Themes of subversion in 1 Peter 1:1-25

Reflections alongside Saint Peter and Simone Weil: faith, hope, love, and—suffering?

Themes of subversion in 1 Peter: Background and introduction

Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ,

To God’s elect, exiles scattered throughout the provinces of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to be obedient to Jesus Christ and sprinkled with his blood:

Grace and peace be yours in abundance.

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care, trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of the Messiah and the glories that would follow. It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you, when they spoke of the things that have now been told you by those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Even angels long to look into these things.

1 Peter 1:1-12, NIV

Yellowstone Fire XIX by Donald Holden, 1991

In lieu of a verse-by-verse commentary, which I am unqualified to provide and people probably wouldn’t read anyway, I want to highlight an important element of Peter’s introduction and then end with a similar perspective in modern philosophy—this is more of a meditation on 1 Peter than an exegetical work. The theme of “subversion” will become more obvious as the letter continues, but you may already know where I’m going with this.

The message of hope, made possible by faith, hinging on the reality of Christ, is connected directly to the less-than-fortunate circumstances of the intended audience. They “rejoice, though now for a little while” they “suffer grief in all kinds of trials.” This “inheritance” which is theirs must be more than the land taken by the Babylonians and now the Romans, as some of their ancestors understood it—we have to put on our glasses with the widest metaphysical lens to see it.

Is this suffering necessary? Is it possible in God’s created world? Peter seems to think so (3:17¹) and he stands in the tradition of prophets like Isaiah who certainly thought so,² but this doesn’t make sense to us. It’s funny, because the ancient world seemed to have less of a fundamental problem with suffering in a world with a benevolent god than we do, and the main thing that relates our collective first world societies to each other is the vague notion that we have it far better than they ever did. So we suffer less, but they appreciated life more?

We’re so… so something, westernized maybe, that we can’t accept Peter’s message. Except “westernized” doesn’t work because some of the people who understood this basic idea were more western than they were Christian—Marcus Aurelius, for example. Maybe “coddled” is a better word—or “addicted to comfort.” We don’t need to be Stoics to see Peter’s message, but we do need a sort of practical, everyday appreciation for physical suffering to see beyond it.³ And no, I’m not talking about glorifying suffering—I’m talking about a worldview that somehow understands humanity as withering grass and yet connects it with the Word of God, the Good News:

Therefore, with minds that are alert and fully sober, set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at his coming. As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.”

Since you call on a Father who judges each person’s work impartially, live out your time as foreigners here in reverent fear. For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake. Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God.

Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for each other, love one another deeply, from the heart. For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God. For,

“All people are like grass,
and all their glory is like the flowers of the field;
the grass withers and the flowers fall,
but the word of the Lord endures forever.”

And this is the word that was preached to you.

1 Peter 1:13-25, NIV

Pasadena Light by Louis Hovey Sharp

We need to be more familiar with the Bible’s wisdom literature—Job, Psalms, Ecclesiastes—than we are with modern scholarship or civilization or science if we are to understand Peter here. We have to understand existence on an additional plane than the one we see. If physical existence is all, then our greatest accomplishment is nothing but a flower in a field, vanity of vanities, whether we suffer in this life or become the wealthiest person alive. We need something transcendent to be the “imperishable seed.” I like the way the mystic philosopher Simone Weil’s perspective is summarized—I don’t think it’s too far from Peter’s perspective:

Her [Weil's] conclusion is that subjection is the natural condition of human beings in a world where the idea of servitude has become confused with that of servility, and where the inquisitive and acquisitive take precedence in human affairs over the contemplative…what she is advocating is not the forelock-touching servility that bows to superior strength, and certainly not a cowardly obedience to the mechanics of [today’s economics] but an informed and mature stoicism, an amor fati [love of fate] that considers all human endeavor and behavior as subject to laws to the same extent as matter.⁴

In my view, the inquisitive and acquisitive, which our entire society is consumed by, are restricted entirely to the temporal, whereas the contemplative can catch glimpses beyond—even beyond the suffering that grounds us to the temporal.⁵ Of course, any attempt to navigate suffering in this world via spiritual or mystical means, via “the precious blood of Christ” (1:19⁶) will seem contradictory or useless to the world, but Peter doesn’t seem to be bothered by that, as his letter’s coming practical advice will show. It didn’t bother Weil either:

The contradictions the mind comes up against—these are the only realities: they are the criterion of the real. There is no contradiction in what is imaginary. Contradiction is the test of necessity.

Contradiction experienced to the very depths of the being tears us heart and soul: it is the cross.⁷

As Christians, we are expected to lead a life of subversive self-subjection to others (2:13-3:7), whether they are right or wrong: we must not be surprised at this fiery ordeal (4:12).⁸ We are mere laborers in this world like everyone else, but we can participate in a transcendence of earth and heaven, the Word of God, “poetry” in Weil’s vocabulary. Anything merely physical that we think will save us or right the ship that is the world is a fantasy:

Workers need poetry more than bread. They need that their life should be a poem. They need some light from eternity.

Religion alone can be the source of such poetry.

It is not religion but revolution which is the opium of the people.⁹

And again:

There is one form of relief and one only. Only one thing makes monotony bearable and that is beauty, the light of the eternal…One looks with desire at a clear starry night and one desires exactly the sight before one’s eyes…the people need poetry as they need bread. Not the poetry inside closed words: by itself that is no use to them. They need poetry to be the very substance of daily life. Such poetry can come from one source only and that is God.¹⁰

Some of you might be a little uncomfortable now, and there’s good reason to be! Any message preached about otherworldly, numinous solutions to our problems sounds an awful lot like messages used to abuse people and condone mistreatment, but the message of 1 Peter can’t be further from this. For we preach Christ crucified (1 Cor 1:23), a reality that is far from merely spiritual. The Bible doesn’t provide a license for mistreating earthly life, but rather a method for treating the world’s ills that can’t be coopted.¹¹

Peter will provide practical examples of this subversive technique, but in the first chapter of the letter we need to focus on having a disposition, a perspective, that enables us to see beyond what the world sees and love one another more deeply (1:22). It’s not popular, but we have to embrace—on a practical, everyday level—suffering. Even gold will perish in an intense fire (1:7), but we are only refined and made perfect (Heb 10:14). We need this perspective because if we start taking the rest of the letter seriously, we will find ourselves in some uncomfortable scenarios. According to Peter, this is cause for rejoicing, a celebration of God’s will (1:6, 2:15-20, 3:17, 4:15-19).

This kind of view wasn’t unique in Peter’s day. One of the most important non-biblical texts floating around in the Hebrew zeitgeist was 1 Enoch,¹² which ends with a similar message of hope and exaltation for those who suffer the most for God, those “Who love God and loved neither gold nor silver nor any of the good things which are in the world, but gave over their bodies to torture. Who, since they came into being, longed not after earthly food, but regarded everything as a passing breath, and lived accordingly, and the Lord tried them much, and their spirits were found pure so that they should bless His name” (1 Enoch 108:8-9).¹³

I’ll end with some more worlds from Weil:

The treasure of suffering and violent death, which Christ chose for himself and which he so often offers to those he loves, means so little to us that we throw it to those whom we least esteem, knowing that they will make nothing of it and having no intention of helping them to discover its value.¹⁴

With a biblical perspective, we can avoid that great “tragedy of those who, having been guided by the love of the Good into a road where suffering has to be endured, after a certain time reach their limit and become debased.”¹⁵ So let us be like-minded (3:8) and be holy, because God is holy (1:16).

Themes of subversion in 1 Peter 2:1-3:7

1. Verse addresses without a book reference are for 1 Peter.

2. The “suffering servant” passages scattered throughout Isaiah 40-53 are a great example. Peter has this passage in mind, since he quoted it in 1:24-25. The good news is mixed with the suffering of Israel at the hands of her enemies and the suffering of Christ who is Israel perfected. As Christians, we can't separate ourselves from either aspect of this servant—we have been grafted into Israel, and we are the body of Christ which is poured out.

3. I considered a section or footnote to remind readers that I'm not trying to speak down to any of you or pretending that I understand whatever suffering or trauma you might be experiencing right now. But there's no easy way to say it, and Ecclesiastes, Job, and the Psalms already said it better. So if you're suffering, know that I'm not telling you how to feel about it. I'm trying to convey what I think is a biblical message, but that doesn't mean undue suffering goes away. Feel free to be offended; your perspective is important, too.

4. Miles, Siân. Simone Weil: An Anthology (1986). Grove Press. Pg 41. This “stoicism” should not be confused with the philosophical school of thought with the same name, although it is similar in some ways. Neither Weil nor Peter were advocating Stoicism, although it’s easy to find elements of biblical truth in the philosophy.

5. I don't mean to suggest that we can really know anything or escape the temporal via contemplation. Some self-doubt is always necessary. I like the way Kierkegaard puts it in The Concept of Anxiety, as translated by Alastair Hannay: “Eternity is bent into time for the imagination. Construed in this way, eternity produces an enchanting effect. It does not know whether it is a dream or actuality; the eternal peeps wistfully, dreamily, roguishly into the moment, as the beams from the moon glimmer in an illuminated forest, or a hall. Thought of the eternal becomes a fanciful busying, and the mood is always the same: Am I dreaming, or is it eternity that dreams about me?” (Liveright Publishing Corporation, 2014, pg 184).

6. Of course, one must remember that Christ and the cross are not merely spiritual; they occupy both planes completely.

7. Weil, Simone. Gravity and Grace, translated by Emma Crauford, Routledge & Kegan Paul (1952).

8. And no, I definitely don’t mean that we shouldn’t seek freedom where possible. For freedom Christ has made us free, but this freedom is to be used for the sake of others (Gal 5).

9. Weil, Simone. Gravity and Grace.

10. Weil, Simone. La Condition Ouvrière (1951), translated by Siân Miles in Simone Weil: An Anthology (1986). Pg 248.

11. I’m well aware that the Bible has often been used to promote exactly the opposite of what I just said. But hey, if misuse of a text is sufficient grounds to condemn it then we might as well throw out the U.S. Constitution, Nietzsche, the Quran, and countless others.

12. Except they definitely didn’t call it that, because 2 and 3 Enoch didn’t exist yet.

13. This excerpt is from the translation by R.H. Charles.

14. Weil, Simone. Selected Essays 1934-43, translated by Richard Rees (1962). Oxford University Press.

15. Weil, Simone. Gravity and Grace.