Narrative, Calling & Missional Identity: Preview 2
From chapter 2: Mission in Primo-Petrine Literature
Given the relative neglect of 1 Peter in missional literature and the fact that the church’s relationship to the surrounding culture is a central theme of the letter, it stands to reason that an extended look at 1 Peter should add value and bring fresh insight to the missional conversation.
[In my monograph, I] begin with a review of some of the relevant Petrine literature that draws attention to ideas of mission within the letter.
In this second preview I feature two important journal articles from my literature review that considers mission within 1 Peter. The first is by Rolex Cailing on the missional use of the Old Testament in 1 Peter; the second is by David Horrell on wives as a missional paradigm in 1 Peter.
Other works that appear in the literature review include David Balch (Let Wives be Submissive); John Elliott (‘1 Peter, Its Situation and Strategy: A Discussion with David Balch’); Miroslav Volf (‘Soft Difference’); Joel Green (‘Living as Exiles: The Church in the Diaspora in 1 Peter’); Eric Zeller (‘Intertextuality in 1 Peter 2:9–12’ [PhD diss. Dallas Theological Seminary]); and Douglas Holm (‘Holy Engagement: Doing Good and Verbal Witness as Missional Activity in 1 Peter’ [PhD, University of Bristol/Trinity College]).
Rolex Cailing: Missional Use of the OT1
The primary concern of Cailing’s article has to do with how Peter utilises the OT to express the church’s mission in its new covenant context. He builds his case in four steps: (1) he begins with insights from Peter’s life (assuming genuine authorship and the fidelity of the NT vis-à-vis Peter’s life); (2) he looks at 1 Peter as a missional document identifying three core elements including, (a) the importance of identity, (b) the centrality of election, and (c) seeing mis- sion as a communal exercise; (3) Cailing argues for Peter’s missional use of the OT, featuring 2:9–10 as his prime example; and finally, (4) he comments on the heart of the missional task.
First, Cailing argues that to fully understand Peter’s exposition we must appreciate the fact that Peter learned his approach to the OT from Jesus himself, and would have been exposed to such teaching for the duration of Jesus’ ministry. He further argues that there are hints of a missional mentality, or ‘universalizing intention’, as he follows Peter’s life into Acts (see esp. Acts 2; 3:25; 10:1–11:18 cf. Isa 44:3; Joel 2:32; Genesis 12).
Second, Cailing views 1 Peter as a fundamentally missional document with three core components: namely identity, election, and community. In the first instance, Cailing posits that mission springs from identity. His focus draws particularly on the priestly aspect of the church’s identity from which they are to declare God’s excellencies. On election, Cailing sees potential ten- sion between the notions of election and exclusion but suggests the church remained a community open to outsiders, even as Peter reminded them, consistently, that they were God’s elect people. In fact, they were chosen specifically for witness in word and deed. Finally, mission according to 1 Peter is a ‘communal exercise’ (see 1 Pet 2:9 in which the church is identified collectively for the purpose of declaring God’s excellencies). The church finds strength in numbers not only as it proclaims the good news but also as it suffers for doing so.
Third, Cailing presents 1 Pet 2:9–10 as his prime example of Peter’s missional use of the OT. For Cailing, 2:9–10 provides the ‘link between the theological and pastoral’: the recipients of 1 Peter comprise the household of God that is to declare God’s praises and provide opportunities for outsiders to hear about and experience the mercies of God. The adoption of the OT in the context of 2:4–10 reveals that Peter is unafraid to apply descriptions of Israel’s identity and mission to the new covenant community, though they are now interpreted christologically. The missional resolve is taken from v. 9b, ὅπως τὰς ἀρετὰς ἐξαγγείλητε, and draws on the preceding OT quotations in v. 9a which describe the people of Israel as ambassadors who display God’s character to the nations.
Finally, the nature of the church’s missional task, according to Cailing, finds continuity between the OT and NT people of God. This is revealed in the church’s calling to display and proclaim God’s holy character—even as it experiences suffering—and so follows in the footsteps of Christ in whom they have found redemption. The importance of Cailing’s essay for this thesis is that each text that I have chosen to focus on (those that include καλέω), also features a combination of explicit and implicit references to the OT, meaning that I cannot talk about social identity or mission without reference to the OT. Cailing’s recent work, therefore, cannot be ignored as it brings together key elements that I too must explore.
David G. Horrell: Wives as Missional Paradigm2
In a 2009 article considering the themes of 1 Peter on the basis of early manuscript evidence, David Horrell observed that mission is a significant theme in 1 Peter without going into much further detail. More recently, however, Horrell has elaborated on the subject by focusing specifically on 1 Peter’s instructions to wives (3:1–6). In Horrell’s view, the conduct of wives—specifically those with unbelieving husbands—is presented in 1 Peter as a missional paradigm to be emulated by the rest of the church. The key imperative, as Horrell sees it, is the call to be submissive, which finds its overarching force from the general address to the church in 2:13 (cf. 5:5). The significance of the instructions to wives, however, is that they uniquely express the purpose of the submissive posture to which they are exhorted. That purpose is fundamentally missional in nature, explicitly, that their husbands might be won over to the faith.
The way wives are to win over their husbands is through conduct rather than words. As Horrell observes, one cannot escape the fact that the author’s concern is their conduct (ἀναστροφή), described in the following verse as ἐν φόβῳ ἁγνὴν (‘respectful’ [or fear] and ‘pure’ [or holy]). In Horrell’s estimation, φόβος is reserved for God alone, thus aligning this passage with other references to φόβος throughout 1 Peter, while ἁγνός is tantamount to ‘holy’ and is to be the defining quality of Christian ἀναστροφή, which manifests itself in modesty, quietness, and meekness. Ironically, this visible ἀναστροφή is evidence of a wife’s ‘hidden person of the heart’ (v. 4). Importantly for Horrell’s case, these qualities are not exclusively Judeo-Christian values, nor are they applied to women alone. By contrast, such character was valued in the Greco-Roman world and expected of virtuous people, regardless of gender.
The key to Horrell’s argument that wives’ character and conduct ought to be considered paradigmatic for the broader church lies in his observation that 3:13–17—a portion of 1 Peter that addresses all the recipients—displays significant parallels with the specific instructions to wives back in 3:1–6. While pride of place in 1 Peter’s Haustafel goes to the οἰκέται (household servants)—an issue that will be explored in chapter 4 of this thesis—there is no doubt that Horrell’s observation that wives also serve as exemplars for the whole community is correct. This is because, like the οἰκέται, wives were also susceptible to suffering. In this context of potential suffering, both household servants and wives of non-believing husbands were to display a life of humility. In this way, their lives serve as testimony to their faith in Christ that may prove attractive enough to win over their masters or spouses, or in the case of the church-at-large, anyone who might find reason to disparage the church. This is not to say, however, that such conduct will always quell derision. On the contrary, the holy conduct of God’s people may invite further conflict and dissonance precisely because their new way of life does not fully align with the values of their greater culture. On Horrell’s reckoning, the missional posture of the church that 1 Peter encourages is one of subtlety in the face of conflict. In his own words:
Quiet appeal by means of a good way of life is a strategy well-suited to a context where accusation and violence are ever-present possibilities, though it does not imply avoiding all conflict or accepting all external demands.
This was the second instalment of a series that previews my forthcoming monograph.
See part 1 here.
Preorder the book directly from Brill here.
Rolex Cailing, ‘“That You May Proclaim His Excellencies”: The Missional Use of the Old Testament in 1 Peter’, TorchTrinJ 16, no. 2 (2013): 138–55
David G. Horrell, ‘Fear, Hope, and Doing Good: Wives as a Paradigm of Mission in 1 Peter’, EstBíb LXXIII, no. 3 (2015): 409–29.