Albert Barnes Commentary 1 Peter 2:11

"Beloved, I beseech you as sojourners and pilgrims, to abstain from fleshly lust, which war against the soul;" — 1 Peter 2:11 (ASV)

Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims. On the word translated strangers (paroikous; see Ephesians 2:19, where it is also translated foreigners), it properly means one dwelling near or neighboring. Subsequently, it refers to a temporary resident or a sojourner—one without the rights of citizenship, as distinguished from a citizen. It means here that Christians are not truly citizens of this world. Their citizenship is in heaven , and they are here merely sojourners.

For, as the Apostle states, our conversation [citizenship] is in heaven (Philippians 3:20). Regarding the word translated pilgrims (parepidēmous; see 1 Peter 1:1 and Hebrews 11:13): A pilgrim properly is one who travels to a distance from his own country to visit a holy place or to pay devotion to some holy object. Subsequently, a pilgrim is a traveler or a wanderer.

The meaning here is that Christians have no permanent home on earth. Their citizenship is not here; they are merely sojourners, passing on to their eternal home in the heavens. Therefore, they should act as befits such persons, as sojourners and travelers do. They should not:

1. Regard the earth as their home.
2. They should not seek to acquire permanent possessions here, as if they were to remain here, but should act as travelers do, who merely seek temporary lodging, without expecting to reside permanently in a place.
3. They should not allow any such attachments to be formed, or arrangements to be made, as to impede their journey to their final home, just as pilgrims seek only temporary lodging and steadily pursue their journey.
4. Even while engaged here in the necessary callings of life—their studies, their farming, their merchandise—their thoughts and affections should be on other things. One in a strange land thinks much of his country and home. A pilgrim thinks much of the land to which he is going. Even while his time and attention may be necessarily occupied by the arrangements necessary for the journey, his thoughts and affections will be far away.
5. We should not encumber ourselves with many of this world's goods. Many professed Christians gather so many worldly things around them that it is impossible for them to make a journey to heaven. They burden themselves as no traveler would, and they make no progress. A traveler takes along as few things as possible; often, a staff is all that a pilgrim has. We make the most rapid progress in our journey to our final home when we are least encumbered with the things of this world.

The exhortation continues: Abstain from fleshly lusts. These are desires and passions prompted by carnal appetites (see Galatians 5:19 and following). A sojourner in a land, or a pilgrim, does not give himself up to indulging sensual appetites or the soft pleasures of the soul. All these would hinder his progress and divert him from his great purpose (Galatians 5:24; 2 Timothy 2:22; Titus 2:12; 1 Peter 1:14).

These lusts are those which war against the soul .

The meaning is that indulgence in these things wages war against the nobler faculties of the soul: against the conscience, the understanding, the memory, the judgment, and the exercise of a pure imagination .

There is not a faculty of the mind, however brilliant in itself, that will not be ultimately ruined by indulgence in the carnal propensities of our nature. The effect of intemperance on the noble faculties of the soul is well known. Alas, there are too many instances in which the light of genius in those endowed with splendid gifts—at the bar, in the pulpit, and in the senate—is extinguished by it, to require a particular description.

But there is one vice preeminently, which prevails all over the heathen world (Compare Romans 1:27 and following) and extensively in Christian lands, that, more than all others, blunts the moral sense, pollutes the memory, defiles the imagination, hardens the heart, and sends a withering influence through all the faculties of the soul.

"The soul grows clotted by contagion,
Embodies, and embrutes, till she quite lose
The divine property of her first being,"

Of this passion, Burns beautifully and truly said:

"But oh! it hardens a' within,
And petrifies the feeling."

From all these passions the Christian pilgrim should abstain.