1 Peter 2:11,12

The mode of address indicates a distinct point of transition in the Epistle. The writer has dealt so far with what holds good absolutely of Christian privilege and Christian responsibility. He begins now to enforce what Christians are concerned to be and to do in certain particular circumstances and connections. And before proceeding to specify their obligations in society and in the various relations of life, he sets before them, in the form of an affectionate personal appeal, the attitude which they ought to maintain generally in presence of the impure and hostile surroundings of heathenism. The kind of life which they are sedulously to cultivate in presence alike of the temptations and of the misrepresentations to which they are exposed from their Gentile associates is stated both on its negative side and on its positive. It is recommended, too, by considerations drawn from their own position, from the injuriousness of the things to which they are tempted, and from their vocation to glorify God.