What Does 1 Peter 4:7 Mean?

(7-11) DUTY OF BENEVOLENCE WITHIN THE CHURCH IN VIEW OF THE ADVENT.—The end of the world is not far off; let it find you not only sober, but (above all else) exerting an intense charity within the Church, by hospitality and generosity, in these as much as in spiritual ministrations seeking not your own glory, but God’s. (7) **The end of all things is at hand.**—Or, *hath come nigh;* the same word (for instance) as in Matthew 4:17; Matthew 26:46. It is but a repetition in other words of 1Peter 4:5, inserted again to give weight to all the exhortations which follow. Probably, if St. Peter had thought the world would stand twenty centuries more, he would have expressed himself differently; yet see 2Peter 3:4-10. **Be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer.**—These words sum up the cautions given in 1Peter 4:1-6, before passing on to the next subject. The first verb includes more than sobriety, and means the keeping a check upon all the desires. The usual notion of sobriety is more exactly conveyed in the word rendered “watch,” which is the same as in 1Peter 1:13 and 1Peter 5:8. “Unto prayer” is a slip for *unto prayers*; the difference is that it does not mean that we are to be always in frame to pray, but that actual prayers should be always on our lips: every incident in life should suggest them. They would be especially necessary if any moment might see the end of the world. The tense of the imperatives in the Greek carries out the notion that the persons addressed had slipped into a careless state, from which they needed an arousal.