1 Peter 4:7

πάντων δὲ τὸ τέλος ἤγγικεν. The mention of God’s readiness to judge both the quick and the dead leads St Peter to remind his readers that the end of all things has drawn nearer. Our Lord compared the coming of the Son of Man to the Flood, as coming unexpectedly upon those who were living in careless, self-indulgent ease, eating and drinking, and He warned His disciples to watch (γρηγορεῖτε) and not prove wicked servants who eat and drink with the drunken. St Luke in a parallel passage represents St Peter as asking whether the warning to watch is addressed to all, and in reply our Lord shews the special responsibility of “the faithful and wise steward” (οἰκονόμος) who is appointed to give out food to the Master’s household. The persecution of Christ’s followers for His name and the preaching of the Gospel among all nations were to be signs of His coming and “then shall the end come,” Matthew 24:14. Thus there seem to be constant echoes of our Lord’s teaching all through this passage of St Peter: (a) The allusion to the Flood (1 Peter 3:20 and? 1 Peter 4:6). (b) The surprise of the Gentiles when Christians refuse to join in their drunkenness and immorality may be a comparison with the conduct of Noah’s contemporaries. (c) The special responsibility of those who are “stewards (οἰκονόμοι) of the manifold grace of God.” (d) The persecution of Christians in Christ’s name as a sign that the judgment is beginning. (e) Indirectly the fact that his Gentile readers are representatives of “all the nations” to whom the Gospel was to be preached would be another of the signs predicted by our Lord that the “end had drawn nearer.”

σωφρογήσατε οὖν, be ye therefore of sound mind. The verb is used of the Gadarene demoniac being restored to his right mind, Mark 5:15; Luke 8:35, and in contrast to being “beside oneself” in 2 Corinthians 5:13. In Romans 12:3 it is opposed to ὑπερφρονεῖν and in Titus 2:6 it is used in the sense of being sober-minded. In 4Ma 1:31 σωφροσύνη is defined as ἐπικράτεια τῶν ἐπιθυμιῶν. So here in view of the approaching “end of all things” Christians are bidden to be sober-minded, not carried away by self-indulgence nor by unhealthy excitement.

νήψατε εἰς προσευχάς, cf. Mark 14:38; Luke 21:36. For νήψατε, cf. 1 Peter 1:13; all their faculties must be under control and quietly devoted to prayer.