Be ready for troubles and suffering
4
📚Therefore, since Christ has suffered for us in the body, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind. For he who has suffered in the body has ceased from sin, 2 📚so that he no longer should live the rest of his time in the body for the desires of men, but for the will of God. 4:1-2 Christ suffered to free us from sin (1 Pet 2:24; 3:18). We must be willing to suffer in our fight against sin. If we have this attitude it will be like a weapon in our warfare. Christ died to sin; believers should recognize their union with Christ and the fact that in Christ they too have died to sin. See Rom 6:5-13; Col 3:3. In the light of the sufferings of Christ we should be finished with sin forever. We are to live not to fulfill our desires but to do God’s will (Rom 8:5, 12; 12:1-2; Col 1:9; 4:12; 1 Thess 4:3; Heb 13:21).⚜
3 📚For the time of life already past is enough for us to have performed the will of the Gentiles, going about in lustfulness, evil desires, excessive drinking, carousing, drunken parties, and abominable idolatries 📖.
4:3 Compare Titus 3:3; 1 Tim 1:13; Eph 2:1-3; 1 Cor 6:11. The gospel of Christ can reach people in the very depths of sin and change them forever. Observe that idolatrous religions and the life style described here can go hand in hand.⚜
4 📚Now they think it strange that you do not rush with them into the same excessive reveling, and speak evil of you.
4:4 The holy lives of believers who have left the old life are a rebuke and condemnation to those who remain in it. This partly accounts for the abuse and slander of the ungodly. See Matt 12:36; Acts 10:42; 17:31; Rom 2:16; 14:12; 2 Tim 4:1; Heb 4:13.⚜
God’s judgment will come
5 📚But they will give an account 📖 to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. 6 📚Because for this reason the gospel was preached also to those who are dead, so that they might be judged according to men in the body, but live according to God in the spirit.
4:6 This is another difficult and obscure verse. The meaning seems to be this: some who are now dead had the gospel preached to them while they were still alive on earth. The purpose for them, as for us who are still living, was the same – that they might have spiritual life and live “for the will of God” (v 2).
Some teach that this verse means that the gospel was preached to men after they died, if they had not had a chance to hear it on earth. They link this verse with 1 Pet 3:19 and believe “spirits” there means the spirits of men who have died. However, there is no such teaching in any other book of the Bible, and we should not believe so important a teaching of men based, as it is, on obscure and doubtful phrases in a verse or two. If such a teaching is ever true, God has not revealed it to us, and all we know is what he has revealed – Deut 29:29. Others teach that the “dead” means dead in “transgressions and sins” (Eph 2:1). This interpretation seems unlikely here.⚜
Living as though the end of this age were near
7 📚But the end of all things is at hand 📖. Therefore be sober minded 📖, and watch so you can pray. 8 📚And above all things have fervent love among yourselves, for love 📖 covers 📖 a multitude of sins. 9 📚Be hospitable to one another without grudging.
10 📚As each one has received a ministry gift 📖, use it to serve one another 📖, as good stewards 📖 of the manifold grace of God. 11 📚If anyone speaks 📖, let him do so like one speaking the utterances of God. If anyone ministers, let it be done with the ability that God gives 📖, so that in everything God may be glorified 📖 through Jesus Christ, to whom be praise and dominion forever and ever. Amen.
Suffering for Christ
12 📚Dear ones, do not be surprised 📖 at your fiery 📖 trial which is for your testing, as though some strange thing happened to you, 13 📚but rejoice 📖 because you are sharers of Christ’s sufferings, so that when his glory is revealed 📖, you may be glad also with exceeding joy. 14 📚If you are insulted for the name of Christ, blessed 📖 are you, for the Spirit of glory 📖 and of God rests on you. He is slandered by them, but glorified by you. 15 📚But let none of you suffer as a murderer, or as a thief, or as an evildoer, or as a meddler in other men’s matters. 16 📚Yet if any man suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed 📖, but let him glorify God that this is his lot.
4:15-16 See 1 Pet 2:19-20.⚜
17 📚For the time has come that judgment 📖 must begin at the house 📖 of God. And if it first begins at us, what will be the end of those who do not obey 📖 the gospel of God? 18 📚And if the righteous scarcely be saved 📖, where will the ungodly 📖 and the sinner appear?
19 📚Therefore let those who suffer according to the will of God commit 📖 the keeping of their souls to him in well doing 📖, as to a faithful Creator.