1 Peter 2:25

For ye were as sheep going astray; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls. FOR - why they need healing (1 Peter 2:24). NOW - that the atonement for all has been made, the foundation is laid for individual conversion: so 'ye have become converted to,' etc. SHEPHERD AND BISHOP. The designation of the Church's pastors and elders belongs in its fullest sense to the great Head, "the good Shepherd." As the "bishop" oversees (as episkopos (G1985) means), so "the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous" (1 Peter 3:12). He gives us His Spirit, feeding and guiding us by His Word. "Shepherd" (Parnas) often applied to kin...

25_For ye were as sheep _This also has Peter borrowed from Isaiah, except that the Prophet makes it a universal statement, “All we like sheep have gone astray.” (Isaiah 53:6.) But on the word _sheep _there is no particular stress; he indeed compares us to sheep, but the emphasis is on what the Prophet adds, when he says that every one had turned to his own way. The meaning then is, that we are all going astray from the way of salvation, and proceeding in the way of ruin, until Christ brings us back from this wandering. And this appears still more evident from the clause which follows, _but are now returned to the Shepherd, etc._; (35) for all who are not ruled by Christ, are wandering like lost sheep in the ways of error. Thus, then, is condemned the whole wisdom of the world, which does not submit to the government of Ch

18-25 Servants in those days generally were slaves, and had heathen masters, who often used them cruelly; yet the apostle directs them to be subject to the masters placed over them by Providence, with a fear to dishonour or offend God. And not only to those pleased with reasonable service, but to the severe, and those angry without cause. The sinful misconduct of one relation, does not justify sinful behaviour in the other; the servant is bound to do his duty, though the master may be sinfully froward and perverse. But masters should be meek and gentle to their servants and inferiors. What glory or distinction could it be, for professed Christians to be patient when corrected for their faults? But if when they behaved well they were ill treated by proud and passionate heathen masters, yet bore it without peevish complaints, or purposes of revenge, and persevered in their duty, this woul...

Verse 1 Peter 2:25. _FOR YE WERE AS SHEEP GOING ASTRAY_] Formerly ye were not in a better moral condition than your oppressors; ye were like _stray sheep_, in the wilderness of ignorance and sin, till Christ, the true and merciful Shepherd, called you back from your wanderings, by sending you the Gospel of his grace. _BISHOP OF YOUR SOULS._] Unless we consider the word _bishop_ as a corruption of the word επισκοπος _episcopos_, and that this literally signifies an _overseer_, an _inspector_, or one that _has the_ _oversight_, it can convey to us no meaning of the original. Jesus Christ is the _Overseer of souls_; he has them continually under his eye; he knows their wants, wishes, dangers, c., and provides for them. As their _shepherd_, he leads them to the best pastures, defends them from their enemies, and g

FOR YE WERE AS SHEEP GOING ASTRAY - Here also is an allusion to Isaiah 53:6, “All we like sheep have gone astray.” See the notes at that verse. The figure is plain. We were like a flock without a shepherd. We had wandered far away from the true fold, and were following our own paths. We were without a protector, and were exposed to every kind of danger. This aptly and forcibly expresses the condition of the whole race before God recovers people by the plan of salvation. A flock thus wandering without a shepherd, conductor, or guide, is in a most pitiable condition; and so was man in his wanderings before he was sought out and brought back to the true fold by the Great Shepherd. BUT ARE NOW RETURNED UNTO THE SHEPHERD AND BISHOP OF YOUR SOULS - To Christ, who thus came to seek and save those who were lost. He is often calle

EXPOSITIONS 1 PETER 2:1 WHEREFORE LAYING ASIDE. Those who would wear the white robe of regeneration must lay aside the filthy garments (Zechariah 3:3) of the old carnal life. So St. Paul bids us put off the old man and put on the new (Ephesians 4:22, Ephesians 4:24; Colossians 3:8, Colossians 3:10; comp. also Romans 13:14

FOR YE WERE AS SHEEP GOING ASTRAY,.... This is a proof of their being healed, namely, their conversion; in which an application of the blood of Christ, and pardon, and so healing by it, was made to their souls. The apostle has still in view the prophecy of Isaiah 53:6. God's elect are sheep before conversion; not that they have the agreeable properties of sheep, as to be meek, harmless, innocent, clean, and profitable, for they are the reverse of all this; nor can some things be said of them before conversion, as may be after, as that they hear Christ's voice, and follow him; nor are they so called, because unprejudiced against, and predisposed unto the Gospel, for the contrary is true of them; but they are so in electing grace, and were so considered in the Father's gift of them to Christ, and when made his care and charge, and hence they are called the sheep of his hand; and when Chris...

1 Peter 2:1. _Wherefore laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings, As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby: Have we not constantly declared that our faith, if true, is always practical?_ Here, again, we have the precepts of God's Word. Here we are told that there is much for us to lay aside, as if it were natural to us in every case, and must, therefore, be carefully laid aside. «Malice» we are all inclined to return evil for evil: the Christian must not do so. «All guile» everything like craft and cunning this is unbecoming in a Christian. «Hypocrisy» seeming to be what we are not; all sorts of mere seeming we must lay aside. «And envy» how easy it is for us to envy one man his wealth, or another his health, or another his talents; but «all envy» the Christian must have done with. «And evil sp

1 PETER 2:25 planw,menoi {B} The external evidence for each reading is fairly evenly balanced (&menoi, a A B 1505 2464 _al_; &mena( î72 C Y and most minuscules), but in transcription the tendency to change to the neuter form was very natural in view of the word pro,bata immediately preceding....

III. CHRIST THE PATTERN FOR HIS SAINTS CHAPTER 2:11-3:9 _ 1. Abstinence and submission (1 Peter 2:11)_ 2. Christ the pattern for those who suffer (1 Peter 2:18) 3. Glorifying Christ in the marriage relation (1 Peter 3:1) 4. True Christian character (1 Peter 3:8) 1 Peter 2:11 The first exhortation is addressed to them as strangers and pilgrims. Such all true believers are. Because we belong to a heavenly home we cannot be at home in a world which lieth in the wicked one, which has cast out the Lord of glor