1 Peter 3:13

III. THE BEARING PROPER FOR CHRISTIANS UNDER PERSECUTION, 1 Peter 3:13 to 1 Peter 5:14.

1. The blessedness of sufferers for righteousness, 1 Peter 3:13-14.

13. Who… harm you The general experience of the world is, that good and benevolent men need anticipate no injury from the malice and violence of the wicked. “Justice,” says Plato, “causes concord and friendship.” Yet there are exceptions, as the next verse allows and experience proves. The word μιμηται , imitators, is used in six other places in the New Testament, and in every instance is connected with a person who is to be followed, or imitated. It should be so here; and we would then read, if ye be imitators of him that is good, namely, of the Lord Jesus Christ. The authority, however, is strong for ζηλωται , zealots, which Tregelles, Alford, and Wordsworth adopt.