1 Peter 3:13 And who is he that will harm you, if you be followers of that which is good? The primary sense of these words is this: A man's best safeguard is benevolence; if we are ourselves inoffensive in our behaviour, others will be less likely to injure us; in proportion as we are anxious to do good, we shall be less likely to suffer evil. It is true, indeed, that the main scope of the argument is to show the manifold blessings which even in this world attend on the righteous. We are taught that he who will love life, and see good days, is to refrain his tongue from evil, etc. We are taught to eschew evil and do good: to seek peace and ensue it. And why? Because God's favour is thus secured to us, and man's enmity in a great measure disarmed. "For the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous," etc. The believers were to suffer; but they could take no harm. "Who is he that will harm you, if ye be followers of that which is good?" Wonderful question! in its very calmness and simplicity. Who shall harm you? What, when the whole world was leagued in a malignant confederacy against them! "Who shall harm you?" What, when there was everything to harm them! Ignominy, torture, famine, the sword, dishonoured life or violent death. Neither, again, did they affect insensibility under their sufferings. How, then, were they sustained? They were sustained by God's holy Spirit, and by a reliance on their Master's infallible promises, and by an undoubting confidence in the life to come. Such is the application of the text with reference to the time at which it was written, and the circumstances of the first promulgators of the blessed gospel of Christ Jesus. With respect, again, to ourselves, it is far more directly true that no one "will harm us, if we be followers of that which is good." I do not mean that there no longer remains any opposition whatever between the spirit of Christianity and the spirit of the world. But I believe that these adversaries, be they who they may, will not be able to do him any essential injury. I believe, also, that a steady and consistent godliness will go far ultimately to convert enemies into approvers, and rob all opposition of its sting. But, again, if we may trace an intimate connection between holiness and happiness, between physical and spiritual advantage — not invariably, perhaps, as to outward circumstances, because such a law, if altogether universal, might foster mistaken notions of God's providence, while it would be incompatible with a state of probation — the converse proposition, or the inseparable union of vice and wretchedness, of impiety and fatal damage both to body and soul, must be still more obvious to every man. We might well alter the text, and ask, "Who is he that can do us any benefit, if we be not followers of that which is good?" If you are followers of that which is evil, you harm yourselves to the uttermost, and render even your temporal felicity an impossible thing. You may possess all the elements of felicity; but you so vitiate them that they become powerful only for your destruction. The noblest gifts of nature and of fortune you turn absolutely into curses for yourselves. For, take any endowment which God's loving kindness may bestow, and see what becomes of it in the hands of the wicked. Is it health, and a vigorous constitution, and the prospect of long life? These advantages are transmuted into instruments of perdition, by inducing a more entire neglect of the concerns of eternity. Is it strength of will, energy, and decision of character? That decision only plunges men into crime with a more headlong zeal, with a more desperate recklessness. Is it acuteness of perception and an abundant measure of intellectual capacity? Alas, this superiority of understanding serves to make men more subtle in confounding truth and falsehood, in perverting right and wrong, in beguiling and destroying themselves with their own frightful sophistries. Is it beauty of person? Yet, ah! who has not had opportunity of seeing that personal beauty without religious principle is the most dreadful of all snares, the most terribly fatal of all possessions? Is it wealth, and station, and influence? Yet these things without holiness only enable men to spread mischief and profligacy around them, and dig for their own souls a deeper place in the pit of hell. The scorpion lash is made of our own vices. That which harms us is sin; they who harm us are those who would debauch our principles, and corrupt our moral feelings, and teach us to take right for wrong and wrong for right, good for evil and evil for good. Finally, then, as to all others, if you pretend to care for the happiness of mankind, labour strenuously for their spiritual improvement. As to your family and those about you, aim not so much to make them clever or accomplished, as to make them religious and upright. (J. S. Boone, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: And who is he that will harm you, if ye be followers of that which is good?WEB: Now who is he who will harm you, if you become imitators of that which is good? |
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