one who meddles in what belongs to others: a person who takes charge of affairs that are not his own and oversteps his proper place
This word appears only once in the New Testament, at 1 Peter 4:15, and was almost certainly coined by the author. It is built from two everyday pieces: a word meaning "belonging to someone else" joined to the ordinary word for an overseer or supervisor (ἐπίσκοπος). Put together, it labels a person as an overseer of what is not his to oversee. The compound does not just describe curiosity; it brands the oversight itself as out of bounds.
What makes the verse puzzling is its company. Peter tells his readers that none of them should suffer as a murderer, a thief, a wrongdoer, or as this. Set beside three real crimes, a mere meddler can seem out of place. But in the ancient world, prying into other people's affairs and overstepping one's assigned role was treated as a genuine fault, not harmless gossip. The neighboring Greek words for this vice (περιεργάζομαι and περίεργος) carried the same weight, and later Christian writers used Peter's word and these two as near-equivalents. The likely picture is a believer who draws hostility by intruding on the lives, customs, or religion of the people around him.
Beyond that core idea, the exact coloring is left open. Scholars have variously heard it as social meddling, as reaching after another person's property, or as informing on others to the authorities. Peter may have chosen a fresh, wide word on purpose, so that it functions as a catch-all warning: give outsiders no legitimate grounds to accuse you of anything.
Disputed
What the coined term ἀλλοτριεπίσκοπος denotes in 1 Peter 4:15, given its position after three genuine crimes (murderer, thief, wrongdoer) and the absence of any earlier Greek attestation.
- majorityA meddler or social boundary-transgressor: one who oversteps his assigned sphere and intrudes on the affairs of others, a serious civic fault in Greco-Roman moral thought (πολυπραγμοσύνη) rather than a formal crime.; John H. Elliott, 1 Peter (Anchor Bible 37B, 2000), 784-89; Jeannine K. Brown, "Just a Busybody? A Look at the Greco-Roman Topos of Meddling for Defining ἀλλοτριεπίσκοπος in 1 Peter 4:15," JBL 125.3 (2006): 549-68; BDAG (3rd ed., 2000), 47
- minorityA defrauder or coveter of another's property, something on a par with the theft named just before it; supported by the Latin Vulgate's rendering alienorum appetitor and the papyrus parallel ἀλλοτρίων ἐπιθυμητής.; Paul J. Achtemeier, 1 Peter (Hermeneia, 1996), 303, 310-13; Johannes B. Bauer, "Aut maleficus aut alieni speculator (1 Petr 4,15)," Biblische Zeitschrift n.s. 22 (1978): 109-15
- minorityAn informer or denouncer (Latin delator) who reports others to the Roman authorities, reflecting the era of official hostility toward Christians.; Hermann W. Beyer, "ἐπισκέπτομαι κτλ.," TDNT 2:617-22