1 Peter 2:4-6, 9-10
Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God’s sight, and like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For it stands in scripture:
“See, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious;
and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”
.....
You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people;
once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
We are almost finished with our slow-motion journey through the New Testament (or Christian Scriptures.) Just to summarize one more time, the first year we looked, in some depth, at the four gospels. Over the past two summers we’ve been reading all the epistles or letters, beginning with the genuinely Pauline letters, followed by the attributed-to-Paul-but-probably-not, and finally, the latter half of this summer, we been discovering the anybody-but-Paul letters.
The two Letters of Peter are the final letters, if my notes are correct. When we finish them next week we will have studied our way slowly and carefully through the entire New Testament – with the single exception of Revelations – which I don’t expect to get into anyway. At least not now.
So, well done, People. You’ve hung in there. You’ve contributed intelligent and interesting discussion. I know way more about this part of the Bible than I did before we started. I hope you do too.
So, on to the First Letter of Peter. It was long taken as a given that the author was the Peter who was Jesus’ chosen disciple but few if any mainstream scholars accept that anymore. As with most of what we’ve read in recent weeks, there is evidence of historical context that occurred much later than Peter’s lifetime. We are fairly confident that Peter was executed in Rome in or around the year 64. The internal evidence here points to this letter being written in the mid-nineties at the earliest and more likely, into the 100s.
Part of the reasoning that originally accepted Simon Peter as the author comes from the “fact” that the letter was written in Rome and the author is identified as “an elder among elders,” or leader in a Christ-community there. Sounds like St. Peter, if you don't worry about dates and things.
This is a circular letter – one written not to a specific community but intended to travel around from city to city. Like many of the letters we have read, the communities were in turmoil – but unlike the others this turmoil was not internal, members fighting against members. These communities were being punished from outside for being Christian – but not with death, just with shunning and ostracism, which, while not life threatening, could still separate families, destroy businesses, and destroy longtime friendships.
One important point is that these communities consisted largely of Gentile Christians. They weren’t Jewish Christians being shunned by their Traditionalist Jewish families. They were Gentiles being shunned by other Gentiles – and largely for social and cultural reasons. One of the things that clearly places this letter in the second century is its complete acceptance of Roman authority and cultural mores.
The Roman Christians were told to “accept the authority of every human institution.” Now, that’s a long way from Jesus’ demands for justice for the oppressed. Slaves are to obey their masters and wives to obey their husbands. Even Paul didn’t go this far as we’ve seen, and it is a very long way from Jesus. There is no larger societal demand for justice for the poor and powerless, instead there is a call to personal piety – be good and pure yourself – and don’t make waves in the society around you. To make waves would be a scandal against the community.
Making waves would seem to be the greatest sin for this writer. The teachings seem to be all about “looking good” in the eyes of the non-Christians around them. I’m thinking it would be an interesting exercise to compare and contrast First Peter and Jesus’ Beatitudes.
The teaching continues on from the reading with which we began today:
The two Letters of Peter are the final letters, if my notes are correct. When we finish them next week we will have studied our way slowly and carefully through the entire New Testament – with the single exception of Revelations – which I don’t expect to get into anyway. At least not now.
So, well done, People. You’ve hung in there. You’ve contributed intelligent and interesting discussion. I know way more about this part of the Bible than I did before we started. I hope you do too.
So, on to the First Letter of Peter. It was long taken as a given that the author was the Peter who was Jesus’ chosen disciple but few if any mainstream scholars accept that anymore. As with most of what we’ve read in recent weeks, there is evidence of historical context that occurred much later than Peter’s lifetime. We are fairly confident that Peter was executed in Rome in or around the year 64. The internal evidence here points to this letter being written in the mid-nineties at the earliest and more likely, into the 100s.
Part of the reasoning that originally accepted Simon Peter as the author comes from the “fact” that the letter was written in Rome and the author is identified as “an elder among elders,” or leader in a Christ-community there. Sounds like St. Peter, if you don't worry about dates and things.
This is a circular letter – one written not to a specific community but intended to travel around from city to city. Like many of the letters we have read, the communities were in turmoil – but unlike the others this turmoil was not internal, members fighting against members. These communities were being punished from outside for being Christian – but not with death, just with shunning and ostracism, which, while not life threatening, could still separate families, destroy businesses, and destroy longtime friendships.
One important point is that these communities consisted largely of Gentile Christians. They weren’t Jewish Christians being shunned by their Traditionalist Jewish families. They were Gentiles being shunned by other Gentiles – and largely for social and cultural reasons. One of the things that clearly places this letter in the second century is its complete acceptance of Roman authority and cultural mores.
The Roman Christians were told to “accept the authority of every human institution.” Now, that’s a long way from Jesus’ demands for justice for the oppressed. Slaves are to obey their masters and wives to obey their husbands. Even Paul didn’t go this far as we’ve seen, and it is a very long way from Jesus. There is no larger societal demand for justice for the poor and powerless, instead there is a call to personal piety – be good and pure yourself – and don’t make waves in the society around you. To make waves would be a scandal against the community.
Making waves would seem to be the greatest sin for this writer. The teachings seem to be all about “looking good” in the eyes of the non-Christians around them. I’m thinking it would be an interesting exercise to compare and contrast First Peter and Jesus’ Beatitudes.
The teaching continues on from the reading with which we began today:
For the Lord’s sake accept the authority of every human institution, whether of the emperor as supreme, or of governors, as sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to praise those who do right. For it is God’s will that by doing right you should silence the ignorance of the foolish. As servants of God, live as free people, yet do not use your freedom as a pretext for evil. Honor everyone. Love the family of believers. Fear God. Honor the emperor. (2:13-17)
Strange words coming from self-proclaimed “followers” of the Jesus who taught his people that they had “one kingdom, one king.” Stranger yet to be told to honor an emperor who demanded to be worshiped as a god and be told to do so “for the Lord’s sake.”
Jesus never preached sedition, but he certainly never taught outright capitulation into the dominant culture, either. Rather, he seemed to ignore the governmental power structures around him. He did preach against the institutional power of the Temple and the way that power was abused and God’s justice subverted, but as far as the Roman empire went, Jesus appeared to pretty much ignore it – demonstrating with his own life that only those things we grant power over us actually have any such power.
In the end, the power structure killed him – but he never did view them as holding any authority over him. Jesus had one master, one Abba, one God – and the emperor wasn’t it. I wish more self-proclaimed Christians today would remember this. We have one Lord and that one, throughout the Old and New Testaments and into today, continuously calls for justice for the power-less – not compliance with the powerful.
But while this letter is at times distressingly subservient to human authority, while the teaching is to honor the emperor and all those in authority over them, the message somehow still manages to be the ancient Old Testament message – the one that still echoes through the New Testament as well – do not fear. Do not fear. We are a royal priesthood, a holy nation. We are not called to be quiet little citizens of a worldly kingdom. Do not fear. Even though they have power over you, don’t be afraid of them. Humble yourself before God, and God alone, and God will raise you up. The rest doesn’t matter.
Jesus never preached sedition, but he certainly never taught outright capitulation into the dominant culture, either. Rather, he seemed to ignore the governmental power structures around him. He did preach against the institutional power of the Temple and the way that power was abused and God’s justice subverted, but as far as the Roman empire went, Jesus appeared to pretty much ignore it – demonstrating with his own life that only those things we grant power over us actually have any such power.
In the end, the power structure killed him – but he never did view them as holding any authority over him. Jesus had one master, one Abba, one God – and the emperor wasn’t it. I wish more self-proclaimed Christians today would remember this. We have one Lord and that one, throughout the Old and New Testaments and into today, continuously calls for justice for the power-less – not compliance with the powerful.
But while this letter is at times distressingly subservient to human authority, while the teaching is to honor the emperor and all those in authority over them, the message somehow still manages to be the ancient Old Testament message – the one that still echoes through the New Testament as well – do not fear. Do not fear. We are a royal priesthood, a holy nation. We are not called to be quiet little citizens of a worldly kingdom. Do not fear. Even though they have power over you, don’t be afraid of them. Humble yourself before God, and God alone, and God will raise you up. The rest doesn’t matter.
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