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Beloved, I beg you as foreigners and pilgrims to abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul,
Verse 11. I beseech you … to refrain, and so forth from all unlawful and disorderly passions, that the Gentiles not yet converted may have nothing to blame in your lives and conversation, but may be edified and induced to praise God. Witham.
having good behavior among the nations, so in that of which they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good works and glorify God in the day of visitation.
Verse 12. In the day of visitation. God is said to visit his people, sometimes by afflictions and punishments, and sometimes by graces and favours. Some think Saint Peter here, by the day of visitation, means the approaching destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, and that the sense is, that the heathen Romans seeing your peaceable dispositions and pious conversations, may have a favourable opinion of the Christian religion, and be converted. Others, that you and they to whom the gospel is preached, may glorify God when he visits them with graces and favours, whether exterior or interior. Witham.—Be careful not to give occasion to scandal. Detraction is the life of the world, and piety is most exposed to its shafts, because it most condemns the maxims of its followers.
Therefore subject yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake: whether to the king, as supreme,
Verse 13. To every human creature, [5] to every one whom the order of Providence has placed over you, whether it be to emperors or kings, who have the supreme power in kingdoms, or to governors of provinces; obey your temporal princes, though heathens and idolaters, (as the Roman emperors were at that time enemies to the Christian religion) in all that is not sinful and against the law of God: for this is the will of God, and all power is from God. See Romans 13. In like manner (verse 18) servants must be subject and obey their masters, though they be infidels. See 1 Corinthians 7. By this you will silence the ignorance and calumnies of foolish men, who pretended that the Christian religion taught them to be disobedient to princes, and to be subjects of Christ only, their supreme spiritual king. Witham.
or to governors, as sent by him for vengeance on evildoers and for praise to those who do well.
For this is the will of God, that by well-doing you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish men.
Live as free people, yet not using your freedom for a cloak of wickedness, but as bondservants of God.
Verse 16. As free; to wit, from the slavery of sin, but take care not to make this Christian freedom and liberty a cloak for malice, as they do, who pretend that this makes subjects free from their obedience to temporal princes and magistrates; or servants free from the obedience due to their masters, even when they are froward, [6] ill-humoured, or cross to them. Witham.—There were some heretics in the days of Saint Peter, as there are at present, who under pretext of evangelical liberty seek to be free from all even lawful subjection, and thus set themselves above the ordinances of both civil and ecclesiastical power.
Honor all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the king.