For the time past of our be may see: the apostle doth not mean by this expression merely that they should forbear their former lusts out of a satiety and weariness, as having had their fill of them, but to stir them up to holiness by minding them of their former sinful life; q.d. Ye are concerned to run well now, when ye have for so great a part of your time run wrong. It is a figure whereby he mitigates and lenifies the sharpness of his reproof for their former sinful life: see the like, Ezekiel 44:6, Ezekiel 45:9 Mark 14:41. Us; some copies read, ye, and that agrees with the following verse, where the second person is made use of: or if we read, according to our translation, us, it is a figure called anacoenosis, whereby Peter assumes to himself in common with them what yet, in his own person, he was never guilty of, as Isaiah 64:6,7 Da 9:5, &c.; or else it may be an analogy of the person, whereby the first is put for the second. To have wrought the will of the Gentiles; viz. those that were profane and ignorant of God and Christ, and so it is the same as the lusts of men, 1 Peter 4:2. When we walked; had our conversation, as Ephesians 2:3, walking being taken for the course of man's life; and sometimes in an evil way, as 2 Peter 2:10, 2 Peter 3:3 Judges 1:16,18; and sometimes in a good, as Luke 1:6. In lasciviousness; especially outward acts, here set in distinction from lusts, which implies those inward motions from which those outward defilements proceed. Excess of wine, revellings; unseasonable and luxurious feasting, Romans 13:13 Galatians 5:21. Banquetings: compotations, or meetings for drinking, Proverbs 23:30 Isaiah 5:11,12. And abominable idolatries: Question. Why doth Peter charge the Jews with idolatry, who generally kept themselves from it after the Babylonish captivity? Answer.
1. Though most did, yet all might not.
2. It is a sort of idolatry to eat things sacrificed to idols, which many of the Jews, being dispersed among the idolatrous Gentiles, and being invited by them to their idol feasts, might possibly do; and, being under the temptation of poverty, might too far conform themselves to the customs of the nations among which they were.
3. Probably this idolatry might be the worship of angels, frequent among the Gentiles, particularly the Colossians, inhabiting a city of Phrygia, which was a part of Asia where many Jews were, 1 Peter 1:1.
4. The churches to which he wrote might be made up of Jews and Gentiles, and the apostle may, by a synecdoche, ascribe that to all in common, which yet is to be understood only of a part.