What Does 1 Peter 2:1 Mean?

(1) **Wherefore**.—That is, Because the Pauline teaching is correct which brings the Gentiles up to the same level with the Jews. It may be observed that this newly enunciated principle is called by St. Peter in the previous verse of the last chapter, a “gospel,” or piece of *good* news, for all parties. **Laying aside**.—This implies that before they had been *wrapped up* in these sins. There had been “malice” (*i.e., *ill will put into action) on the part of these Hebrew Christians against their Gentile brethren, and “guile,” and “hypocrisies,” and “jealousies,” which are all instances of concealed malice. Of these three, the first plots, the second pretends not to plot, and the third rejoices to think of the plot succeeding. The word for “all evil speakings” is literally, *all talkings down*—this is “malice” in *word.* Archbishop Leighton well says, “The Apostles sometimes name some of these evils, and sometimes other of them; but they are inseparable, all one garment, and all comprehended under that one word (Ephesians 4:22), ‘the old man,’ which the Apostle there exhorts to put off; and here it is pressed as a necessary evidence of this new birth, and furtherance of their spiritual growth, that these base habits be thrown away, ragged filthy habits, unbeseeming the children of God.” All these vices (natural vices to the Jewish mind) are contrasted with the “unfeigned (literally, *un-hypocritical*) brotherly kindness” of 1Peter 1:22.