Peter asks something hard of people already slandered: 13"Be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution." The aim is to silence the ignorance of foolish people by doing good, and the answer to a false accusation is a public record it cannot survive. Peter will make the point again in chapter 3, that a good life shames the slanderers (1 Peter 3:16). The Greek verb for be subject, *hypotasso*, means placing yourself in an order. It says nothing of how highly you think of the one above you.
Then two things come together that most of us keep apart. 16"Live as people who are free," Peter says, and then calls them 16"servants of God." Four short commands follow: 17"Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor." The emperor gets the same verb as everyone else, honor, while fear is kept for God alone. Peter knows the two loyalties may one day collide. He will say himself, before the council, that God must be obeyed first (Acts 5:29).
He speaks next to household servants, people who could not change their circumstances. He says some masters will be unjust, and he never defends that cruelty. He says what it is worth to bear an injustice well. 19"This is a gracious thing, when, mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly." The Greek word for gracious is *charis*, the same word as grace. God's eye is on the ones nobody else is watching.
The reason is the center of the passage. 21"Leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps." The Greek word for example, *hypogrammos*, appears nowhere else in the New Testament. It names the copybook a child traced to learn letters. You are meant to put your life over his and follow each line.
Isaiah 53 tells the story. 23"When he was reviled, he did not revile in return." He went on entrusting himself to the Father at each insult, and that handing over is what made the silence possible. He had no need to win the exchange, because he trusted the one who judges justly.
Then the example becomes more. 24"He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree." Nobody else carried them. Peter gives us both, in that order, the pattern to trace and the one who carried what we could not. The steps we follow are the steps of the one who first carried our sins. 24"By his wounds you have been healed," and the verb names a finished act with a lasting result.
The passage closes with another picture from Isaiah 53. 25"Straying like sheep" have 25"returned to the Shepherd." The Shepherd is the one with the wounds, and he lays down his life for the sheep (John 10:11). Overseer means one who watches, and he watches over souls that once wandered.
Ask yourself where you live under an authority you did not choose, and whose steps you are tracing there.
Prayer
Father, you sent your Son to suffer for us and leave us an example. Help us to honor everyone, love your people, and fear you alone. When we are reviled, teach us to entrust ourselves to you who judge justly. Thank you that he bore our sins in his body on the tree, and that by his wounds we have been healed. We were straying, and we have returned to the Shepherd of our souls. In his name, amen.