1 Peter 2 - Introduction

The duty which is next to be urged is introduced by ‘wherefore,' and is thus given as one which follows naturally upon what has just been stated. The pulse of two thoughts, which have ruled the preceding section, beats in this new paragraph that of brotherly love and that of the new birth. Of these the second is the more prominent, the immediate link of connection being between the ‘born again' of 1 Peter 1:23 and the ‘newborn babes' of 1 Peter 2:2. The fact that these converts live a new life, which they owe to an incorruptible Source, is an argument for cherishing the life so that it may grow and develop all its gracious capacities. The fact that this new life has come to them through the medium of the enduring Word of God, which has made it the recipient of its own qualities, is an argument for making that Word, as in the Gospel it is preached to them, their soul's very food. But if the life is of the high strain which should expand into a brotherly love as constant and undecaying as natural affection is apt to prove transient and fickle, growth in this life implies the renouncing of every base feeling, word, and act. The things which are to be put away are things inconsistent at once with brotherly love, with a right use of the Word, and with growth unto final salvation. They are unlovely dispositions of the old nature, which form the common temptation of all Christians, and the special note of no single class or nationality. They cannot be said to ‘point, especially in the hypocrisies and “evil-speakings,” to the besetting sins of the Jewish rather than the Gentile character, as condemned by our Lord (Matthew 23 et al.) and St. James (James 3:4)' (Dean Plumptre). Paul's handling of the ‘backbitings' among the Corinthians (2 Corinthians 12:20), and the ‘dissimulations' among the Galatians (Galatians 2:13), is enough to show the precariousness of any such limited application. Paul's letter to the churches of one of the territories here addressed by Peter, discovers conditions out of which evils like those which are repudiated here very readily sprang. His letters to the Ephesians and Colossians recognise similar roots of bitterness at work there. And it is probable enough that what operated to this effect in the churches of Ephesus, Colosse, and Galatia, existed in some degree in the churches of the other territories. The evils which are to be renounced are evils which crush out love and create dissension among men. So Peter passes easily through what he says here of the need of putting away such elements of division to what he has next to say of what believers ought to be as a united body, and bow the aim set before them is to build up a spiritual house for their Lord, so that His Church may be carried to her completion.