Preview #8: The Consummation of the Calling—1 Peter 5:6–14
A sample from ch. 8 of Narrative, Calling & Missional Identity in 1 Peter (pp. 192–96)
In view of my monograph’s publication date being brought forward two weeks to Thursday 16 November 2023 (YAY!), I’m putting out some more previews in the lead up to the big day. Once again, you can check it out at the publisher’s website here. Today’s preview comes from a chapter that considers the consummation of God’s call on the lives of Christian believers. Earlier chapter previews at the following links:
‘Babylon’: The ‘Home’ of Mission, Suffering, and Blessing
In 5:13 Peter conveys greetings to the Anatolian churches from a colleague: Μᾶρκος ὁ υἱός μου (Mark, my son); and a group: συνεκλεκτὴ (she who is co-elect), who reside ἐν Βαβυλῶνι (in Babylon). Taking Mark to be the same person in Acts 12 (John Mark) and ‘she who is co-elect’ to be a reference to the church community from where Peter wrote (cf. Eph 5:22–33; 2 John 1, 13; Rev 19:7–9), we direct our attention to Babylon in terms of its narrative impact and identity forming capital.[42]
To do so, we first recall Feldmeier’s hypothesis that Babylon may function ‘as a cipher for the Diaspora existence of the Roman community’.[43] In other words, Babylon may not function merely geographically, but along with our aforementioned elect-sojourning motif, creates a dynamic metaphor for the Christian life which we have sought to demonstrate as one of resident-alien-ness. Feldmeier’s assessment certainly conforms with the content of 1 Peter. The exhortation to submit to the authorities (2:13–17), the call to bless those who cause the churches’ suffering (3:8–12), as well as responding to critics with gentleness and respect (3:13–17) shows that Peter is not necessarily anti-Rome; yet at the same time, there is a clear call out from the dominant culture to be a people belonging to God and devoted to his purposes (1:13–21; 2:4–12; 4:2–4). Supposing that this is the case, it is worth asking the kinds of connotations Babylon would engender and how it might function in relation to the rest of 1 Peter, particularly with regards to our own focus on the language of calling.
At the outset, it is worth noting with Martin Williams that the motif of election stands out as an important theme for Peter as it bookends the entire epistle (ἐκλεκτοῖς [1:1], συνεκλεκτὴ [5:13]).[44] Interestingly, however, in both instances it also stands with language associated with marginalisation (παρεπιδήμοις διασπορᾶς [1:1], ἐν Βαβυλῶνι [5:13]). Thus, the whole letter is framed, not only by the theme of election as Williams observes, but also by the theme of exile; that of being an outsider or sojourner.[45] The mention of Babylon in close association with election serves to reinforce the position of the Anatolian believers in the world:[46] chosen of God (ἐκλεκτοῖς), yet rejected by the world (παρεπιδήμοις).[47] In this sense, Babylon functions as the ‘anti-prototype’ that stands against God’s people. On the notion of prototypes Michael Hogg writes that:
Prototypes are often stored in memory to be ‘called forth’ by social categorization in a particular context to guide perception, self-conception, and action ... New prototypes form, or existing ones are modified, in such a way as to maximize the ratio of perceived intergroup differences to intragroup similarities; prototypes form to accentuate similarities within a category and differences between categories.[48]
In the context of 1 Peter, Babylon is utilised as an anti-prototype to (borrowing Hogg’s language) ‘guide perception, self-conception, and action’, as well as, ‘accentuate in-group similarities and out-group differences’.
This framework of election/rejection and sojourning is elaborated in various ways through the language of calling that appears in 1 Peter which we will attempt to trace briefly here. First, in 1:13–21, the election motif appears in the Anatolian Christians being called by God to be holy, bringing them into a familial relationship with him whereby he becomes their Father (1:17), and they become his children (1:14a). The motif of rejection, or (perhaps) separation, appears in that they no longer conform to ignorant passions (1:14b), having left behind the idolatrous ways of their forefathers (1:18). This transition to a new paternity is brought about through Christ’s blood sacrifice (1:19), through whom they have become believers in God (v. 21).[49]
Second, 2:4–10 more explicitly raises the election/rejection theme through the use of ‘stone’ language. Jesus is the ‘Living Stone’, rejected by men but chosen by God (v. 4). Similarly, he is ‘the stone the builders rejected [that] has [now] become the cornerstone’ of a new temple and priesthood (v. 7). Honour is given from God to those who believe (v. 7), but they can expect to be labeled as evil doers in the world (2:12). And while the world may reject them, they are ‘an elect kinsfolk, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God’ (2:9a). As God’s chosen and holy vessels, they are to proclaim his mighty acts as those ‘called out of darkness into his marvelous light’ (9b). Here we get the first explicit suggestion that this call is not simply to be out of the world as an isolated group, but as those engaged in mission to those outside the faith community.[50] Importantly, these verses also reveal that Peter is engaging in a form of social creativity that inverts definitions of honour and shame through the doctrine of election. The world’s rejection of Jesus, culminating in his crucifixion and death, is turned into honour and triumph through Jesus’ resurrection: death to life; dishonour to honour; rejected, yet elected. And part of Peter’s message is that what is true of Christ is likewise true of those who come to him in faith.
It is important to now step back and recall that for the recipients to whom Peter wrote, ‘Babylon’ was home—in fact, ‘Babylon’ still is home—but not like it used to be. It has become for them ‘a space of alienation, of strangeness, in which [they as] Christians are rightfully out of place as God’s elect’.[51] They were called out of darkness and left behind their old ways (1:18; 4:2–4). Among the new believers were slaves who now faced the prospect of wrath at the hands of their non-believing masters (2:18–20); similarly, spouses who had converted faced uncertainty in their relationships with their non-believing partners (3:1–7). In the blink of an eye, these new Christians became resident aliens in their homes and homelands by virtue of their new-found faith (2:11). In the previous chapter, we suggested that this resident-alien-ness may be the reason for both their success at winning people to the faith as well as their suffering persecutions. This resident-alien-ness in a ‘Babylonian’ context aligns with our thematic bookends of election/rejection. In a strange way, therefore, ‘Babylon’ is the place that is simultaneously ‘home’, and yet, ‘not home’. It is the place out of which they were called and sent back to as priestly sojourners. As such, Babylon has become for them the place of mission, suffering, and blessing.
Such circumstances evoke Jer 29:4–7. In a letter to exiles in Babylon, Jeremiah’s word from the Lord urged the Israelites to put down roots in Babylon and seek to be a blessing (‘for in its welfare, you will find your welfare’)—a theme that is strikingly familiar to that found in 1 Pet 3:8–12. The means by which the Israelites were to seek the welfare of Babylon was to:
Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease (Jer 29:5–6).
In short, the Israelites were to make Babylon their home, even though, deep down, it was clearly not home. They were to put down roots, invest in the city, and build a life by which the Babylonians would encounter God’s character through them as they lived out their calling during their sojourn away from the Promised Land. In much the same way, having been called to eternal glory in Christ, the Anatolian believers live in a world that is home, and yet not home. Like the Israelites in Babylon, they too must put down roots and seek the shalom of the places in which they live, so that the character of God might be displayed to all as they await their inheritance.
In summary, Peter’s use of ‘Babylon’ emphasises one final time, the status of God’s people as simultaneously rejected by the world and yet chosen of God. They are to embrace their elect-sojourning status as resident aliens that establishes them as a holy people, set apart to declare God’s praise as a priestly community, and being a blessing in their communities even if they should suffer for it. In short, ‘Babylon’ stands as their home away from home, the place that God has called them to dwell as a holy priestly community in the place of mission, of suffering, and of blessing as they await the eternal glory that is theirs in Christ.
Their life, that is characterised by resident-alien-ness and constant turmoil, is to be bound by the peace that comes from being ‘in Christ’. As those who are called by God in Christ, they have assurance that evil and sin will not have the final say over their lives, for the One who called them is the one who has acted to redeem them (1:18–21; 2:24–25, 3:18); brought them into his family and made them objects of his mercy (2:4–10); suffered as they have suffered (2:21–25); and will himself bring them to eternal glory (5:10). For these reasons, peace will guard their hearts (5:14) until they receive the grace that is to be theirs at the revelation of Christ (1:13), for that is their calling, and in Christ, God has shown himself faithful to fulfil that calling.
Pace Judith K. Applegate, ‘The Co-Elect Woman of 1 Peter’, NTS 38, no. 4 (1992): 587–604. On Mark and ‘she who is co-elect’, see my discussion in Shaw, ‘A People Called’, 340–42. To my mind, Applegate seems to miss that which is obvious: Why not simply name the woman, as with the many other women who were so honoured throughout the NT?
Feldmeier, The First Letter of Peter, 41. It is also possible that ‘Babylon’ is being used in the sense of empire.
Martin Williams, The Doctrine of Salvation in the First Letter of Peter, SNTSMS 149 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 46–47.
Similarly, Lutz Doering, ‘First Peter as Early Christian Diaspora Letter’, in Catholic Epistles and Apostolic Tradition: A New Perspective on James to Jude, ed. Karl-Wilhelm Niebuhr and Robert W. Wall (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2009), 230, who also observes similar sentiments of election by God and rejection by the world in contemporaneous Jewish traditions.
Cf. Hank Rothgerber, ‘External Intergroup Threat as an Antecedent to Perceptions of In-Group and Out-Group Homogeneity’, J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 73, no. 6 (1997): 1210, the threat associated with Babylon would have the potential to bring a stronger sense of ingroup solidarity within the church.
Dan G. McCartney, ‘The Use of the Old Testament in the First Epistle of Peter’ (PhD diss., Westminster Theological Seminary, 1989), 114.
Michael A. Hogg, ‘A Social Identity Theory of Leadership’, Pers. Soc. Psychol. Rev. 5, no. 3 (August 2001): 187.
In terms of social identity, perhaps the most significant aspect in 1:13–21 is the contrast between the Holy God as Father and the futile ways of the forefathers. On the importance of fathers, particularly in Jewish society, see Selwyn, The First Epistle of St. Peter, 142.
Joel B. Green, ‘Living as Exiles: The Church in the Diaspora in 1 Peter’, in Holiness and Ecclesiology in the New Testament, ed. Kent E. Brower and Andy Johnson (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2007), 323, ‘they are to embody the call to Israel in Exodus and in Exile to be holy. As a priestly people, a holy nation, they would embrace a missional vocation to be “holy”’.
Wei Hsien Wan, The Contest for Time and Space in the Roman Imperial Cults and 1 Peter: Reconfiguring the Universe, LNTS 611 (London: Bloomsbury, 2019), 166.