1 Peter 3:9

1 Peter 3:9. not rendering evil for evil. The transition from the duties of Christians toward each other to their duties in relation to their adversaries is made easily through the last-named grace. An undue esteem of ourselves is inconsistent either with the oneness of mind and feeling which makes genuine brotherliness, or with the Christian law of overcoming evil with good. Humble-mindedness is ‘essential both to true gentleness of love and to true patience under injuries'(Alford).

or railing for railing; rather, reviling for reviling, as in 1 Peter 2:23; but contrariwise blessing, i.e nay rather, on the contrary, blessing them; for the word is a participle, not a noun. Peter seems to have in mind here his Lord's words in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:44). It is not necessary, therefore, to go beyond what is meant there, or to assert for the term ‘blessing' here the sense of expressing kindness in the form of deed as well as word. The ‘blessing' denoted by this verb is usually contrasted with cursing or the like (Luke 6:28; Romans 12:14; 1 Corinthians 4:12; James 3:9; as well as Matthew 5:44). The return which we are to render for injury done us, whether in the form of the evil deed or the reviling word, is to desire and pray for the good of the injurers.

because hereunto were ye called. On the ground of the best ancient authorities we must drop the ‘knowing' which is inserted in the A. V., and read as above, with the Revised Version, only that ‘because' represents the original more fairly than the ‘for' of that Version. The man who once was quick enough to take the law of retaliation into his own hand, meeting deed of violence with deed of violence, and taunts and accusations with cursing and swearing, as in the case of the high priest's servant and that of the bystanders in the court (Matthew 26:51; Matthew 26:73-74), now preaches a revenge which consists not only in patient endurance of wrong, but in endeavouring to win God's favour for the wrong-doers. And this he does on the high ground that anything short of this is inconsistent with our Christian vocation itself. The duty which was formerly enjoined on slaves by an appeal to Christ's example (chap. 1 Peter 2:23), is now repeated as a duty applicable to all Christians, and as involved in the Divine call which first makes us Christians. That call, too, is again expressed as a definite event of the past, carrying with it once for all, and from the very beginning of the Christian life, all that Peter would now pledge us to.

in order that ye might inherit a blessing; or better, simply, inherit blessing. How does this final clause stand related to the others? The point will be somewhat different according as we take the ‘hereunto' to refer to what precedes it or to what follows it. Some suppose the ‘hereunto' to refer to the ‘contrariwise blessing them;' in which case the sense will be that, when they were called to be Christians, they were called also to the duty of blessing those who did them wrong, and they were called to this with the view of obtaining blessing for themselves. In favour of this construction (which is supported by such exegetes as Calvin, de Wette, Hofmann, etc.) we have the analogous use of ‘hereunto' in chap. 1 Peter 2:21. Others take it to refer to the con-tents of the final clause itself; in which case the idea is that Christians were called hereunto, namely, to an inheritance of blessing for themselves. In favour of this view (which is supported by Alford, Huther, Luther, Bengel, Schott, etc.) it is argued that it is more biblical, and more in harmony in particular with Paul's reasoning in Ephesians 4:32, to say that we ought to bless others because we ourselves have blessing, than to say that we are to bless others in order that we may ourselves get blessing. Peter's use of the formula ‘hereunto,' and the consideration that the inheritance of blessing which is spoken of here is more naturally taken, as is the case with so many of Peter's phrases, to point mainly to the final, future inheritance of which the present is but a foretaste, give the advantage to the former construction. On either view we have an idea thoroughly pertinent to the subject. On the second the point of the exhortation is that the blessing of which Christians are heirs is one not of merit but only of God's grace, and this surely should make it natural for them to exhibit a corresponding attitude to those who deserve nothing at their hands, but on the contrary wrong them. On the first the point is a still deeper one namely, that it is God's purpose, indeed, that Christians should have good, but in order to have good, they must be good; hence He called them to be good (in this way, as well as others, of laying aside the evil impulses of nature) in order that the heritage which is designed for them might come to be theirs actually, and theirs as a heritage of blessing. This is in harmony, too, with the Old Testament conceptions of life and good which are next introduced.