Bible Exposition Commentary

“Beg” means to exhort or urge. This is a plea to pilgrims to live the Christian life based on prerogatives of vv. 9-10. Peter is pleading (present tense) to the Asia Minor Christians and also to us.

Christians are citizens of heaven, therefore, they are sojourners and pilgrims (Philippians 3:20; Hebrews 11:13). Their standards are different from this world.

“Urge” is the language of grace. “You shall…” is the language of law.

“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service” (Romans 12:1).

“Now I beg you, brethren, through the Lord Jesus Christ, and through the love of the Spirit, that you strive together with me in prayers to God for me” (Romans 15:30).

“Now I plead with you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment” (1 Corinthians 1:10).

“We then, as workers together with Him also plead with you not to receive the grace of God in vain” (2 Corinthians 6:1).

“Now I, Paul, myself am pleading with you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ - who in presence am lowly among you, but being absent am bold toward you” (2 Corinthians 10:1).

“I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called” (Ephesians 4:1).

The language of grace is “I beseech, urge, plead.” You do not have to do this. You can go to heaven without this. The pity is that Christians do go to heaven without doing this.