Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul;
As heretofore he exhorted them to walk worthily of their calling, in contrast to their former walk, so now he exhorts them to glorify God before unbelievers.
Dearly beloved. He gains their attention by assuring them of his love.
Strangers and pilgrims - (1 Peter 1:17.) х Paroikous (G3941) kai (G2532) parepideemous (G3927), sojourners, having a house in a city, without the rights of citizenship: a picture of the Christian's position on earth; and pilgrims, staying for a time in a foreign land.] Flacius:
(1) Purify your souls
(a) as strangers on earth, who must not allow yourselves to be kept back by earthly lusts; and
(b) because these lusts war against the soul.
(2) Walk piously among unbelievers (2) Walk piously among unbelievers
(a) that they may cease to calumniated Christians, and
(b) be themselves converted.
Fleshly lusts - enumerated in Galatians 5:19, etc. Not only gross animal appetites, but all the workings of the unrenewed mind.
Which, х haitines (G3748)] - 'the which;' i:e., inasmuch as they "war," etc. They not only impede, but assail.
The soul - i:e., the regenerated soul, such as those addressed. The believer is besieged by sinful lusts. Like Samson in Delilah's lap, the moment that he gives way to fleshly lusts, he has the locks of his strength shorn, and ceases to maintain that spiritual separation from the world and the flesh of which the Nazarite vow was the type.