having good behavior among the nations, so in that which they speak against you as evil-doers, they may by your good works, which they see, glorify God in the day of visitation.
In the day of visitation - Many different opinions have been entertained of the meaning of this phrase, some referring it to the day of judgment; some to times of persecution; some to the destruction of Jerusalem; and some to the time when the gospel was preached among the Gentiles, as a period when God visited them with mercy. The word “visitation” (ἐπισκοπή episkopē,) means the act of visiting or being visited for any purpose, usually with the notion of inspecting conduct, of inflicting punishment, or of conferring favors. Compare Matthew 25:36, Matthew 25:43; Luke 1:68, Luke 1:78; Luke 7:16; Luke 19:44, in the sense of visiting for the purpose of punishing, the word is often used in the Septuagint for the Hebrew פּקד paaqad, though there is no instance in which the word is so used in the New Testament, unless it be in the verse before us. The “visitation” here referred to is undoubtedly that of God; and the reference is to some time when he would make a “visitation” to people for some purpose, and when the fact that the Gentiles had narrowly inspected the conduct of Christians would lead them to honor him.