεπορευμένους , from 2 Kings 17:8 , ἐπορεύθησαν τοῖς δικαιώμασιν τῶν ἐθνῶν . The construction is broken (for the will … to have been accomplishe … for you walking ) unless κατ . be taken as if middle to πεπορ . as subject.— ἀσελγείαις , acts of licentiousness (as in Polybius); so Sap. 14:26. Earlier of wanton violence arising out of drunkenness (Demosthenes).— οἰνοφλυγίαις , wine-bibbings , Deuteronomy 21:20 , οἰνοφλυγεῖ = סבא . Noun occurs in Philo coupled with ἀπλήρωτοι ἐπίθυμίαι .— κώμοις , revellings associated with alien rites , Sap. 14:26. For πότοις cf. ποτήριον δαιμόνων , 1 Corinthians 10:14 ff.— ἀθεμίτοις εἰδωλολατρίαις , a Jew’s description of current Pagan cults, which were often illicit according to Roman law. For ἀ . cf. Acts 10:28 , it is unlawful for a Jew to associate with a foreigner , and 2Ma 4:5 ; 2Ma 7:1 (of swine flesh).

3. may suffice—Greek, "is sufficient." Peter takes the lowest ground: for not even the past time ought to have been wasted in lust; but since you cannot recall it, at least lay out the future to better account. us—omitted in oldest manuscripts. wrought—Greek, "wrought out." Gentiles—heathen: which many of you were. when, &c.—"walking as ye have done [Alford] in lasciviousness"; the Greek means petulant, immodest, wantonness, unbridled conduct: not so much filthy lust. excess of wine—"wine-bibbings" [Alford]. abominable—"nefarious," "lawless idolatries," violating God's most sacred law; not that all Peter's readers (see on [2620]1Pe 1:1) walked in these, but many, namely, the Gentile portion of them.

3 . For the time past of our life may suffice ] The language is that of grave irony. Enough time, and more than enough, had been already given to the world. Was it not well to give some time now to God? The general line of thought runs parallel to that of Romans 13:11-12 . to have wrought the will of the Gentiles ] The question meets us whether these words imply that the writer was, here at least, contemplating converts from heathenism, or still thinking only of the Jews of the dispersion. On the one hand, it may be said that it was more natural for a Jew writing to Jews to speak of “the heathen” or “the Gentiles.” If the reading “may suffice us ” be the right one, the fact that the Apostle joins himself with those to whom he writes strengthens that conclusion. The better MSS., however, omit the pronoun. The “abominable idolatries,” on the other hand, may seem decisive in favour of the supposition that this part of the Epistle was intended for Gentile readers: but here also the word of warning would be as applicable to lax and licentious Jews, or to those who had been proselytes to Judaism, and who had not given up their attendance at idol-feasts or eating things sacrificed to idols (comp. 1 Corinthians 8:10 , Revelation 2:14 ; Revelation 2:20 ). lasciviousness ] The Greek word is in the plural as expressing the manifold forms or acts of impurity.