In 1976, Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza observed that many biblical scholars failed to recognise that, at its core, Christianity was a missionary (or missional) movement.1 Commenting on Schüssler Fiorenza’s statement some eight years later, Donald Senior lamented that outside of evangelical circles, discussions about mission in biblical studies had been all but absent for much of the second half of the twentieth century.2 He went on to warn that, ‘[t]he mission concerns of the community and their impact on the NT writings must be given their due.’3 A further twelve years after Senior, a similar warning was sounded by Marion Soards, who asked those in the field of mission studies to:
remind biblical scholars that many of the writings that we study (often in painstaking and even painful detail) came to be because of the reality of mission. An awareness of and a concern with the key issues of mission studies may well help biblical studies find foci that will bring deeper appreciation of the meaning of the Bible.4
These comments evidence a disinclination towards mission within biblical studies that carried over into the research of 1 Peter until quite recently. Thankfully, more scholars have begun to recognise mission as being a key theme in 1 Peter, especially since Miroslav Volf’s ‘Soft Difference’.5 In fact, Christoph Stenschke posits that the epistle ‘should be read against the background of early Christian mission’,6 while Eugene Boring has gone so far as to suggest that the Petrine churches were ‘structured for mission’.7
Others, however, remain to be convinced of mission’s centrality to the epistle. David Balch, for instance, although seeing 1 Peter’s Haustafel as having apologetic value in line with works of other Hellenistic Jews such as Josephus or Philo, nonetheless finds the epistle to be lacking ‘missionary intent’.8 Alternatively, Paul Holloway argues that the primary thrust of 1 Peter is one of consolation rather than mission,9 while most recently, Travis Williams has contended that the labelling of those outside the church ‘as corrupt and destined for destruction’ works to retain distinction between believers and non-believers.10 Thus, while it has been contended that mission is ‘the mother of theology’,11 it appears that the ‘mother’s’ place at the table of biblical studies—and in the study of 1 Peter in particular—remains in question.12
This situation is ironic for, as Christopher Wright perceives, ‘the biblical text in itself is a product of mission in action’.13 Or to put it another way, ‘the history and theology of earliest Christianity are “mission history” and “mission theology”’.14 Following David Bosch, one might even affirm that mission is at the heart of the church’s nature; it is her raison d’être.15 If it is correct that the church’s mission should be central to one’s understanding of biblical documents, and if, as Bosch has stated, mission is indeed the church’s ‘reason for being’, then the relationship between that mission and the church’s identity (or more broadly, Christian identity) warrants closer inspection.
To that end, the present thesis seeks to contribute to the missional conversations surrounding 1 Peter by considering the epistle’s use of the Old Testament through the utilisation of Narrative Transportation (NTT) and Social Identity theories (SIT) as lenses by which to examine the text in relation to the identity and mission of the church. Several reasons justify this approach, which to my knowledge has not been tried in the field of Biblical Studies to this point:
As will be demonstrated, while literature within the field of Petrine studies is increasingly reflecting on the missional aspects of the letter, too few engage thoroughly in how the OT narrative might shape the identity of the church and its missional concern. Narrative Transportation Theory is singularly beneficial here because it provides the framework and language to articulate how narratives and their constituent parts operate on the affections of the recipients to encourage a particular way of life. First Peter’s regular dependence on the OT to communicate its message to its audience makes the letter an excellent candidate to apply the methodology and may open new avenues for researching other biblical documents.
Those that do consider the OT with regards to the missional concern of 1 Peter tend to do so without recourse to a consistent methodology. While some studies have taken a narrative approach and others taken on social identity approaches,16 this study utilises both angles to develop a hybrid methodology that takes into consideration a narrative and psycho-sociological approach to the letter’s use of OT language, narrative, characters, and images and its subsequent impact on its recipients.
Because mission is inherently relational—at least in so far as it assumes that faith communities engage with their surrounding cultures—the use of NTT and SIT provide dual lenses that assist the reader in discerning the movement from story to identity, and from identity to mission. That is, we want to investigate how the OT narrative underpinnings of 1 Peter work themselves out regarding the church’s corporate identity, and how that subsequently impacts its mission in the wider community.
Such an approach proves especially helpful regarding the development of positive Christian identity, the negotiation of intergroup relations, conflict resolution, and the like, all of which have become areas of contention.17 Where NTT proves uniquely helpful in all of this is that it demonstrates vividly that the stories and narratives we believe matter—that if I see myself in someone else’s story, on an individual or communal level, I am more likely to live in sync with that story and to operate according to its values and truth claims. To my mind, this is what is missing from much of the conversation that surrounds mission in 1 Peter, and even in the New Testament more broadly. It is into this space that the present work seeks to make an original contribution.
Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, ‘Miracles, Mission, and Apologetics: An Introduction’, in Aspects of Religious Propaganda in Judaism and Early Christianity, ed. Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, Studies in Judaism and Christianity in Antiquity 2 (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1976), 1.
Donald P. Senior, ‘The Struggle to Be Universal: Mission as Vantage Point for New Testament Investigation’, CBQ 46, no. 1 (1984): 65, puts the neglect of mission down to several issues including, ‘A reassessment of the value of non-Christian religions; a radical shift in the church’s self-understanding; [and] the turn in the political atmosphere of the post-colonial period’.
Senior, ‘The Struggle to be Universal,’ 66.
Marion L. Soards, ‘Key Issues in Biblical Studies and Their Bearing on Mission Studies’, Missiology 24, no. 1 (1996): 107, emphasis added.
Miroslav Volf, ‘Soft Difference: Theological Reflections on the Relation between Church and Culture in 1 Peter’, ExAud 10 (1994): 15–30
Christoph Stenschke, ‘Reading First Peter in the Context of Early Christian Mission’, TynBul 60 (2009): 107–26.
M. Eugene Boring, 1 Peter, ANTC (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1999), 162.
David L. Balch, Let Wives Be Submissive: The Domestic Code in 1 Peter, SBLMS 26 (Chico: Scholars Press, 1981), 108.
Paul A. Holloway, Coping with Prejudice: 1 Peter in Social-Psychological Perspective, WUNT 244 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009), 113–36.
Travis B. Williams, Good Works in 1 Peter: Negotiating Social Conflict and Christian Identity in the Greco-Roman World, WUNT 337 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014), 272–73.
Martin Kähler, Schriften zur Christologie und Mission; Gesamtausgabe der Schriften zur Mission., Theologische Bücherei 42 (München: Chr. Kaiser Verlag, 1971), 190.
Illustrative of this point, for example, is the fact that a respected series like the American Society of Missiology Series—now approaching some forty volumes—remains absent from The SBL Handbook of Style (2014). And while the number of articles and chapters devoted to the theme of mission in 1 Peter has increased, there are few substantial treatments of the topic within biblical studies.
Christopher J. H. Wright, The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrative (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2006), 49; likewise, David J. Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission, American Society of Missiology Series 16 (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1991), 15, 54.
Martin Hengel, Between Jesus and Paul: Studies in the Earliest History of Christianity (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2003), 64; see also, Allan Chapple, ‘The Appropriation of Scripture in 1 Peter’, in All That the Prophets Have Declared: The Appropriation of Scripture in the Emergence of Christianity, ed. Matthew R. Malcolm (Milton Keynes: Paternoster, 2015), 155. Chapple adds further, ‘the New Testament documents are to be seen both as products of mission and as instruments of mission: they have a missionary origin and they serve a missionary purpose’.
Bosch, Transforming Mission, 9.
E.g., Abson Prédestin Joseph, A Narratological Reading of 1 Peter, LNTS 440 (London: T&T Clark, 2012); and Todd D. Still and Natalie R. Webb, ‘“Aliens” among “Pagans”, “Exiles” among “Gentiles”: Authorial Strategy and (Social) Identity in 1 Peter’, in T&T Clark Handbook to Social Identity in the New Testament, ed. J. Brian Tucker and Coleman A. Baker (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2014), 455–72, respectively.
See, e.g., the negative view taken by Jennifer G. Bird, Abuse, Power and Fearful Obedience: Reconsidering 1 Peter’s Commands to Wives, LNTS 442 (London: T&T Clark, 2011).