1 Peter 5:6

Peter writes to believers scattered through the Roman provinces of Asia Minor (1 Peter 1:1), who live as “strangers and pilgrims” (1 Peter 2:11) and are going through what he calls “the fiery trial” (1 Peter 4:12). Their suffering was most likely social hostility, slander and local harassment more than persecution ordered by the state. In that setting they would be tempted to strike back, to despair or to give up their faith. The whole letter carries a “lively hope” (1 Peter 1:3) through “the trial of your faith” (1 Peter 1:7), and humility is how that hope is lived out, because it lets believers trust God when circumstances are hard and wait for a glory that outweighs their present suffering.

After writing about suffering in 1 Peter 4, Peter turns in chapter 5 to life inside the church. He first charges the elders to feed the flock of God willingly and humbly, as examples to it (1 Peter 5:1–4). These three verses follow, and after them come the call to be sober and watchful against the devil (1 Peter 5:8–9) and the promise that God will restore and strengthen his people (1 Peter 5:10).

The Greeks and Romans prized honour, status and self-assertion, and they often looked on lowliness as weakness or even as something contemptible. Peter’s call to humility went straight against the spirit of his readers’ world.

“Likewise” links this charge to the one Peter has just given the elders. They are to lead as humble examples, and the younger are to “submit yourselves unto the elder”. The verb, hypotássō, means to arrange under or to put under, and here, in the sense “submit yourselves”, it is a willing act. A person places himself under the guidance, authority and care of another. That kind of deference keeps a church in good order and its relationships healthy.

Peter widens the command at once: “Yea, all of you be subject one to another.” The small word behind “Yea”, dé, is the ordinary Greek connective for “and” or “now”, and here it adds a second command to the first. Allḗlōn means “one another”, so the submission runs in every direction. Every believer, whatever his age or standing, is to defer to the others and serve them. Paul gives the same command: “Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God” (Ephesians 5:21). This mutual submission is Christlike love and reverence at work, and it rules out pride of place in the body of Christ, so that every member is valued and every member serves.

Peter’s word for “be clothed”, enkombóomai, means to tie something on yourself. It was used of tying on an outer garment or apron, the kind servants and slaves wore for work, often dirty work. So humility is something a believer puts on deliberately and wears where others can see it, in his actions and his bearing, ready to serve even in the lowest tasks.

The word for humility, tapeinophrosýnē, means lowliness or humbleness of mind, and modesty. It is a mind free of arrogance and self-exaltation, which sees itself truly before God and beside other people, and so is willing to serve and to give way. Its opposite is the pride of “the proud”, hyperḗphanos, later in the same verse.

The Lord Jesus wore this garment first. On the night he washed his disciples’ feet, a task kept for the lowest servant, he “took a towel, and girded himself” (John 13:1–17). Humility worn like that looks like listening to others, learning from those with more experience, and serving in ways that go unnoticed.

Peter gives his reason with the word hóti, “for” or “because”, and the reason is Scripture. He quotes the Greek Old Testament of Proverbs 3:34, which the KJV renders from the Hebrew as “Surely he scorneth the scorners: but he giveth grace unto the lowly.” James quotes the same words: “God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble” (James 4:6).

God, theós, takes a side. The verb for “resisteth”, antitássomai, means to range oneself against, to set oneself in battle order against, and so to oppose actively. The proud, hyperḗphanos, are those who exalt themselves, with an arrogant self-sufficiency that refuses to depend on God or on others and sets itself above his authority and the peace of his people. Such pride sets a person against God’s will and ways, and God in turn opposes that self-exaltation. The proud find their plans hindered and their growth stifled, because they have cut themselves off from his favour.

To the humble, tapeinós, the lowly, God gives, dídōmi, grace, cháris. Grace is his unmerited favour, his influence upon the heart and its reflection in the life, the strength he gives for living and the blessings he pours out. The humble know their limits, their sin and their need of him, and that knowledge leaves them open to receive what he gives.

People ask whether humility earns this grace. Humility is the posture that receives grace freely given, as an open hand receives a gift, while pride is a closed fist that trusts itself alone and so shuts itself away from the source of life and power.

“Therefore”, oûn, draws the consequence from what Peter has just quoted. Since God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble, every believer is to humble himself before him. The verb is tapeinóō, to make low, and figuratively to humble or humiliate. Peter uses it as an aorist passive imperative, so the force is “be humbled”: let yourselves be brought low, and take a humble place before God. It is a willing act, a choice to give up self-reliance and the wish to control things, and to own God’s rule over every circumstance, suffering included. The same word stands in Paul’s “he humbled himself” (Philippians 2:8) and in James’s “Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up” (James 4:10).

The adjective “mighty”, krataiós, comes from kratos, strength or power, and in the New Testament it is found only here. “The mighty hand of God” is an Old Testament phrase for his power to act and to deliver, and it belongs above all to the exodus. “By strength of hand the LORD brought you out from this place,” Moses told Israel (Exodus 13:3), and Israel confessed, “the LORD brought us forth out of Egypt with a mighty hand, and with an outstretched arm” (Deuteronomy 26:8). The words “a mighty hand” are already there when God first speaks to Moses about Pharaoh (Exodus 3:19). For believers under pressure this is a strong comfort. The hand they bow under is the hand that brought Israel out of Egypt, and it is at work in their suffering too, with power that is absolute, for their protection and their redemption.

Believers bow under that hand with a purpose in view, which Peter introduces with hína, “that”: “that he may exalt you in due time.” The word for “due time”, kairós, means an occasion, a set or proper time. The exalting is God’s work, so the time is his to set, and it may come later than we would wish. The promise itself is certain, and Jesus gives it in the same shape: “he that humbleth himself shall be exalted” (Luke 14:11). God often uses a season of humbling to purify his people and prepare them for greater blessing and service.

Verse 7 continues the sentence of verse 6. “Casting” is a participle joined to “Humble yourselves”, so it carries the force of that command and shows how it is carried out: believers humble themselves by throwing their cares on God. Pride tries to carry every burden alone, and humility hands the burden to the One who can bear it.

The verb, epirrhíptō, means to throw upon or to place upon. Its only other use in the New Testament is in Luke 19:35, where the disciples “cast their garments upon the colt”, and the picture is of a load thrown onto a beast of burden. Casting is decisive, and the weight passes from you to another. “All”, pâs, takes in every care, and “upon”, epí, puts the burden squarely on him. “Him”, autós, is God, the God this letter has shown to be sovereign, just and loving.

The word for care, mérimna, means anxiety or worry. It comes from a verb meaning to divide, through the idea of distraction, and it names the anxiety that pulls the mind apart and breaks up a person’s peace, from small concerns to overwhelming dread. Greek writers often spoke of such cares as distractions that could consume a person. Peter answers them with a relationship, by sending the believer to a God who cares. His words echo Psalm 55:22: “Cast thy burden upon the LORD, and he shall sustain thee.”

“For he careth for you” gives the reason, again with hóti, “because”. The verb, mélō, is used impersonally to mean “it is of concern to” or “it matters to”, so Peter is saying that you matter to God. The preposition perí, with hymōn, “you”, means “concerning you” or “on your behalf”. God’s concern for his people is personal and engaged, and it reaches every detail of their lives. Jesus teaches the same when he tells his disciples, “Take no thought for your life,” because their heavenly Father knows what they need (Matthew 6:25–34). Paul gives the remedy as prayer: “Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God,” with the promise that God’s peace “shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:6–7).

The next verse warns that the devil walks about “as a roaring lion” (1 Peter 5:8), and he makes use of anxiety and fear. Handing our cares to God steadies us to resist him, and soon after comes the promise that God himself will restore and strengthen his people after they have suffered a while.

These verses are fulfilled first in Jesus, the perfect example of the humility and submission Peter asks for. Paul writes of him: “Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross” (Philippians 2:5–8). His whole earthly life was submission to his Father’s will, and “though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered” (Hebrews 5:8). Jesus describes himself as “meek and lowly in heart” (Matthew 11:29).

Then came the exaltation that verse 6 promises: “Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name” (Philippians 2:9). That whole road from humiliation to glory (Philippians 2:5–11) is the road of everyone who is in Christ, and our “due time” is bound up with his. By his humility he became the source of grace and salvation for all who humble themselves before him, and so the promise that God “giveth grace to the humble” is fulfilled in him above all.

He is also God’s care for us in person. He invites all who labour and are heavy laden to come to him for rest (Matthew 11:28–30). He carried the heaviest burden of all to the cross, for “Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows” (Isaiah 53:4–5). As our high priest he was “in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15–16), and he is our advocate with the Father (1 John 2:1). So when we cast our cares on God, we cast them on the Father through the Son. His life and resurrection prove that God cares for us, and he gives far more than relief from the worries of a day: “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly” (John 10:10).

Humility in these verses is something you do with your hands as well as your heart. You can take the lower place among God’s people, listen, learn from those who have gone before you, and serve where the work is plain and unseen, because God gives grace to the humble. When you are slighted or treated unjustly, you can leave your vindication with the God whose hand is mighty, and wait for the time he has set to lift you up.

The same humility hands over the weight you carry. The anxieties that press on you, whether about money, health, the people you love, the future or the past, can be named one by one before God in prayer and thrown onto him, and when they return you can throw them again. You are placing them in the hands of a Father who is concerned with every detail of your life, and who has told you plainly that you matter to him.