This chapter may be divided into three parts:
I. An exhortation to those whom the apostle addressed, to lay aside all malice, and all guile, and to receive the simple and plain instructions of the word of God with the earnestness with which babies desire their appropriate food, 1 Peter 2:1-3. Religion reproduces the traits of character of children in those whom it influences, and they ought to regard themselves as new-born babes, and seek that kind of spiritual nutriment which is adapted to their condition as such.
II. The privileges which they had obtained by becoming Christians, while so many others had stumbled at the very truths by which they had been saved, 1 Peter 2:4-10;
- They had come to the Saviour, as the living stone on which the whole spiritual temple was founded, though others had rejected him; they had become a holy priesthood; they had been admitted to the privilege of offering true sacrifices, acceptable to God, 1 Peter 2:4-5.
- To them Christ was precious as the chief cornerstone, on which all their hopes rested, and on which the edifice that was to be reared was safe, though that foundation of the Christian hope had been rejected and disallowed by others, 1 Peter 2:6-8.
- They were now a chosen people, an holy nation, appointed to show forth on earth the praises of God, though formerly they were not regarded as the people of God, and were not within the range of the methods by which he was accustomed to show mercy, 1 Peter 2:9-10,
III. Various duties growing out of these privileges, and out of the various relations which they sustained in life, 1 Peter 2:11-25;
- The duty of living as strangers and pilgrims; of abstaining from all those fleshly lusts which war against the soul; and of leading lives of entire honesty in relation to the Gentiles, by whom they were surrounded, 1 Peter 2:11-12.
- The duty of submitting to civil rulers, 1 Peter 2:13-17.
- The duty of servants to submit to their masters, though their condition was a hard one in life, and they were often called to suffer wrongfully, 1 Peter 2:18-20.
- This duty was enforced on servants, and on all, from the example of Christ, who was more wronged than any others can be, and who yet bore all his sufferings with entire patience, leaving us an example that we should follow in his steps, 1 Peter 2:21-25.