partly, being made a gazingstock both by reproaches and afflictions; and partly, becoming partakers with them that were so used.
33. Partly, whilst ye were made, etc. We see who they were whom he addresses, even those whose faith had been proved by no common trials, and yet he refrains not from exhorting them to greater things. Let no man therefore deceive himself by self-flattery as though he had reached the goal, or had no need of incentives from others.
Here our apostle particularly mentions the sufferings which the primitive saints underwent for the sake of Christianity, and reduces them to three heads, shame, pain, loss: They suffered in their names, by being disgraced; in their persons, by being scourged; in their estates, by the spoiling of their goods. Let all that make profession of the name of Christ expect and provide for such sufferings, especially for reproaches.
The persecutions here referred to seem to have been endured by the Hebrew Christians at their first conversion, not only in Palestine, but also in Rome and elsewhere, the Jews in every city inciting the populace and the Roman authorities against Christians. gazing-stock--as in a theater (so the Greek): often used as the place of punishment in the presence of the assembled multitudes.