1 Peter additional study — Semantic Nets

first-peter-semantic-nets

FIRST PETER: THE RHETORICAL UNIVERSE

BY J. MICHAEL STRAWN

SPECIAL INCLUSION: SEMANTIC NETS

INTRODUCTION AND TERMINOLOGY

In our use of human language, we understand that words and concepts are formed sequentially—that is, one after another. However, the depth of meaning in each word can cause us to look at grammatical structure vertically, as in layers, as well as horizontally, as in sequence.

Let’s look at a love letter, for example. The lover who reads the letter would not only be aware of the sequence of words and thoughts, but in the meanings attached to each word. In the sentence “I love you,” for instance, there is a world of meaning. “I” signifies not just the writer, but implies willful decision, a separation from the idea of other similar persons, individual choice. “Love” carries with it the weight of the concept of romance, self-sacrifice, hope of fulfillment. “You” separates the recipient from any other reader of the letter, speaks of the uniqueness and individuality.

Thus, though the sentence would come to the mind of the intended reader sequentially, each word would create what we might call a semantic net in which each word or concept would include and incorporate meaning supplied by the context of the letter; indeed, from the situation itself (which is a context.)

Scripture, on the other hand, does not depend either on the context in which it was written nor in which it is read for its layers of meanings, or its semantic net. Rather, it has the unique ability among all writings to create its own semantic nets completely apart from context of any type.

Let’s see how this applies to 1 Peter. In this book, we read the remarkable statement, “Cast all your anxiety upon Him because He cares for you” (5:7.) “Casting” implies and includes unburdening, relieving, transferring. But all of these derive their meaning only incidentally from the context of the reader, but are inherently connected to the rest of the words in Scripture: the only “context” in which they can properly be evaluated. Thus the reader would not have the right of saying, “Well, my life” (his context) “doesn’t fit with that—I gotta take care of myself.” A contextual thinker would continually evaluate the validity and value of Scripture according to how it fits into his limited contextual thinking. An analogic thinker, on the other hand, would not allow his own view of “reality” or human context to serve as commentary or control over Scripture. The analogic thinker would take Scripture at face value, in its own self-created context, and not only believe what’s written—but would accompany that belief with correlative action. He would believe that God cares for him, and would do all possible to cast his anxieties on the shoulders of a willing Lord.

An analogic thinker would have the power to do this not through personal will, but with the help of the Holy Spirit, who overrules the human tendency to try to assign multiple interpretations to Scripture. Many congregational problems can be traced to attempts to give multiple interpretations to Scripture (something that is encouraged by our culture’s bowing to the demands of pluralism.) These multiple interpretations have their origin in the context of the reader, not in Scripture itself. (Of course the richness of Scripture allows for many generalizations that can be derived from any textual section. However, each of these generalizations would originate in the text, not the reader’s context: there are no free abductions.) For more information on the concept of free abductions, see the lesson entitled “Rules of Containment.”

As we shall see as we examine this concept further, the idea of semantic nets (and rhetorical reality in particular) demonstrates an organic reality that doesn’t have its origins in human time or thinking; but from outside earthly things. God has the power and manifests that power by creating realities—situations, relationships—before the creation of the world. The presence now of opposing situations in our temporal realm should be for the Christian relatively meaningless. As we continue to see from our study of 1 Peter, a Christian is called upon to not only acknowledge rhetorical realities, but to reify, or give actuality status, to those things.

ELEMENTS OF THE THEMATIC

SOME OBSERVATIONS ABOUT SEMANTIC NETS

The concept of rhetorical reality is one that has pervaded Scripture long before Peter spoke in chapter 1 of 1 Peter about an inheritance that is kept in heaven (1:4) and salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time (1:5). Peter appealed to an understanding that has been part of the believer’s psyche since Old Testament times—the knowledge that once God declares something as real, it becomes as much an actual factor in the believer’s life as any (sometimes oppositional) understanding supplied by the context of human lived experience or an individual situation. In the case of Peter’s believers, their salvation wasn’t something they could walk around in (in a physical sense) but it was just as real as the physical realities of suffering which they underwent daily.

We can see many Old Testament examples of the presence of rhetorical reality as an operating calculus in the mind of believers. All of the promises made to Abraham were rhetorical reality in the mind of God long before the physical conception of the body of Isaac, through whom all the promises would find fulfillment. At Kadesh, the refugees from Egypt were assured that though they did not at that moment have legal title to the Promised Land, it was nevertheless theirs. When these same people complained about the physical absence of water at Rephidim in Exodus 17, they faced a choice about how they would verbally represent the situation. They could either hold onto the rhetorical representations of the care of God for them (provided by His past dealings with His people; most recently with rescue from the Egyptians and subsequent provisions) or they could speak as if their immediate context were the reigning reality (which is what they did.) What they should have said would have come from within an analogic semantic net. What they did say came exclusively and tragically from within their contextual semantic net. (Notice that God was still faithful to His promises of provision, but the people’s attitudes were much more harmful to them ultimately than their temporary thirst.) All of the promises made to them, which were realities in the mind of God, existed rhetorically before they took physical shape in their lives. Verdant fields, homes ready to move into, protection from enemies—all of these were rhetorical realities first.

In fact, the analogic semantic net quite often bears no resemblance to what is occurring in the context. That’s why in Matthew 6 believers are told not to be anxious about contextual things, because the Father knows our needs and supplies them. Again: rhetorical realities preceding, subsuming, and even forming contextual ones. The unbeliever, on the other hand, would not only “run after” contextual needs, but would even try to cast his understanding of the context over any rhetorical understandings derived from Scripture. That is why many of the promises of Scripture seem “unrealistic” to a majority of Christians today as they observe their contexts and opt for giving superior operating status to the context instead of to the promises of God. As long as the contextual next remains, Scripture is just words.

Another concept that is applicable here is that of the culture of management. In this construct, life is separated into various fields or jurisdictions in which a peculiar language and thinking dominate. Whereas a Bible believer should accept God’s Word as decisive in each of these fields, we find rather that each management jurisdiction is given its own autonomy. For instance, in the military, the application of the culture of management would find that within the military jurisdiction, certain terminologies and ideas would if adopted to the exclusion of Scripture, formulate the mindset of anyone involved in this jurisdiction. Nowhere is this concept more familiar and more omnipresent than in the medical field. An illness, for instance, is not seen as an opportunity for the believer to show faith, to grow in character, to serve as an example, and a way for God to show His sovereignty over human affairs. Instead, the question of “what can heal me?” is answered with the terminology of pharmacology, surgery, statistics, and other terms from within the medical jurisdictional net.

Other examples of jurisdictional nets that are prevalent in our society’s thinking: information and data transfers, opinions, property rights, politics, expression of opinions, security, even child care.

As situations arise in an individual’s context, he may find himself bouncing from one jurisdictional net to another–changing language and understandings as he goes.

Do semantic nets lead to managerial nets? Of course. Not only is the culture of management pervasive in our culture, but it is nearly inescapable given the fact that language itself changes perceptions. The language of doctors and lawyers in assessing a situation, for instance, can literally change the situation itself–and how it’s “managed.”

Even the Church finds itself functioning as a management jurisdiction. Eldership is seen as such. The division of responsibilities and roles into “ministries” (singles, youth, etc.) shows how we see management jurisdictional nets functioning all around us. And when Scripture is seen as having multiple interpretations derived from personal context instead of from the Scripture, each equally good because pluralism would demand acceptance of each, then we end up with congregations full of parallel environments based on multiple semantic nets of understanding.

If they are not assigned their proper import in the lives of believers, rhetorical realities become like a velcro ball throw into a contextual net. The rhetorical is in effect frozen by being surrounded by a contextual net. An example of this: periodization of Scripture (trying to tie it to the context in which it was written) is a way of casting rhetorical reality into a contextual net, and the result is that we see Scripture as something disconnected from our own everyday experience because it was written “way back there for those people long ago.”

The Kingdom of God manifests itself in two ways. One is rhetorically–after all, we would know nothing about the Kingdom except through revelation, which is itself the rhetorical expression. The other way is through power. However, periodization of Scripture by casting it and couching it within a contextual net has caused especially those of us of Restorationist background to see any manifestation of God’s power today as something dangerous and somehow uncontrollable. Healing of the sick as described in James chapter 5, for instance, is a rhetorical reality. But put in the cultural semantic net of contextual thinking, it is robbed of power and becomes just words. If we accepted this rhetorical reality, and that of God’s constant care as promised through Peter’s words, then the protection and healing and relief of Christians in dangerous situations would be the rule, not seen as an exception or anomaly. James speaks of the one who prays and then doubts as doubleminded–surely an apt description of someone bouncing back and forth between rhetorical and contextual nets. (The Greek for doubleminded is “two-souled.”)

Any attempt to unify common sense and Scripture makes Scripture just a square in the contextual net of human thinking. But when extracted, Scripture has the power to form its own net. In fact, Peter was talking of just that–dying to one semantic net so that another (God’s thinking) could arise–when he spoke of a new birth into a living hope (1:3). This new birth takes place though the Word (1:23) and purifies believers (v.22; see also John 15:3.)

In 1 Peter, this powerful Word is contrasted dramatically with human attributes. All that is man is as impermanent as grass and fading flowers, while the Word of the Lord stands forever (1:24-25.) Meanings from the Text stand forever, not like the fading appeal of the contextual. “This word,” says Peter, “was preached to you” (1:25.)

It is through symbols that we access rhetorical reality. The words of Scripture, for instance, are representations of unseen realities (not the realities themselves, but our means of accessing and understanding them.) Symbols link us to the unseen. In crisis, we make the decision: do we cling to rhetorical unseen realities, or do we operate on what we see and understand through the contextual net that surrounds us, explained by the management jurisdictional language of the world?

Adam and Eve in the garden illustrate this. When they looked at the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, they knew that it symbolized a rhetorical reality as explained to them by God. On the other hand, they could use the contextual net’s language to symbolize it for themselves as attractive and good for food. The rhetorical realities God gave them became just words as they were ensnared by the contextual net of their own judgment and the counsel of Satan.

In our own lives, we often make similar choices. When the rhetorical statements of Scripture impinge upon our own view of reality, we choose what we see over what God says. Now, we may put those understandings into some churchy language–but adopt only a form of godliness that denies the power thereof.

In 1 Peter 1:10-12, Peter speaks of the process of revelation as something that was far from static and time-bound. When he explained that the Holy Spirit spoke to the prophets, he maintained that they had been speaking to his own listeners, born many years after the death of those prophets. “They were serving not themselves but you,” (v. 12)–and furthermore, those prophets were aware of that century-linking process (“it was revealed to them”).

As we once again consider the 3-D model of reality, we see that we are involved in the process of linking the eternal to the temporal through the Holy Spirit, revelation, faith, and the manipulation of symbols. This linking informs us that this “superunity” is not derived from our experience but from our position in the process as we are told to live as “strangers in reverent fear” (1:17.) Like Peter’s readers, we wait daily to be acquitted by God on the basis of our acceptance of His rhetorical realities as our own.

An analogic unity that forges a relationship between the rhetorical and the seen has great power. Rahab accepted the fall of the walls of Jericho long before they collapsed, and God honored her faith. She knew they would fall even though they stood seemingly impregnable all around her, because of the rhetorical realities God had previously demonstrated for His people. Rhetorical realities shape time and space for believers. Rhetorical realities are by definition persistent ideas on which believers must act; and most often actually contradict what is seen from the context. Rhetorical realities, in fact, shape time and space for believers.

God, through Scripture and other means, exudes forth rhetorical realities against which the passage of time and the contradiction of experience are trivialities. And what transpires in the life of a godly Christian rhetorically is often quite incommensurate with his own contextual experience: just as the value of unseen salvation is incommensurate with the worth of silver and gold.