1 Peter 4:10

1 Peter 4:10. Even as each man received a gift, ministering the same one to another. The possession of gifts being taken for granted, the love which pledges all to open-hearted hospitality, pledges each also to use his gift for the good of others. The ‘gift' is to be understood generally, not of official gifts merely, but (as in Romans 12:6; 1 Corinthians 12:4; 1 Corinthians 12:28) of spiritual gifts of all kinds. The receipt of the gift is represented as having taken place at a definite period in the past ‘received,' not ‘hath received' as the R. V. puts it. It is not explained, however, whether the period referred to is the time of one's first entrance into the truth, or the time of baptism, or that of the laying on of hands, in connection with which the special spiritual gifts of the Apostolic Age seem usually to have been communicated (comp. Acts 3:28, Acts 8:18-20; Acts 19:5-6; 1 Timothy 4:14). The law of love is to be fulfilled by ‘ministering' (on which word see chap. 1 Peter 1:12) what is so received. The gift is not to be ‘rendered unfruitful through neglect, or perverted to the purposes of a selfish ostentation (Lillie), but is to be used as a store at the service of the Church's need. And ‘even as' it was received, so is it to be ministered. This ‘even as' is understood by some to refer to the spirit of the ministering; in which case it would mean that as the gift was freely bestowed, so it should be freely and ungrudgingly used. Others think it implies that the gift was to be used according to the intention of its bestowal. The point, however, seems to be that the recipients of spiritual gifts should serve the Church each according to the measure of what he had received, or (and this seems more consistent with such parallel statements as Romans 12:3-8; Ephesians 4:7) each according to the kind of gift received.

as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. The character belonging to believers as the possessors of gifts is hereby added. They are stewards, not owners, of what they have, and they are to use it as ‘good,' that is, honourable, stewards, against whom there shall be no reproach. What is virtually entrusted to their keeping is the ‘grace' of God itself, from which all their particular ‘gifts' are derived. In reference to the variety of gifts that grace is fitly termed ‘manifold' on which see chap. 1 Peter 1:6. It is possible that Peter's mind goes back here upon his Lord's parables of the Talents and the Unjust Steward (Matthew 26; Luke 16).