Peter wants his readers to see that not all suffering is the same. His question looks at a servant who is struck because he really did wrong and then bears it quietly. What credit is there in that? Barnes paraphrases, "What honor or credit would it be," and Gill says that keeping silent when beaten for real faults "is no great honour." The question clears the ground for the point Peter really wants to make: patient endurance when you have done well and still suffer is what God values (1 Peter 2:20).

Peter answers in the same verse: "but if, when ye do well, and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with God" (1 Peter 2:20). He then grounds it in Christ: "For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps" (1 Peter 2:21). Christ "did no sin," and "when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously" (1 Peter 2:22-23).

Peter is writing to household servants. Barnes notes that the Greek word could describe hired domestic servants or slaves.

"Buffeted" is the Greek kolaphizo, which Thayer's lexicon defines as "to strike with the fist." The same word describes what was done to Jesus before the council: they "buffeted him" (Matthew 26:67). "Glory" is kleos, meaning fame or good report, and this is the only place it appears in the New Testament. "Acceptable" translates charis, the usual word for grace, which is why the ESV says "a gracious thing in the sight of God."

This question shows what God values. A servant's patient endurance of unfair treatment, Peter says, "is acceptable with God." Gill explains this as what is agreeable to God's will and "grateful in his sight." Matthew Henry adds that sufferings deserved for wrongdoing must be borne patiently too, but they carry no special honor.

Peter then lifts the servant's situation into the story of Christ. Jesus did not suffer for His own faults. He "did no sin" (1 Peter 2:22), yet He "bare our sins in his own body on the tree" (1 Peter 2:24). The one who suffers wrongfully is walking in His steps (1 Peter 2:21), and like Him can commit himself "to him that judgeth righteously" (1 Peter 2:23).