1 Peter 4:10

As every man hath received the gift The two verses remind us of the like precepts in Romans 12:6; 1Co 12:4; 1 Corinthians 12:28. The tense of the Greek verb ("as every man receivedthe gift") implies the thought that the gift came at a definite moment, probably at that of the laying on of hands. Comp. Acts 19:6; 1 Timothy 4:14. The words "As every man received" may be equivalent to "Let every man use his gift according to its nature or purpose," which agrees best with Romans 12:6, or they may, more probably, be an echo of the "freely ye received, freely give" of Matthew 10:8.

even so minister the same one to another The Greek verb means something more than "use" or "administer." It implies that men were to see in the gifts they possessed no ground for boasting, but only a call to more lowly service. They were to be, as in the next clause, "stewards" of those gifts. The thought that men are stewards, not possessors, of what God has given them in their outward or their inward life was, of course, a natural one (1 Corinthians 4:1; Titus 1:7), but here we can scarcely fail to recognise an echo of our Lord's teaching. Peter had heard the parable of the steward who "wasted his lord's goods" (Luke 16:1-12) and his Lord's question, Who then is the faithful and wise steward? (Luke 12:42). In the "manifold," or better, perhaps, varied grace of God, we have implied a much greater diversity of gifts, such as we find in 1 Corinthians 12:8-10; Ephesians 4:11, than those which the Apostle specifies. He confines himself, indeed, to the one broad division between the gifts that shewed themselves in speech and those that shewed themselves in act.