Scholars debate whether Peter’s readers were Jewish by birth or Gentiles (non-Jews). The fact that the question remains debated indicates that a preacher does wisely not to publicly take a position on the question. But the preacher does need an answer to what Peter means with the term “Gentiles” in this verse. Peter addressed his letter to “elect exiles” living in “Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia” (1 Peter 1:1), all regions in the Roman province of Asia Minor (in present-day Turkey). His readers, then, unmistakably lived in a Gentile context. It was in that setting that Peter had described his born-again readers as “sojourners and exiles” (1 Peter 2:11), people out-of-step with the habits of general society and hence objects of suspicion. Though out-of-step, they were to keep their conduct among their neighbours honourable through their good deeds (1 Peter 2:12). With the term “Gentiles,” Peter is referencing the very people he had mentioned in 1 Peter 2:12. These are the same people who trigger suffering in the lives of Peter’s readers in response to their good deeds.
3 For the time that is past suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry.