1 Peter 5

1 Peter 5:1-4

And, as for you, who are the spiritual rulers and pastors of the Christian church, I,—who am one myself, and who, after being an eye-witness of the sufferings of Christ, have boldly preached them as the ground of men’s salvation, at the hazard of my life, in the assured hopes of being, in a little time, a partaker with him in that glory which he purchased thereby, and which he has taken possession of, as my Head, Representative, and Forerunner, and will openly manifest and bestow, beseech you diligently and faithfully to teach and govern those souls which he purchased by his blood, and has committed to your care, personally inspecting their principles, temper, and conduct, and looking after their spiritual concerns with wisdom and meekness, not from external motives of fear, shame, or regard to worldly advantages, as your governing end, but with freedom and delight, purely for the honour of Christ and welfare of souls; and not with ambitious views of honour to yourselves, or in an imperious, haughty, and domineering manner, as if ye had the rule over the faith and consciences of God’s peculiar people, but as examples of humility, self-denial, holiness, and righteousness, to them; that, when Jesus, who purchased them by his blood, and saves them by his power and grace, and under whom ye act, and to whom ye are accountable, appears to judge the world at the last day, ye may receive from him a great, but gracious, reward of everlasting glory and honour

1 Peter 5:5

And ye who are younger, or in private stations, or at least inferior in some respect, study to be always attentive and submissive to the admonitions, cautions, and reproofs, of your superiors in age, wisdom, experience, or station; particularly your church rulers, treating their persons, characters, and instructions, with due esteem and reverence. And let all of you beware of self-conceit or obstinacy; behaving with due respect one to another, and yielding to each other, as far as your rank and circumstances can possibly permit. And let an unfeigned humility appear in your whole conduct, as its great ornament, and a cover to its defects

1 Peter 5:6

And, considering what a great, sovereign, almighty, and just, God ye have to do with, and what terrible judgments he is about to execute, in the course of his providence, on your nation and the Christian church, as an emblem of still greater in the world to come, yield up yourselves to his almighty, sovereign, and holy, will, under all the sufferings and troubles you meet with for your trial; that, when he has gained the wise and gracious ends of his chastenings, he may lift you up above all tribulations, and advance you to all those honours or delights which are for your spiritual or eternal advantage

1 Peter 5:7

Yes, whatever be your distressing burdens, anxieties, fears, and cares, with respect to yourselves, families, friends, or the church of Christ, commit them all by faith and prayer to him, relying on his power and goodness for seasonable relief: for he has all your concerns at heart; and will pity, succour, strengthen, and comfort, you; and, in his own time and way, give you an happy deliverance from, and issue of, all your troubles, in your everlasting salvation

1 Peter 5:8

But, amidst all the difficulties and dangers of your present warfare, labour always to maintain a wakeful, sober, and humble temper of mind, in modest thoughts of yourselves, and in moderating your affection towards earthly enjoyments; and watch unto prayer, and unto the performance of all the duties of your station, and against temptations to sin and apostasy; for your busy and powerful adversary the devil, like a fierce, savage, and hungry, lion, is indefatigably restless in his contrivances and endeavours, by persecutions, frauds, and evil suggestions, to wound, tear, and ruin, immortal souls

1 Peter 5:9

Whom ye must courageously resist, stedfastly maintaining the pure doctrines of faith, and your holy profession of the same, in a firm dependence on the power and grace of Christ to vanquish him. And, to prevent your being disheartened in the combat, remember that ye are only meeting with such a conformity to Christ in sufferings as your Christian brethren every where meet with in this evil world

1 Peter 5:10

May therefore that God, who is rich in mercy, and who of his own mere favour is the Fountain and giver of all grace, and who, by his word and Spirit, has effectually called us to the promised, prepared, and infallibly secured, inheritance of eternal glory, through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ, after, and by means of, these your transient afflictions, render you perfect in knowledge and practice; establish you immovably in the faith, hope, profession, and holiness, of the gospel; strengthen you with all might unto all patience, obedience, and suffering; and settle your souls with unshaken peace, safety, and comfort, on that foundation laid in Zion

1 Peter 5:12

By Silas, whom I can recommend as a faithful brother, and whom I expect you will find such, I have sent you this short letter, to exhort and encourage you to abide by the testimony which I have herein given you for the confirmation of **** CHAP. 1. Ver. 1, 2. Simon Peter, divinely called to be a ministering servant, and honoured to be an inspired messenger, of Jesus Christ, in founding and forming the gospel church, to those Jews scattered in and about Lesser Asia, who, in the sovereignly gracious dispensations of God, have been made partakers of a saving faith of the same excellent nature and kind, as to its causes, acts, objects, fruits, and benefits, which we apostles and other believers have received; not through any worthiness or ability of our own, but through the merit of that everlasting righteousness which was brought in by the obedience and sufferings of Jesus Christ our divine Saviour—wishes all the blessings of grace and peace may abound, in their richest variety and fulness, to all and each of you, through your believing, experimental, and increasing, acquaintance with our common Lord and Redeemer, and with God as our reconciled Father in him; 3. According as, in his almighty power and free favour, he has already bestowed upon us all those blessings which are requisite for maintaining and improving our spiritual life, till it be perfected in eternal life; and for every exercise of grace, in acts of piety towards God, till it be completed in glory; through the efficacious knowledge and faithful acknowledgment of him, and of the Father in him, who has by the gospel, and by the glorious operation of his mighty power, effectually called us to an inheritance of eternal glory, and to a courageous profession of our faith and hope of it: 4. By which divine persons, and the glorious operations of their power through the gospel, are sovereignly, freely, and irrevocably, given to us the most inconceivably great, rich, valuable, honourable, and everlasting, promises of the new covenant, fully furnished with all the transcendent blessings of grace and glory, that, by the application and fulfilment of these promises in all their variety, richness, and extent, ye might have fellowship with God, and have implanted in you a new nature, derived from him, conformed to him, and tending to, and delighting in him, ye having, as an introduction to, and as a part and evidence of, it, renounced, and with vigour and abhorrence fled from, the corrupt principles and practices which spread and prevail among irreligious men, through the power of their depraved inclinations and inordinate affections to carnal things. 5—7. In consideration therefore of what ye have already received, ye ought, with the utmost care and diligence, to increase more and more in every grace and duty in their due order; particularly in active faith, Christian courage in your holy profession and practice, spiritual knowledge, wisdom, and prudence; the due regulation and government of your passions and appetites, and weanedness of heart from the alluring objects of sense; patience under tribulations, in a calm resignation to the will of your heavenly Father; holy reverence of God, and conscientious attention to every ordinance of his worship, from a principle of love to him, in obedience to his command, and for his glory; an affectionate love, tenderness, sympathy, and compassion, with all proper expressions thereof towards your fellow Christians, as brethren in Christ; and an universal benevolence to all mankind, as partakers of the same human nature with yourselves, endeavouring to promote their temporal and spiritual welfare, whether they be friends or enemies: 8. For, if these excellent graces be found in you, and be lively and enlarged in their exercise, they will render you thriving, active, and useful, Christians; vigorous, diligent, and abounding, in every good word and work relating to God, yourselves, and others, answerably to your fiducial knowledge and acknowledgment of Christ as our only Lord and Saviour. 9. Whereas those professors, who are destitute of the fore-mentioned graces, or have no sensible experience of the exercise of them, are, amidst all their pretences to knowledge, in spiritual darkness; their eyes being shut against the light, or having only a glimmering, confused, and short, sight, which cannot penetrate into the beauty and glory of Christ, his truths and ways; and they have practically renounced their baptismal blessings and obligations, and remain unconcerned about the pardon and destruction of their natural corruptions and early wickedness. 10. Since the difference between real and nominal Christians is so great, and since so many take up with a profession, without the experience of true grace, do you, my beloved brethren, exert yourselves to the utmost in the use of all the appointed means of grace, to make sure your effectual calling to Christ, and renovation of your nature, as the infallible proof of your having been chosen in him before the foundation of the world to everlasting life; for, if it be manifested by the habitual exercise of the above-mentioned graces, whatever trials, failings, and infirmities, may attend you, ye shall never finally apostatize from Christ, or fall into everlasting ruin; 11. But, instead thereof, shall have an abundant measure of hope and joy in your way to the full enjoyment of God; and at last have, in death, a triumphant entrance into all the sublime dignity, affluence, and delights, of that eternal kingdom of glory which Christ has purchased and taken possession of for his people, and in which he will for ever dwell with them. 12—15. As these things are of so much importance, and yet so much opposed, I cannot but remind you of them, and urge them upon your consciences, that, as ye have already known and firmly believed them, ye may be more and more affected with them and practise them; —nay, while I continue living in this mortal body, and sojourning in this world, I must, in justice to these truths and to your souls, repeatedly remind you of them, and earnestly urge you to practise them, lest, through the treachery of your memories or hearts, ye should forget and neglect them.—And I am the more solicitous to do this now, as I know that I must quickly leave this mortal state, and seal my testimony with my blood and death, as our dear Lord and Saviour long ago intimated to me.—And I am deeply concerned to leave behind me this, as well as my former, epistle, in order to establish you in these truths, and stir you up to the practice of them, after I shall, by death, have departed from this state of sin, sorrow, and mortality, into a perfectly holy and blessed state of everlasting life with Christ. 16. For, in making known to you the divine authority, power, and glory, in which our Lord Jesus will come to judge the world at the last day, we have not craftily framed, nor artfully related to you, sophistical and idle stories, like many of the Jewish rabbins, or like the Heathen romancers,—but that of which we had an emblem and earnest presented to our eyes and ears on the mount of transfiguration, 17, 18. Where we distinctly heard God the Father, who is infinitely glorious in himself, and dwells in the inaccessible light and glory of heavenly mansions, expressly attest our Redeemer as his dearly beloved and eternal Son; in whose person, offices, undertakings, and performances, he was exceedingly delighted; as he also is with all those who are united to him by faith, and clothed with his righteousness. 19. But, beside this emblematical and presumptive proof of Christ’s future appearance in divine power and majesty to judge the world, we have many more plain declarations of it in the scripture, to which ye ought carefully to attend, as to a light to guide and direct you amidst the remaining darkness of Judaism, Heathenism, and carnal ignorance of heart,—till at last the glorious appearance of Christ himself dissipate all obscurity or doubt about what was intimated by the vision on the mount, and is thus further confirmed by the predictions of scripture.—20, 21. Meanwhile, ye may confidently depend on the prophetic attestation of Christ’s glorious appearance,—being, first of all, fully satisfied that no prophecy of scripture is the product of human invention, the ancient prophets themselves often not thoroughly understanding the meaning of their predictions;—for none of these ancient prophecies were either delivered or written according to the contrivance, will, and pleasure, of the prophets themselves:—but those holy men, whom God set apart and sanctified for his service, spake and wrote only those things which were suggested to them by the Holy Ghost, whose immediate influence excited them to utter the ideas which he had raised in their minds, and to express them in words which exactly conveyed the true sense of them