Called to Bless
Reflections on the church's missional posture presented in 1 Peter 3:8–17
My last post for the week.
Following my earlier Twitter thread and blog post, this one is more academic in nature. Last year I had a journal article published in Biblical Theology Bulletin that was based on one of the chapters in my PhD thesis.1 Below you will find the abstract, a short snippet, and a link to the full article. If it proves of interest to you but you are unable to access it via the SAGE website, feel free to get in touch and I’ll glady send you a PDF file.
Abstract
This article investigates the notion of mission as blessing in 1 Peter 3:8–17. Drawing on insights from both Social Identity Theory (SIT) and Narrative Transportation Theory (NTT), I consider how the use of Old Testament quotations and allusions are deployed in such a way as to subvert normal social identity processes by exhorting the recipients of 1 Peter to pursue a life oriented towards blessing one’s opponents through the refusal to retaliate; the pursuit of holistic well-being; and the willingness to defend the hope of one’s faith.
Snippet
By alluding to David’s sojourn via Psalm 33 LXX, Peter invites the Anatolian Christians to understand their own lives in light of David’s story: they also have been promised an inheritance (1:4; 3:9; 5:10); they also are to live righteous lives both within and without the church even as they suffer (2:11– 12, etc.); finally, they also will receive their inheritance should they continue in righteousness (1:3–7; 5:10). The Anatolian Christians must understand, however, as David apparently did (1 Sam 24:8–13), that sin and evil will not reap an inheritance from the Lord. Thus, Peter offers David’s period of sojourn (indirectly via Psalm 33 LXX), as prototypical of the life the church is living, and of the characteristics he desires the congregation to embody. By contrast, Saul is the implied anti-prototype, the one who sought to take David’s life in spite of his righteous conduct. In 3:10–11, therefore, David is presented (albeit indirectly), as the exemplar of the righteous sojourner who seeks the peace of his enemy, Saul. Meanwhile, Saul stands as the inferred anti-exemplar who seeks the destruction of the one who has done no wrong.
The overall tenor of the passage—to be a blessing to hostile outsiders, and to proactively seek their holistic wellbeing—honors the humanity of the people in question (cf. 2:17, “Honor everyone”). Psychiatrist Jonathan Shay (p. 115), investigating the impact of combat trauma on US soldiers in Vietnam, notes how dehumanizing the enemy led to psychological damage of the soldiers:
Restoring honor to the enemy is an essential step in recovery from combat PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). While other things are obviously needed as well, the veteran’s self-respect never fully recovers so long as he is unable to see the enemy as worthy. In the words of one of our patients, a war against sub- human vermin “has no honor.” This is true even in victory; in defeat, the dishonoring absence of human thémis linking enemy to enemy makes life unendurable.2
Piper (p. 230) is right, therefore, when he observes that “one cannot truly bless while inwardly desiring someone’s hurt” because it is a dishonoring of the imago Dei that each person bears.3 To vilify, or to desire the cursing of one’s enemy, is to forget that they too are human and that they too bear the imago Dei. The Anatolian believers were to show grace to those who opposed them, just as God showed them grace when they opposed him. In Peter’s words, they too were formerly ignorant (1:14), needing to be ransomed from futile ways through the blood of Jesus (1:18). Having been born again to a living hope (1:3), to be a holy priesthood (2:5, 9), they are commissioned to proclaim God’s mighty acts and do good for his glory (2:9–12). In so doing, the Anatolian Christians would fulfil their priestly commission, seeking to bless their enemies as they had first been blessed by God. We may say, therefore, that the blessing to which the Anatolian Christians are called is first to actively absorb the evil perpetrated against them, and second to respond to such evil with blessing.
Link and contact…
For the full article, click here, or emailing dshaw@pbc.wa.edu.au.
Cheers
David M. Shaw, “Called to Bless: Considering an Under-appreciated Aspect of ‘Doing Good’ in 1 Peter 3:8–17.” Biblical Theology Bulletin 50/3: 161–173. The snippet that follows can be found on p. 168.
Shay, Jonathan. 2003 (1994). Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character. Scribner.
Piper, John. 1980. “Hope as the Motivation of Love: 1 Peter 3:9–12.” New Testament Studies 26/2: 212–30.