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Biblion Bible Commentary

Read the introduction to 1 Peter · About this commentary

Subject for the Lord's Sake

1 Peter 2:13-17

13 Therefore subject yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake: whether to the king, as supreme, · WEB

The submission asked for is voluntary, limited by its stated reason, and set inside a freedom the same passage refuses to give up.

The instruction in verse 13 is bounded by its first qualifier. Be subject for the Lord's sake — the ground is not that the institution deserves it or that authority is self-justifying, but that this is how those who belong to Christ conduct themselves. A reason that specific also marks a limit, since an order to act against the Lord could not be obeyed for the Lord's sake.

The second qualifier is in the phrase every human institution. The letter calls the arrangement human at the moment it asks for cooperation with it. Governors are then described by function — sent to punish wrongdoing and praise good — rather than by dignity.

Verse 15 supplies the purpose, and it matches verse 12: doing good silences ignorant talk. That is the whole strategy of this section, applied now to the state.

Then verse 16 does something a purely submissive text would not do. As free — the readers are called free people in the middle of the instruction to submit, warned only against using freedom as a covering for evil, and then called slaves of God. Free toward the emperor, owned by God.

Verse 17 closes with four commands whose arrangement is the argument. Honor everyone; love the brotherhood; fear God; honor the emperor. The emperor gets the same verb as everyone else, and only God is feared.

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