Beloved, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from the desires of the flesh, which war against your soul.
11 As strangers, or sojourners. There are two parts to this exhortation, — that their souls were to be free within from wicked and vicious lusts; and also, that they were to live honestly among men, and by the example of a good life not only to confirm the godly, but also to gain over the unbelieving to God.
Observe here, 1. A dehortation, Abstain from fleshly lusts. Quest. What is here meant by lusts? Ans. Lust is either habitual or actual: habitual or original lust is the corruption and depravation of the faculties of the soul, an aversion to every thing that is good, and a proneness to all evil: actual lust is original sin put in motion: by fleshly lusts, understand in...
Verse 11. Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims. On the word rendered strangers, (παροικους,) , where it is rendered foreigners. It means, properly, one dwelling near, neighbouring; then a by-dweller, a sojourner, one without the rights of citizenship, as distinguished from a citizen; and it means here that Christians are not properly citizens of this world, but that their citizenship is in...