Overcoming Evil in 1 Peter

Transcription

1 1 Overcoming Evil in 1 Peter Peter Rodgers Among the most striking features of the New Testament is its consistent attitude toward overcoming evil. This teaching of nonretaliation and blessing in the face of an intentional evil act has its roots in the Hebrew Bible and is embodied in the teaching and action of Jesus. He taught his disciples not to resist one who is evil. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also, and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. (Matthew 5:39-41) Jesus actually lived out this teaching in his great time of trial. When he was being crucified, he prayed, Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing. (Luke 23:34). The New Testament writers, following the teaching and example of Jesus, challenge his disciples to trace out his steps. (1 Peter 2:21). They are called, like Jesus, not to be overcome by evil, but to overcome evil with good. (Romans 12:21). Of all the writings of the New Testament, perhaps none is more shaped by Jesus s response to evil than the First Letter of Peter. 1 This short com pendium of Christian faith and life is written to Christians in Asia Minor (modern Turkey) who are suffering trials for their faith. Misunderstood and even persecuted for the name of Christ (l Pet 4:14), they are called to follow their Lord and Master. They are not to repay evil for evil or abuse for abuse; but, on the contrary, repay with blessing (1 Pet 3:9). This chapter will explore the theological background to this call to nonresistance and blessing in the face of an evil act, and will draw some conclusions for followers of Christ in the 21st century a century where organized, intentional evil seems to be on the rise. Thus the First Epistle of Peter can be for us the clearest lens for learning how to be faithful followers of Christ in a world where evil abounds. One of the most outstanding features of the first letter of Peter is its extensive use of the Old Testament, the scriptures of Israel. In particular, in 1 Peter 2:18 25, phrases from the fourth Servant Song (Isa 52:13 53:12) are weaved into the narrative of Christ s behavior under trial. Karen Jobes (2005, p. 194) notes the dependence of 1 Peter 2 on Isaiah 53:13-53:12, the Suffering Servant passage. J. H. Elliott (2000) remarked that the use of the fourth Servant Song in 1 Peter 2 is as creative as it is singular in the New Testament (p. 504). In a passage exhorting household servants to be submissive to their masters, the behavior of Jesus under trial is held up as a model that Christians should copy in detail. Because the next paragraph (3:1) begins with the word likewise, it is clear that the example of Christ s suffering unjustly is meant to apply in some way to wives and husbands as well. Christ s fulfillment of the role of Suffering Servant is the governing model for the household codes in the central section of 1 Peter. It is the pattern and power of the Servant s life that provide the motive and the model for Christian thinking and living throughout this section (2:11-3:12) and indeed throughout the letter. Jesus, the obedient Servant of God, committed no sin; no deceit

2 2 was found on his lips. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return, when he suffered he did not threaten, but entrusted himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed. For you were like sheep straying, but now you have returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls. (1 Pet 2:23-25) This passage begins by setting forth Jesus the servant as our model, in whose steps we should follow (l Pet 2:21). It moves from presenting Jesus as the example of nonretaliation and blessing, to asserting the redemptive significance of his death: He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree (2:24). Christians are presented here not only with the incentive to live like Christ, but also with the declaration that in him new life is possible. By his wounds you have been healed (2:25). Another Old Testament text has shaped the thought of the First Letter of Peter, and like Isaiah 53, it is quoted or alluded to several times in the epistle. This is Psalm 34 (LXX 33). In 1 Peter 3:10-12, Psalm 34:11-16 is quoted extensively. He that would love life and see good days, Let him keep his tongue from evil, and his lips from speaking deceit; Let him turn away from evil and do right; let him seek peace and pursue it. For the eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, And his ears are open to their prayer. But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil. (RSV) 2 This long quotation comes right after Peter s exhortation not to return evil for evil (3:8-9). It describes the suffering righteous one, who holds his tongue and does not practice guile. It affirms that this one will see good days. J. H. Elliott (2000) asserts that the author here uses a quotation of scripture to substantiate and conclude preceding instruction (p. 611). But rather than seeing the quotation as a proof text, recruited by Peter to cap off his teaching, we should consider that the use of Psalm 34 is much more creative and constitutive for the argument of the letter as a whole. Joel B. Green (2007) correctly notes that Psalm 34 is woven into the fabric of 1 Peter as a whole (p. 107). In addition to a quotation from the Psalm in 1 Peter 2:3, there are a number of allusions and echoes of the Psalm elsewhere in the letter. 3 It is interesting to note that the word for deceit (δόλον), which occurs in 1 Peter 3:10 (Psalm 33:14 LXX), also occurs in the citation of Isaiah 53:9 in I Peter 2:22, and that this is a vice that Christ s followers are called to put away (1 Pet 2:1). This is certainly an important word for the letter. I would suggest that the word might have helped to draw the two passages together (Isa 53 and Psalm 34) in Jewish and Christian exegesis prior to the writing of the letter. This association of different Old Testament passages through similar words or themes was a common exegetical technique in Second Temple Judaism (Evans, 2005, pp ). Thus an early Jewish Christian would have made the link: No deceit was found on Christ s lips (Isaiah 53). Keep your lips that they speak no deceit (Psalm 34).

3 3 This observation is further strengthened by the fact that Psalm 34 was given a Christological interpretation elsewhere in the New Testament. In John 19:36, Psalm 34:20 is cited as Jesus fulfils the scripture in his crucifixion: These things occurred that the scripture might be fulfilled, None of his Bones shall be broken. 4 This psalm, then, for the New Testament writers looks back to the Passover and forward to the cross. And although the primary use of the psalm in 1 Peter is paraenetic, exhorting Christians to follow in the steps of Christ, some new evidence suggests that the whole Psalm may also have been given a Christological interpretation by the Christian Church, and perhaps even by the author of 1 Peter. Our two earliest manuscripts of 1 Peter, papyrus P 72 (Bodmer VIII) and the newly published P 125 (P Oxy 4934), both read at 1 Peter 2:3 (quoting Psalm 33:9 LXX) not For you have tasted that the Lord is good, but You have tasted that Christ is Lord. If this is what Peter originally wrote, 5 then the exhortation to Christian nonretaliation is based on a Christological reading of Isaiah 53 and Psalm 34, being interpreted together. Because Psalm 34 is a psalm of the righteous sufferer and Christ is the quintessential suffering righteous one, could the psalm as quoted in 1 Peter 3:10-12 be describing not just the righteous sufferer in general but also Christ, the one who kept his tongue from speaking evil and his lips from deceit? So, then, the Christ of Psalm 34, no less than the Christ of Isaiah 53, provides the pattern for Christian living. Paul Achtemeier (1996) summarizes this teaching of l Peter toward the end of his commentary, The fate of Christ, suffering, crucified, exalted is thus both the pattern of activity and the ground of the Christians faith and hope (p. 340). To sum up these explorations of the text of 1 Peter, the life of Christ supplies the motive and power for nonretaliation of an evil act. 6 Texts from the scriptures of Israel, in particular Isaiah 53 and Psalm 34, provide the thought and language in which this Christ-like behavior is framed, and it is the combination of the words of scripture and the life of Jesus that have coincided in early Christian thought to provide this groundbreaking theological and practical affirmation. 7 It is one thing to discover this theology and praxis; it is quite another to live it out. I wrote this chapter up to this point sitting in the idyllic surroundings of the Duke Humphrey reading room of the Bodleian Library in Oxford. Surrounded by old books in that ancient setting with lovely views of gardens and spires from the windows, it is easy to forget the prevailing presence of evil in so much of the world and the call to overcome it by following in Christ s steps (l Peter 2:21). But I returned home and picked up the New York Times. Terrorist threats, murders, genocide, starvation, environmental degradation, abuse of children, and financial fraud these were the headlines that caught my eye in the paper on Good Friday! Evil is a present reality in our world and will not be overcome by halfhearted resistance. What is called for is nothing less than radical living. And the Christian vision for that radical living is summed up in the challenge in 1 Peter 2:21 to follow in Christ s steps. The word used for example here is a very vivid one. Karen Jobes (2005) wrote of it, The Greek word translated example was used to refer to a pattern of letters of the alphabet over which children learning to write would trace. It suggests the closest of copies. English words such as example, model, or pattern are too weak, for Jesus suffering is not simply an example or pattern or model, as if one of many, he is the paradigm by which Christians write large the letters of his gospel in their lives. (p. 195)

4 4 But for many modern and postmodern interpreters such a picture, especially drawn from 1 Peter, is problematic. They see that the very document that purports to offer the Christian model of overcoming evil through submission to the treatment of the oppressor as part of the problem and, indeed, a collaborator in that oppression. One writer put the matter bluntly: The glorification of suffering, like that found in 1 Peter, is seen to glorify all suffering and in fact holds up the victim as a model for women.... Thus, the myth of Jesus as Suffering Servant should not be made into a model for Christian life, particularly for Christian women.... Of all the Christian Testament texts, the message of 1 Peter is the most harmful in the context of women s lives. Its particular message of the suffering Christ as a model for Christian living leads to precisely the kind of abuses that Feminists fear.... The basic message of 1 Peter does not reflect God s liberating word. (Corley, 1995, pp ) 8 How should we respond to such a reading of 1 Peter, and to other texts that present the same vision of overcoming evil by nonretaliation? I suggest four characteristics of our interpretive posture. Repentance We set aside for a moment the question as to whether this and other revisionist interpretations of 1 Peter, and other New Testament texts, have read the message of l Peter correctly or understood what it is saying. What is clear is that this and similar biblical texts have been recruited by the church at many points in its history to justify the oppression of women, slaves, and other marginalized people. In any treatment of this text, therefore, the Christian interpreter must begin with the posture of repentance. We must repent of any ways in which we ourselves, whether knowingly or unknowingly, have interpreted and used the text of 1 Peter, or any other biblical texts, to participate in or support this oppression. Such repentance cannot be simply a fresh interpretive strategy that enables the continued use of this and similar biblical texts to oppress others in ways more subtle and refined. One of the prime characteristics of the new life in Christ, according to 1 Peter, is genuineness (1:22, unhypocritical ). So we need to search our own hearts and mind, and to repent of any recruitment of texts in scripture for the oppression of others. Rereading The second step for the faithful interpreter is to ask how well he or she has understood the passage. A fresh assessment of the words of 1 Peter 2:18 3:7 in their contexts (l Peter, the larger Christian canonical framework, and the cultural setting in which the letter was penned) is called for. One example of how to proceed is to recognize that this catechetical teaching, and the larger, fivefold pattern of which it is a part is common to a number of New Testament writers. This pattern was thoroughly laid out by Philip Carrington and E. G. Selwyn in the middle of the 20th century (Carrington, 1940; Selwyn, 1946; see also the earlier Seeberg, 1903). It seems clear that on matters of Christian behavior, no less than in matters of central beliefs, Peter, Paul, and

5 5 James would agree, Whether then it was I or they, so we proclaim and so you have come to believe (l Cor 15:11). 1 Peter is no better or worse than any other New Testament writing. They are all drawing from the same catechetical teaching. In the study of l Peter, a careful and faithful rereading of the letter will require the interpreter to develop a healthy skepticism toward the modern and postmodern consensus that has emerged: The document is a pseudonymous letter in the name of the Apostle Peter, from around CE, and written to largely Gentile groups of persecuted Christians in Asia Minor. Furthermore, any reader of 1 Peter must never lose sight of the controlling narrative that pervades the whole document, The sufferings of the Messiah and the subsequent glory (l Peter 1:11). The careful reader will also be alert to the nuanced way that this narrative operates in the letter. The Suffering Servant is foregrounded in 2:18-25 but in the background in 3:1-7, and this may be due in part to the difference in situations being addressed. Whereas the servants of 2:18 are in danger of being beaten, there is no such danger present in the situation of the wives of 3:1 6. Moreover, if we read l Peter 3:1 7 with special emphasis on the equality of men and women in Christ that emerges with the term co-heirs of the grace of life a different picture emerges. Men and women are equal, and the woman exercises power by self-control. The strategy enjoined on wives of unbelieving husbands by 1 Peter offers them special opportunity to embody the soft differences toward non-christians that Miroslav Volf helpfully isolates as the characteristic Christian posture (Volf, 1994, pp ). Retrieval This term has been much used in recent theological discussion. I use it here in the sense employed by George Lindbeck (1999) to mean the revisiting and employment of elements in the Christian tradition that can have a constructive value for current discussions in biblical studies and theology (pp ). In particular, I would urge a retrieving from the tradition of the almost universal conviction of the precritical commentators (patristic and medieval) that l Peter is a letter written primarily to Jewish readers in Asia Minor. Unpopular among modern interpreters of the letter, this view commends itself to me as both refreshing and subversive. The wealth of references to Israel s scriptures, whether quotations, allusions, or echoes, and the dependence of the writer on the narrative of Israel (in particular, the Exodus and the Exile) make such a picture of the letter likely if not compelling. Full argument for the Jewish recipients of 1 Peter must await another essay. But here I offer one illustration of how such retrieval of the classic Christian picture of the letter would make it freshly available to those exercising toward the modern consensus a healthy skepticism, and toward the letter itself a hermeneutic of trust (for this expression, see Hays, 2005, pp ). In the section addressing wives and husbands, commentators assume that the writer is concerned with Christian wives married to unbelieving Gentile husbands. These wives should do all they can not to offend, but may suffer trials for their faith if they are required, as was the custom, to have no other gods but those of their husbands (see Achtemeier, 1996, p. 207n35, who cites Plutarch, Coniugalio praecepta 104D, on this point). But what if we consider a different possible mid-first-century social situation: Christian wives of non-christian Jewish husbands. I believe that the language and imagery of the passage point in this direction: The term for if some of them do not obey the word is elsewhere used in the New Testament specifically

6 6 of Jewish unbelief (Acts 14:2, 19:9; Rom 11:31, 15:31). A retrieval of the picture found in Origen and Eusebius, that l Peter was written to people of Hebrew parentage (Eusebius, Hist. eccl. III.4.2), is needed. This will result in a reassessment of what the letter is actually saying to husbands and wives. We need to ask, have we really understood this letter? And we need to remember that for l Peter, the controlling image is the sufferings destined for the Messiah and the subsequent glory within the thoroughly Jewish context of the letter. Retracing Christians are called to follow in the steps of Jesus. Literally, we are called to retrace his steps, like a child traces the shapes of the letters in her copybook (l Peter 2:21). Sometimes this will be easy, but often it will be difficult. It will be especially hard to respond as Christ responded. When he was abused, he did not abuse in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten (l Peter 2:23). But according to 1 Peter 3:9, this is clearly the Christ-like way. Walking this way, we will learn afresh with Dr. Martin Luther King that unearned suffering is redemptive (1963). Walking this way, we will learn to respond like Christ when it is most difficult to do so. I shall never forget learning this lesson afresh in the dark days after September 11, Many voices were calling for retaliation and revenge, and this was understandable. But on several occasions I heard Governor George Pataki of New York cite St. Paul s articulation of the principle at the heart of our Christian faith and life: Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good (Romans 12:21). I am grateful to a number of people for help with this article, especially Karen Bolte, the Rev. Dr. Kathryn Greene-McCreight, and Dr. David Vinson. NOTES 1. Throughout this article, the author of the biblical epistle is referred to as Peter. This does not imply insensitivity to the debate about authorship, but recognizes the Church s long attribution of it to the Apostle Peter from the very earliest times. He probably wrote the letter with assistance from Sylvanus (l Pet. 5:12). 2. This translation is quoted here because, unlike the NRSY it preserves the singular of the original Greek, a matter of some significance. See my review of J. H. Elliott, 1 Peter (Rodgers, 2004). 3. K. Jobes (2005, pp ) give a very useful chart. W Bornemann (1919/1920, pp ) proposed a much more extensive list of parallels. 4. On this passage and the use of Psalm 34 as a key text in New Testament exegesis, see C. H. Dodd (1952, pp ). 5. See my discussion of this variation on the blog Evangelical Textual Criticism (Rodgers, 2009). 6. Nonretaliation is in view here, and it is not the same as nonresistance. The Devil, and all the oppression that his minions carry out are certainly to be resisted (1 Peter 5:9). 7. This perspective is not entirely new with Jesus and his followers. See Elliott (2000, p. 606n207).

7 7 8. This selection of citations from Corley s essay is found in Horrell (2008, p. 107). REFERENCES Achtemeier, P. J. (1996). 1 Peter, Hermeneia. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press. Bornemann, W (1919/1920). Der erste petrusbrief eine Taufrede des Silvanus. ZNW, 19, Carrington, P. (1940). The Primitive Christian Catechism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Corley, K. (1995). 1 Peter. In E. Schussler Fiorenza (Ed.), Searching the Scriptures: Vol. 2. A feminist commentary (pp ). London: SCM. Dodd, C. H. (1952). According to the Scriptures. London: Nisbet. Elliott, J. H. (2000). 1 Peter, Anchor Bible. New York: Doubleday Evans, C. A. (2005). Jewish exegesis. In K. J, Vanhoozer (Ed.), Dictionary/or theological interpretation of the Bible. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker House. Green, J. B. (2007). 1 Peter: Two horizons commentary. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Hays, R. B. (2005). The conversion of the imagination. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Jobes, K. (2005). 1 Peter: Baker exegetical commentary on the New Testament. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker House. Horrell, D. G. (2008). 1 Peter: New Testament Guides. New York: Clark. King, M. L. (1963, August 28). I have a dream. Speech delivered in Washington D.C. Lindbeck, G. A. (1999). Postcritical canonical interpretation: Three modes of retrieval. In C. Seitz & K. Green-McCreight (Eds.), Theological exegesis: Essays in honor of Brevard S. Childs. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Rodgers, P. R. (2004). Review of J. H. Elliott, 1 Peter. Novum Testamentum, 46, Rodgers, P. R. (2009, October 12). Evangelical textual criticism blog. Retrieved from Seeberg, A. (1903). Der Catechismus der Urchristenhe.it. Leipzig: Deichert. Selwyn, E. G. (1946). ; Peter. London: MacMillan. Volf, M. (1994). Soft differences: Theological reflections on the relation between Church and culture in 1 Peter. Ex Auditu, 10,

8 Originally published in Explaining Evil Volume 3 Approaches, Responses, Solutions (2011) edited by J. Harold Ellens and is subject to applicable copyright laws. This edition is intended only for the author s personal website. Do not reproduce without permission. 8