| Geneva Study Bible {9} Dearly beloved, {10} I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, {11} abstain from fleshly lusts, {12} which war against the soul; (9) He returns to that general exhortation. (10) A reason why we ought to live holy, that is, because we are citizens of heaven, and therefore we ought to live not according to the laws of this world, which is most corrupt, but of the heavenly city, although we are strangers in the world. (11) Another argument: The children of God live not according to the flesh, that is, according to that corrupt nature, but according to the Spirit. Therefore fleshly actions should not rule us. (12) The third argument: for although those lusts gratify us, yet they do not cease to fight against our salvation. People's New Testament 2:11 I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims. As sojourners (Revised Version). They were all, like the fathers (Heb 11:13), only pilgrims and sojourners on the earth, seeking for a better home. Hence they should abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul, which would destroy their prospects of that home. Wesley's Notes 2:11 Here begins the exhortation drawn from the second motive. Sojourners: pilgrims - The first word properly means, those who are in a strange house; the second, those who are in a strange country. You sojourn in the body; you are pilgrims in this world. Abstain from desires of anything in this house, or in this country. Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary 11. As heretofore he exhorted them to walk worthily of their calling, in contradistinction to their own former walk, so now he exhorts them to glorify God before unbelievers. Dearly beloved-He gains their attention to his exhortation by assuring them of his love. strangers and pilgrims-(1Pe 1:17). Sojourners, literally, settlers having a house in a city without being citizens in respect to the rights of citizenship; a picture of the Christian's position on earth; and pilgrims, staying for a time in a foreign land. Flacius thus analyzes the exhortation: (1) Purify your souls (a) as strangers on earth who must not allow yourselves to be kept back by earthly lusts, and (b) because these lusts war against the soul's salvation. (2) Walk piously among unbelievers (a) so that they may cease to calumniate Christians, and (b) may themselves be converted to Christ. fleshly lusts-enumerated in Ga 5:19, &c. Not only the gross appetites which we have in common with the brutes, but all the thoughts of the unrenewed mind. which-Greek, "the which," that is, inasmuch as being such as "war." &c. Not only do they impede, but they assail [Bengel]. the soul-that is, against the regenerated soul; such as were those now addressed. The regenerated soul is besieged by sinful lusts. Like Samson in the lap of Delilah, the believer, the moment that he gives way to fleshly lusts, has the locks of his strength shorn, and ceases to maintain that spiritual separation from the world and the flesh of which the Nazarite vow was the type. Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary 2:11,12 Even the best of men, the chosen generation, the people of God, need to be exhorted to keep from the worst sins. And fleshly lusts are most destructive to man's soul. It is a sore judgment to be given up to them. There is a day of visitation coming, wherein God may call to repentance by his word and his grace; then many will glorify God, and the holy lives of his people will have promoted the happy change. | 
