as free, yet not using liberty as a cloak for vice, but as bondservants 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.
- BSB Live in freedom, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as servants 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 for freedom. Only don’t use your freedom for gain to the flesh, but through love be servants to one another.
- Rom 6:22But now, being made free from sin, and having become servants of God, you have your fruit of sanctification, and the result of eternal life.
- Rom 6:18Being made free from sin, you became bondservants of righteousness.
- 1 Cor 7:22For he who was called in the Lord being a bondservant is the Lord’s free man. Likewise he who was called being free is Christ’s bondservant.
- Gal 5:1Stand firm therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and don’t be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.
- Jas 1:25But he who looks into the perfect law of freedom, and continues, not being a hearer who forgets, but a doer of the work, this man will be blessed in what he does.
- Eph 6:6not in the way of service only when eyes are on you, as men pleasers; but as servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart;
- Jas 2:12So speak, and so do, as men who are to be judged by a law of freedom.
- John 8:32–36You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”
- Matt 23:13“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you devour widows’ houses, and as a pretense you make long prayers. Therefore you will receive greater condemnation.
- 2 Pet 2:19promising them liberty, while they themselves are bondservants of corruption; for a man is brought into bondage by whoever overcomes him.
- 1 Th 2:5For neither were we at any time found using words of flattery, as you know, nor a cloak of covetousness (God is witness),
- John 15:22If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have had sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin.
- Col 3:24knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance; for you serve the Lord Christ.
- Jude 1:4For there are certain men who crept in secretly, even those who were long ago written about for this condemnation: ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into indecency, and denying our only Master, God, 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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