1 Peter 2:1

“Wherefore” translates oûn, a small Greek particle that marks what follows as the consequence of what came before. As it always does, it stands second in its sentence, after the word for “laying aside”. What came before is the close of 1 Peter 1. God has begotten his people again to a lively hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ (1 Peter 1:3), he has called them to be holy because he is holy (1 Peter 1:15–16), and Peter has just told them to love one another fervently with a pure heart, as people born again of incorruptible seed by the word of God, which lives and abides for ever (1 Peter 1:22–23). So the commands of these verses grow out of what God has already done. New birth comes first, and a new way of living follows from it.

The sentence also holds the three verses together. In the Greek, “laying aside” is a participle, and it takes the force of a command from the main verb, “desire”, in verse 2. Putting off sin and longing for the word are two sides of one instruction. Verse 3 then gives the ground for both.

Peter wrote to believers scattered across Asia Minor, whom he calls strangers (1 Peter 1:1) and “strangers and pilgrims” (1 Peter 2:11). Many of them were likely Gentile converts living in a pagan society, and they were already meeting scorn and trials for their faith (1 Peter 1:6–7). Among such neighbours, churches that had put away deceit, envy and slander would stand out, and a people under pressure needed to be fed and steadied by God’s word.

The verb apotíthēmi joins apó, “away”, and títhēmi, “to place”, and means to put away or cast off. It was used for taking off clothing and for setting down a burden. The picture is of soiled garments taken off and thrown away by someone who has been made new in Christ. It is a deliberate act of the will, and it is also one we keep returning to, as old habits show themselves again.

Paul uses the same picture. He tells believers to put off the old man and put on the new, “which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness” (Ephesians 4:22–24), to put away bitterness, wrath and evil speaking (Ephesians 4:31), to put off anger and malice (Colossians 3:8), and to cast off the works of darkness and “put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 13:12–14).

Peter then names five things to take off.

• Malice. Kakía, from kakós, “bad”, is badness or wickedness in general, an ill-will that wishes harm on others and is glad to see them suffer. It is the root disposition from which many of the other sins spring.
• Guile. Dólos is deceit, trickery and cunning, a double-dealing in word and deed that sets out to mislead or manipulate others for one’s own gain.
• Hypocrisies. Hypókrisis, the source of our word “hypocrisy”, meant play-acting. It is putting on a show of virtue or piety one does not have, and hiding one’s real motives, most of all in matters of faith and morals.
• Envies. Phthónos is resentment at another person’s success, possessions or good fortune. It begrudges the blessings God gives to others, and it leads to bitterness and division.
• Evil speakings. Katalalía joins katá, “down against”, and laleō, “to speak”. It is speaking against people, usually behind their backs: slander, backbiting, rumour and false accusation that damage someone’s good name.

Peter puts “all” (pâs) before malice, guile and evil speakings. Every form of them is to go, and none is kept back.

“As newborn babes” uses two words. Artigénnētos means “just born”, and bréphos is an infant. Peter has just spoken of believers being born again by the word of God (1 Peter 1:23), as Jesus told Nicodemus that a man must be born again (John 3:3). Newborns are new, fresh at the start of life, and wholly dependent on someone else to feed them. Believers are like that before God. The newness is the point of the picture, and it makes no claim that believers are sinless, as verse 1 has just shown.

The command is “desire”, epipothéō, which means to long for, to crave earnestly. Anyone who has heard a hungry baby knows the kind of desire Peter means. It is strong and single-minded, and nothing else will satisfy it. This is the appetite God wants his people to have for his word, a natural hunger in a heart he has made new, and one we are to cultivate.

What we are to long for is “the sincere milk of the word”. “Sincere” is ádolos, which means without guile, undeceitful, unmixed. It is the same word as the dólos of verse 1 with a prefix that means “without”. We put away our own guile and feed on a word that has none in it. “Milk” is gála, the food of infants, used here for the nourishment God gives his people. “Of the word” is logikós, which means “rational” or “belonging to the word”, and it ties this milk to the word (lógos) of God through which we were born again. The only other place the New Testament uses logikós is in Paul’s “reasonable service” (Romans 12:1). So the sincere milk of the word is the pure and trustworthy truth that God has revealed in Scripture, with no human error or deceit mixed into it.

Scripture speaks of God’s word as food again and again. Jesus answered the tempter, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4), and the psalmist says, “How sweet are thy words unto my taste! yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth!” (Psalm 119:103).

The verb geúomai means to taste, and by extension to eat, and it was used figuratively for experiencing something, good or bad. To taste that the Lord is gracious is to know his kindness for yourself, the way you know food by eating it. The picture carries on from the milk of verse 2, and it follows closely the words of David: “O taste and see that the LORD is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him” (Psalm 34:8).

“Lord” is kýrios, a word for one who is supreme in authority, a master. It was used of God and, in the New Testament, very often of Jesus. Here Peter goes straight on, “To whom coming, as unto a living stone” (1 Peter 2:4), so the Lord whose kindness we have tasted is Christ. Words the psalm says of the LORD, Peter applies to Jesus.

“Gracious” is chrēstós. It comes from a verb meaning to use or employ, and so it first meant useful, and then good, kind and benevolent. Said of God, it speaks of his goodness shown in action, his kindness toward people, above all in saving them. The psalmist sings of the same thing: “For the LORD is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations” (Psalm 100:5).

The written word points to the Word made flesh. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1), and that Word “was made flesh, and dwelt among us … full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). “Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ” (John 1:17). He is the truth (John 14:6), and he said, “I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst” (John 6:35). So to long for the milk of the word is finally to long to know Christ better, and the growth Peter speaks of is growth “into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ” (Ephesians 4:15).

Jesus is also the living opposite of every sin in verse 1. He was free of malice and envy, wholly sincere, and the people of Nazareth “wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth” (Luke 4:22). He is the Lamb without blemish whose precious blood redeemed us (1 Peter 1:19), and in him we are new creatures (2 Corinthians 5:17). The Holy Spirit whom he sent dwells in believers and gives the power to put off the old self and bear his fruit.

When we taste that the Lord is gracious, we taste the grace of the one who, “though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich” (2 Corinthians 8:9). His life, death and resurrection are the fullest showing of God’s kindness, and because of them we can “come boldly unto the throne of grace” (Hebrews 4:16). The command to lay aside sin is a response to that grace, carried out in the strength the Spirit gives.

These verses keep two things together that belong together. Malice, deceit, pretence, envy and slander dull the appetite for God’s word, and a heart full of the word has less room for them. So we keep laying aside what Peter names, by noticing where these sins show up in our own thoughts and words and in our dealings with fellow believers, and we keep coming back to Scripture with the hunger of a newborn.

That hunger starts with what we already know of Christ. If we find our desire for the word has grown faint, the place to begin is where Peter begins, with the kindness of the Lord we have tasted. The more we know of how gracious he is, the more we want of him, and as we feed on his word we grow steadier and more fruitful, and more like the Lord who fed us first.