What does 1 Peter 2:11 mean?

How should God's people live? How should those who are, in Christ, a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation (1 Peter 2:9) live from day to day on this side of eternity? Peter answers that question in this verse while revealing two crucial truths about what it means to live as a Christian.

First, calling his readers friends, Peter also calls them foreigners, sojourners, aliens, strangers, or exiles, depending on the translation being read. He means for them to stop thinking of themselves as locals, but as people who aren't from around here. The transformation God has made in Christians through Christ is so extensive, so complete, that our home town has changed. What used to be normal for us is now foreign. We no longer fit naturally into the thinking and practices of the world around us. And we must not try to fit it; we'll be going home soon.

But, Peter admits, this can be difficult. Our body wants to sin in the way that comes so naturally to humans, to those who are at home here. Peter has made it clear that we have been saved from the penalty for our sin in Christ. And we have been freed from the authority of sin; we have the ability to choose not to sin now, in the power of God's Holy Spirit.

In other words, we have not lost the "want" to sin. Even knowing its destructive power, the "want" to sin continues to attack our soul. Peter is not saying that we risk losing the salvation God has given us. He is saying that we are in a battle to make choices appropriate to our status as God's people. So he urges us to engage the battle. Don't give in. As saved, holy people in Christ, we ought to "just say no" to the desire to sin.