"Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers

to abstain

from fleshly lusts, which wage war

against the soul."

I Peter 2:11

Wow!  There's a lot packed in that punch.  At least the phrase is couched by calling us "beloved."  It makes the rest easier to absorb as it is obviously given by someone who has endeared themselves to us.  It helps us know that this is for our good.

Aliens and Strangers

(NASV)

Sojourners and Pilgrims

(KJV)

One of my favorite childhood books was, "Five Children and the It."  These Victorian children found a creature on the beach one day, which they named, "It."  That's what I think of as an alien more than little green men or E.T.  We are not to be little green men nor is a bicycle involved.  Now "strangers" is something I relate to more.  I like it as John Wesley put it, 

"'Sojourners, pilgrims'--The first word properly means, 

those who are in a strange house:

the second, those who are in a strange country.

You sojourn in the body: you are pilgrims in this world:

abstain from desires of anything in this house,

or in this country."

In other words, don't touch it, don't pick it up.  Put it down and walk away.  Don't take any souvenirs from this place.  You can't take them past the gates of heaven, so they aren't worth it anyway.  It should appear as we walk through this life, that we are different, aliens, strangers.  A stranger is one who is different, who is unknown. 

A couple of high school boys came over to my house one day.  This was weird.  We sat there looking at each other.   Believe it or not, I was shy at times like this.  I think I finally asked why they had come.  One of them said, "We just came over to see where you live, because you are different."  I was a Christian in a somewhat pagan environment at school with only a handful of other Christians.  Yes, I was different, an alien, a stranger.  Even the principal called my dad in one day to talk to him.  We weren't in trouble, rather he asked how they had raised my brother and I to be so different.  We were strangers, aliens.

Adam Clarke reminds us that Peter was writing to those who were literally strangers and sojourners as they had fled persecution and wandered in foreign countries.  Then he says, 

"As ye are strangers and pilgrims, and profess to seek a heavenly country,

do not entangle your affections with earthly things.  While others

spend all their time, and employ all their skill, in acquiring

earthly property, and totally neglect the salvation of their souls;

they are not strangers, they are here at home;

they are not pilgrims, they are seeking an earthly possession:

Heaven is your home, seek that; God is your portion, seek Him.

All kinds of earthly desires, whether those of the flesh or of the eye,

or those included in the pride of life, are comprised here in the words fleshly lusts.

'Which war against the soul'  Which are marshalled and drawn up in battle array,

to fight against the soul; either to slay it, or to bring it into captivity. 

This is the object and operation of every earthly and sensual desire.

How little do those who indulge them think of the ruin which they produce."

"I'm just a poor wayfaring stranger,

Traveling through this world of woe.

There is no sickness, toil or danger

in that land to which I go."

One of my favorite soulful songs.