Click ⟳ | Please refresh this document to insure the latest copy. Note, the Firefox browser does not reliably give an updated copy. One may try the “F5” key as well to request a fresh copy from the web-server.
3:19
God would bring Peter’s readers safely through their trials just as He had brought Noah safely through his trials into a whole new world. God had done this for Noah even though he and his family were a small minority in their day. Furthermore, just as God judged the mockers in Noah’s day, so will He judge those who persecuted Peter’s readers. (Constable)
3:20
God would bring Peter’s readers safely through their trials just as He had brought Noah safely through his trials into a whole new world. God had done this for Noah even though he and his family were a small minority in their day. Furthermore, just as God judged the mockers in Noah’s day, so will He judge those who persecuted Peter’s readers. (Constable)
4:1-2
The real test of spiritual focus is being able to bring your mind and thoughts under control. (Chambers, Feb. 10)
‘Christ hath suffered in the flesh.’ That is the great fact which should shape the course of all His followers. But what does suffering in the flesh mean here? It does not refer only to the death of Jesus, but to His whole life. The phrase ‘in the flesh’ is reiterated in the context, and evidently is equivalent to ‘during the earthly life.’ Our Lord’s life was, in one aspect, one continuous suffering, because He lived the higher life of the spirit. That higher life had to Him, and has to us, rich compensations; but it sets those who are true to it at necessary variance with the lower types of life common among men, and it brings many pains, all of which Jesus knew. The last draught from the cup was the bitterest, but the bitterness was diffused through all the life of the Man of Sorrows. (MacLaren)
That life is here contemplated as the pattern for all Christ’s servants. Peter says much in this letter of our Lord’s sufferings as the atonement for sin, but here he looks at them rather as the realised ideal of all worthy life. We are to be ‘partakers of Christ’s sufferings’ 5. 13, and we shall become so in proportion as His own Spirit becomes the spirit which lives in us. If Jesus were only our pattern, Christianity would be a poor affair, and a gospel of despair; for how should we reach to the pure heights where He stood? But, since He can breathe into us a spirit which will hallow and energise our spirits, we can rise to walk beside Him on the high places of heroic endurance and of holy living. (MacLaren)
Or do you say, “I am not willing to be poured out right now, and I don’t want God to tell me how to serve Him. I want to choose the place of my own sacrifice. And I want to have certain people watching me and saying, ‘Well done.’” ¶ It is one thing to follow God’s way of service if you are regarded as a hero, but quite another thing if the road marked out for you by God requires becoming a “doormat” under other people’s feet. God’s purpose may be to teach you to say, “I know how to be brought low,…” (Philippians 4:12). Are you ready to be sacrificed like that? (Chambers, Feb. 5)
4:3-5
The sins in view are those most closely connected with ‘the flesh’ in its literal meaning, amongst which are included ‘abominable idolatries,’ because gross acts of sensual immorality were inseparably intertwined with much of heathen worship. … But New York or London could match the worst scenes in Rome or Ephesus, and perhaps would not be far behind the foul animalism of Sodom and Gomorrah. Lust and drunkenness are eating out the manhood of our race on both sides of the Atlantic … (MacLaren)
Christian morality brought two new things into the world–a new type of life in sharp contrast with the sensuality rife on every side, and a new set of motives powerfully aiding in its realisation. Both these novelties are presented in this passage, which insists on a life in which the spirit dominates the flesh, and is dominated by the will of God, and which puts forward purely Christian ideas as containing the motives for such a life. The facts of Christ’s life and the prospect of Christ’s return to judge the world are here urged as the reason for living a life of austere repression of ‘the flesh’ that we may do God’s will. (MacLaren)
Observe the strong motives which Peter just touches without expanding. A sad irony lies in his saying that the time past may suffice. The flesh had had enough of time given to it,–had not God a right to the rest? The flesh should have had none; it had had all too much. Surely the readers had had enough of the lower life, more than enough. Were they not sick of it, ‘satisfied’ even to disgust? Let us look back on our wasted years, and give no more precious moments to serve the corruptible flesh. Further, the life of submission to the animal nature is characteristic of ‘the Gentiles,’ and in sharp contrast, therefore, to that proper to Christ’s followers. (MacLaren)
Most Works Cited. Please click here to access the web-page for all of the works cited, save those above–if any. Most of the works cited on the linked web-page correspond to the verses they are outlined with. In the case of background information and other general reference citations, one will find cited material with the Bible books the citations are associated with. ¶ Furthermore, all citations with URL linked, numbered notes are from Thomas Constable’s, “Dr. Constable’s Expository (Bible Study) Notes.” These links are preserved “as is” at the time of this work’s formation.
Marshall, I. Howard. 1 Peter. The IVP New Testament Commentary Series, Ed. Grant Osborne, et al, InterVarsity Press, 1991.
Michaels, J. Ramsey. Word Biblical Commentary: 1 Peter. Ed. David Hubbard, et al, Word Publishers, 1988.
1.1