1 Peter Lesson 5 Evaluation of Experience
1-peter-lesson-5-evaluation-of-experience
A STUDY OF FIRST PETER: THE RHETORICAL UNIVERSE
BY J. MICHAEL STRAWN
THE EVALUATION OF EXPERIENCE: 1 PETER 1:7
INTRODUCTION AND TERMINOLOGY:
Faith
Human competence
In the drawing above, we see illustrated the fact that human competence–whether in be in building a rocket or solving life problems–has limits. Much of secular education is based on the expansion of human competence, whether in the field of technology or in the mind itself. There is a prevalent feeling that man’s potential competence is unlimited; but all recognize that at each stage competence has edges or limits which by definition competence does not extend beyond. Because of what we might term the sociology of competence, we look to education to help children grow up within an arc of competence that will allow them to “function in the real world.”
The drawing might also be labeled as contextual intelligence in the middle, and analog intelligence in the outside square. In all Biblical examples of faith, those who acted on analog (revealed, rhetorical) intelligence acted above and beyond the limits of their own abilities (the edges of their own competence, whether physical or intellectual.)
Revelation is beyond the arc of human competence, because it does not originate with man (2 Peter 1:21.) Paul, too echoed this sentiment in Galatians 1:12 when he said that the gospel he preached was not received from or taught by any human, but was from Jesus Christ.
Paul also realized that in spite of his training and influence, his own human competence did not give him the ability to preach the gospel– “Who is equal to such a task?” (2 Corinthians 2:16). In contrast to that, the world believes that our circumstances are directly linked to our competence within them. The United Nations, for instance, exists on the premise that humans have the ability to figure out how to feed the hungry, prevent wars, and deal with oppression. But these things continue–because human competence has limits.
David’s victory in the valley of Elah against Goliah was an example of an analogic thinker operating beyond his personal competence. His actions were also beyond the collective competence of the Israelite army. In fact, one useful way of looking at obstacles is to understand that they define for us the edges of our own competence, either individually or collectively.
In the case of the people to whom Peter wrote in 1 Peter, they were called to act beyond their own competence. Their difficulties showed them the limits of their own competence in both intelligence and resources. By operating on plenary reality–giving ontology or real status to the invisible as well as to their circumstances within the context
–their perception of their circumstances would surely change.
Such a change of perception is essential. The world teaches that if you don’t like your circumstances, that you must look within the arc of your own competence to either change the situation or find resources that will change it. That’s why there are hundreds of 12-step programs and self-help books that show people how to move from one circumstance to a presumedly better situation within their context. Some of these books and programs do recognize the limits of human context, and teach “coping mechanisms” for dealing with what cannot be changed. But without a view of plenary reality and the superior resources and viewpoints provided by the invisible, such changes and copings still remain within the context, within the arc of personal competence. Peter calls believers to examine the personal and collective abilities that we call the sociology of competence, and then to see the great ultimate blessings from assessing with and dealing with our circumstances according to analog intelligence, whose source and operations are far beyond our abilities.
ELEMENTS OF THE THEMATIC:
The thematic illustrates a principle Peter is conveying to believers: human experience is no longer a personal matter. Because believers are to operate not just on contextual information but upon plenary reality in which the invisible exerts subsuming power, these believers are given the analogic ability to evaluate their experiences. Thus any “personal opinions” or feelings with a purely contextual origin are invalidated.
True results– praise, glory, and honor — will vindicate the believer “when Jesus Christ is revealed.”
Two types of unities are depicted. In the first, on the right, experience is united with contextual intelligence. Under such a unity, without information from God, all assessments of a situation are necessarily self-referential, according to one’s own personal criteria of what is acceptable and what is not.
In the second unity, depicted on the left, experience is united with God or analog intelligence. Instead of the criteria for assessing a situation being whether or not it is “acceptable” according to personal standards, instead the criteria here are absolute. In this unity, faith is proved genuine. In other words, a believer wouldn’t judge a situation on how it feels or impacts him. Instead, he would look to whether the situation builds faith or not.
GENERALIZATIONS DERIVED FROM THE THEMATIC:
In the first unity, a situation is united with contextual intelligence, which is based on human lived experience. Though the people of Peter’s audience might acknowledge that their situations were only momentary from an eternal point of view, still the pain was real: “grief,” “trials,” and “suffering” are all overwhelming.
In a painful situation, a contextual mind will:
- Decide whether an experience is “acceptable” or not. (Some of the language used to assess a situation contextually would include judging whether something be “rewarding,” “fulfilling,” “meeting my needs;” or provides “happiness” or “completeness.”)
- Base that assessment on temporal criteria. Many times an “acceptable” experience becomes “unacceptable” in a different time frame (example: a mid-life crisis resulting from a realization that one’s expectations were not fulfilled by a certain date or birthday.)
- Would try to avoid or do away with the unacceptable, according to whatever resources available. A contextual thinker tries to change the nature of the experience to a different one. A contextual thinker could also be characterized as teleological: one who seeks some sort of climactic syntax that will remove him from a bad situation to a good.
Our culture is built upon the human’s supposed ability to accurately evaluate his own experience. Markets can be seen as living organisms that derive their substance from human evaluations and ways to fulfill them. Pain, the universal bane, is to be avoided at all costs. Depression is to be held at bay with coping mechanisms. Political action–either individual or collective–gives solutions to social problems. All of these teleological goals depend, of course, on human competency.
If the only criterion were acceptability–Peter’s believers were in real trouble!
Peter would tell his listeners that the solution to their problems would not lie in changing their experiences, but in changing the intelligence by which they evaluated their experiences. He would advise them that their efforts should not be spent so much in trying to evaluate the acceptability of their own experiences, but in looking at the results of such. Will they result in praise when Jesus is revealed?
The evaluation of experience thus becomes the province of God, not of ourselves. It’s not our right or privilege to pronounce our circumstances as “unacceptable” and try to change them solely within the limits of our own resources or competence. We can’t do that as individuals, and we can’t do that collectively, either. (One history teacher aptly observed, “Where are the cultures that solved their own problems?”)
Now, that doesn’t mean we don’t feel the effects of our circumstances. We can’t suppose that the apostle Paul liked prison, pain, or martyrdom. But God is the only one who can evaluate our experience.
This also does not mean that human competence is worthless. The next time you sit in an air-conditioned house or car, you are experiencing the result of human competence. But human competence has also achieved the potential for nuclear holocaust.
In the second unity, experience is shown united with analog intelligence. Instead of the criterion being a personal one, it is here an absolute one, where faith is “proved genuine,” not just to our satisfaction but to God’s satisfaction. Whether something is acceptable or not doesn’t matter here. What matters is if an experience builds faith.
There is no element of randomnicity here. Because, as Peter will later say, we are “living stones,” we are being purposefully systematically built into a structure. The sufferings of the first century believers weren’t random, but would be instrumental in the building of individual and collective faith. For them, unseen realities were just as ontological, just as real, as an assessment of human satisfaction.
God was keeping His promise to believers that He would put them into situations where their faith would be tried, and then proven genuine. When we remove all personal criterion, we learn what it is to have God’s respect, and the promise of future vindication. Who would want to exchange that for earthly comfort and satisfaction?
But the risks are great. In our biology (our health, for instance), in our economics (our income), and other areas, submission to God means that we may end up with situations that by earthly standards would be “unacceptable.”
Contemporary Christian books try to sidestep this issue at times, claiming that “God wants us to be happy,” and by depicting Him as the patron of our climbing of financial, social, and other “ladders” of success. But this is not the pattern we see in the New Testament. In 1 Thessalonians 3:2-4, for instance, Paul warned believers that they would be persecuted, and indeed they were. But when Paul sent Timothy to check on them, he didn’t want to know if their circumstances were “acceptable” to them, but rather they were maintaining their faith in the midst of them.
The fact is that the evaluation of experience is beyond the competency of the contextual mind. It simply doesn’t have the full information to evaluate accurately. Unless the weight of the spiritual is subsuming the sensorium, the sensations of pain and unhappiness will win out. Peter uses “gold” as a symbol of human evaluation. One’s faith, he says, must be proven by God to be more valuable than gold and all it signifies.
Spiritual Faith
Sensorium “Gold”
Analogic intelligence evaluates experience just as God would. It forms a unity, a simultaneity, with His intelligence. Thus the emphasis for a Christian would be not on the experience, but on understanding it the way God would, and seeking the results He would want from it. It adds special weight to Peter’s observation that believers had already died and been reborn to a “living hope” beside which all problems pale.
Now, even Jesus didn’t welcome evil in life. He prayed that we would be delivered from it. And those who deliberately brought pain upon themselves weren’t commended in any way by Paul, who spoke of those who mutilated the flesh. Suffering itself is neither redemptive nor damning. It is the way we assess it that really matters. Proving of faith reveals the subsuming influence of the eternal “good” over the temporal “bad.”
Nor are Christians to be completely passive in this proving process. We must actively trust God to assign importance to that which is either a threat or an asset to our faith. For church leaders, the responsibility isn’t to be taken lightly. Leaders are not responsible for creating “acceptable” experiences for church members, whether it be in worship services, teaching, or counseling. If acceptability is the criterion, truth will surely suffer.
The unity between God’s rhetorical understandings and our own experience can’t be seen empirically nor evaluated empirically/contextually. Trials–for the first century believers as well as for us–test that unity and show us where in our individual lives the unity “snaps”.
Children must be taught to evaluate their experiences not on the basis of the acceptability of a situation but upon analog intelligence. The church must teach believers to reject the criteria of “acceptability” and abandon all attempts to penetrate popular culture with methods that the world will find “acceptable.” (We are to call people out of popular culture, not attempt to penetrate it!)
Peter will later tell believers in 5:6 that they must humble themselves, and that God will lift them up in due time. Furthermore, they are to cast their cares on Him, who understands them fully, and let Him do the evaluating.
Where is the risk in this? None at all, for those who entrust themselves to a faithful Creator who assures us that “He cares for you.”
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