Called to Bless: Seek Peace and Pursue It

Peter gathers the whole community into one ethic: unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, compassion, humility, and blessing instead of retaliation. Why bless those who insult you? Because believers are called to inherit blessing. Peter then quotes Psalm 34 at length: restrain the tongue, turn from evil, do good, seek peace, pursue it, and remember that the Lord watches the righteous and opposes evil. Psalm 34 had already appeared in the “taste that the Lord is good” language of 2:3; here Peter returns to the same psalm to shape community conduct under pressure.