17 If you call on him as Father, who without respect of persons judges according to each man's work, pass the time of your living as strangers here in reverent fear:
Therefore, receiving a Kingdom that can't be shaken, let us have grace, through which we serve God acceptably, with reverence and awe,
So then, my beloved, even as you have always obeyed, not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
True; by their unbelief they were broken off, and you stand by your faith. Don't be conceited, but fear;
Pray like this: 'Our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy.
Beloved, I beg you as foreigners and pilgrims, to abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul;
Let us fear therefore, lest perhaps a promise being left of entering into his rest, anyone of you should seem to have come short of it.
But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts; and always be ready to give an answer to everyone who asks you a reason concerning the hope that is in you, with humility and fear:
These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen{TR adds "and being convinced of"} them and embraced them from afar, and having confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For those who say such things make it clear that they are seeking after a country of their own. If indeed they had been thinking of that country from which they went out, they would have had enough time to return. But now they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed of them, to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.
You masters, do the same things to them, and give up threatening, knowing that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no partiality with him.
For this cause, I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
But from those who were reputed to be important (whatever they were, it makes no difference to me; God doesn't show partiality to man)--they, I say, who were respected imparted nothing to me,
Jacob said to Pharaoh, "The days of the years of my pilgrimage are one hundred thirty years. Few and evil have been the days of the years of my life, and they have not attained to the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage."
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
But glory and honor and peace to every man who works good, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For there is no partiality with God.
They sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, "Teacher, we know that you are honest, and teach the way of God in truth, no matter who you teach, for you aren't partial to anyone.
"Ask, and it will be given you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and it will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives. He who seeks finds. To him who knocks it will be opened. Or who is there among you, who, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, who will give him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!
But I said, How I will put you among the children, and give you a pleasant land, a goodly heritage of the hosts of the nations! and I said, You shall call me My Father, and shall not turn away from following me.
Blessed is the man who always fears; But one who hardens his heart falls into trouble.
"Hear my prayer, Yahweh, and give ear to my cry. Don't be silent at my tears. For I am a stranger with you, A foreigner, as all my fathers were.
Who doesn't respect the persons of princes, Nor regards the rich more than the poor; For they all are the work of his hands.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on 1 Peter 1
Commentary on 1 Peter 1 Matthew Henry Commentary
An Exposition, With Practical Observations, of
The First Epistle General of Peter
Chapter 1
The apostle describes the persons to whom he writes, and salutes them (v. 1, 2), blesses God for their regeneration to a lively hope of eternal salvation (v. 3-5), in the hope of this salvation he shows they had great cause of rejoicing, though for a little while they were in heaviness and affliction, for the trial of their faith, which would produce joy unspeakable and full of glory (v. 6-9). This is that salvation which the ancient prophets foretold and the angels desire to look into (v. 10-12). He exhorts them to sobriety and holiness, which he presses from the consideration of the blood of Jesus, the invaluable price of man's redemption (v. 13-21), and to brotherly love, from the consideration of their regeneration, and the excellency of their spiritual state (v. 22-25).
1Pe 1:1-2
In this inscription we have three parts:-
1Pe 1:3-5
We come now to the body of the epistle, which begins with,
1Pe 1:6-9
The first word, wherein, refers to the apostle's foregoing discourse about the excellency of their present state, and their grand expectations for the future. "In this condition you greatly rejoice, though now for a season, or a little while, if need be, you are made sorrowful through manifold temptations,' v. 6.
1Pe 1:10-12
The apostle having described the persons to whom he wrote, and declared to them the excellent advantages they were under, goes on to show them what warrant he had for what he had delivered; and because they were Jews, and had a profound veneration for the Old Testament, he produces the authority of the prophets to convince them that the doctrine of salvation by faith in Jesus Christ was no new doctrine, but the same which the old prophets did enquire and search diligently into. Note,
You have here three sorts of students, or enquirers into the great affair of man's salvation by Jesus Christ:-
1Pe 1:13-23
Here the apostle begins his exhortations to those whose glorious state he had before described, thereby instructing us that Christianity is a doctrine according to godliness, designed to make us not only wiser, but better.
1Pe 1:24-25
The apostle having given an account of the excellency of the renewed spiritual man as born again, not of corruptible but incorruptible seed, he now sets before us the vanity of the natural man, taking him with all his ornaments and advantages about him: For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass; and nothing can make him a solid substantial being, but the being born again of the incorruptible seed, the word of God, which will transform him into a most excellent creature, whose glory will not fade like a flower, but shine like an angel; and this word is daily set before you in the preaching of the gospel. Learn,