Live in freedom, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as servants of God.
Parallel translations
- WEB as free, and not using your freedom for a cloak of wickedness, but as bondservants of God.
- KJV As free, and not using your liberty for a cloke of maliciousness, but as the servants of God.
- NKJV as free, yet not using liberty as a cloak for vice, but as bondservants of God.
- NASB Act as free people, and do not use your freedom as a covering for evil, but use it as bond-servants of God.
- NLT For you are free, yet you are God’s slaves, so don’t use your freedom as an excuse to do evil.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Believers are free, but must not use freedom as a cover for evil; rather they live as God's servants. True Christian liberty serves God rather than excusing sin.
Overview
Peter affirms genuine Christian freedom yet warns against twisting it into license for wrongdoing. The paradox is that believers are simultaneously free and 'bondservants of God,' their liberty expressed through glad service to him. This guards submission to authority from being mere fear and roots it instead in devotion to God.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 15
- Gal 5:13For you, brothers, were called to freedom; but do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh. Rather, serve one another in love.
- Rom 6:22But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the fruit you reap leads to holiness, and the outcome is eternal life.
- Rom 6:18You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.
- 1 Cor 7:22For he who was a slave when he was called by the Lord is the Lord’s freedman. Conversely, he who was a free man when he was called is Christ’s slave.
- Gal 5:1It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not be encumbered once more by a yoke of slavery.
- Jas 1:25But the one who looks intently into the perfect law of freedom, and continues to do so—not being a forgetful hearer, but an effective doer—he will be blessed in what he does.
- Eph 6:6And do this not only to please them while they are watching, but as servants of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart.
- Jas 2:12Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom.
- John 8:32–36Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
- Matt 23:13Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let in those who wish to enter.
- 2 Pet 2:19They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves to depravity. For a man is a slave to whatever has mastered him.
- 1 Th 2:5As you know, we never used words of flattery or any pretext for greed. God is our witness!
- John 15:22If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin. Now, however, they have no excuse for their sin.
- Col 3:24because you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as your reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.
- Jude 1:4For certain men have crept in among you unnoticed—ungodly ones who were designated long ago for condemnation. They turn the grace of our God into a license for immorality, and they deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.
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The lamb without blemish foreknown before the world, who bore our sins in his body on the tree, by whose wounds we are healed — the Shepherd and Overseer of our souls.
How 1 Peter 2:16 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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