1 Peter Lesson 7 Superindex
1-peter-lesson-7-superindex
A STUDY OF FIRST PETER: THE RHETORICAL UNIVERSE
BY J. MICHAEL STRAWN
THE SUPER INDEX–THE MASTER LINGUIST AND RESULTANT SUPER UNITY
1 PETER 1:10-12
INTRODUCTION AND TERMINOLOGY:
In order to understand the thematic, perhaps a review of the 3-D model of reality might be helpful. The gable-shaped model shows on its oppositional sides the two views of reality: the seen and the unseen. Because these two are inherently incommensurable, and because man dwells on the seen side and has no inherent access to the unseen without the initiating actions of God, we would have no knowledge of the unseen without such initiating actions.
Thus the need for indices, or linking agents, by which we may understand the unseen. Foundational is the work of the Holy Spirit, and upon Him the action of revelation. Atop these is the faith of the believer, then his own personal manipulation of symbols through words, thoughts, and actions that link him to the unseen world.
ELEMENTS OF THE THEMATIC:
The thematic of the present lesson emulates the 3-D model, showing the temporal and the eternal which are linked by the indices of the Holy Spirit, language, and analog intelligence. It also shows the presence of rhetorical salvation as a reality on the temporal side, and actual salvation as a reality on the eternal side.
BIBLICAL TEXT:
“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 Christ 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 1:10-12
GENERALIZATIONS DERIVED FROM THE THEMATIC:
1) Analog intelligence is built upon two superseding spiritual realities, the Holy Spirit which links the dimensions of the temporal and the eternal; and the language crafted by the Holy Spirit as a Master Linguist. This intellective arrangement of Holy Spirit-language-analog intelligence is congruent to the 3-D model’s intellective arrangement of Holy Spirit-revelation-faith manifested through manipulation of symbols.
The Holy Spirit is a super-Index because it is only through His continual presence on this earth–from creation, through the building of the temple, to His agency in the conception of Christ, to His actions at Pentecost, to His indwelling of every believer in history–that the unseen, unknown purposes of God are made known and take physical shape on this, seen, side of reality.
His presence supports and creates specific language which He crafts, one that subsumes the grammar and syntax of the inspired scribes who recorded it. This language shaped by Him stands between the two intelligences of God and man, linking them. It pulls us out of the trap of subjectivism as it did those inspired writers who even as they penned His words did so with an awareness that they were fulfilling purposes far beyond their own realm of experience.
The resultant super unity forged by these two elements is not a unity between man and his world, but unique–a unity with two superseding realities as its base, linking them.
2). This super unity is one whose status is based not upon experience, but upon position. Analog intelligence is congruent to a combination of faith and the manipulation of symbols; and as such cannot be derived from contextual, experiential sources.
3) The Holy Spirit, as Master Linguist, allows us to figuratively stand upon His shoulders in the action of linking the two elements of reality. We must have a close, cognitive relation with this language to achieve this–something that is much more than an academic acknowledgment of His reality and actions. In crisis, for instance, we can remember how Peter’s believers had purified themselves by obeying revealed truth, and had achieved personal transformation because of their positional stance, not because of what they had experienced. Their deep love and other characteristics did not arise out of their context, nor were they dependent upon the context for maintenance of these qualities; but rather received the blessings because of their position. Like the 3 Hebrews in front of the fiery furnace, believers must overrule their senses–that is a position. When the Jews at Kadesh Barnea chose to operate on their senses instead of the rhetorical reality of the promises of God, they, too, took a position indexing their actions to the realities of the unseen world.
4). By participating in this indexing action of the Holy Spirit through our sincere attempts to think and speak as He does, the analog intelligence of the believer includes him as a part of this super unity connecting the two worlds. The believers of Peter’s day, for instance, were called upon to portray with their lives the reality of the unseen world.
Verse 23 shows that those believers were to be born of “imperishable seed.” This shows the result of living in a context but letting the eternal come to bear upon them–the unseen was able to shape the seen for them, and the result was the creation of a particular kind of personality.
In addition, the absolute actions of the Holy Spirit as He subsumed human language is reminiscent of what we learned in earlier lessons about how the absolute comes to bear on local phenomenon. Human language in this sense can be seen as a local phenomenon subsumed by the absolute; and the writing of Scripture is a model of Christian life, where grammatical structure came to bear upon local phenomena.
5) Without these superintending unities, the contextual intelligence is trapped within its melieu. Robbed of the understanding of a plenary reality that includes knowledge of the seen, the unseen, and the connecting links, the contextual mind must settle for fragmentary information. 22222 realities It assumes that what it sees is real and that there is no other reality; thus any talk of spiritual things is either dismissed or downplayed.
On this the true contextual mind and the analog intelligence would agree: there is only one reality. The contextual intelligence would only acknowledge what it perceives empirically. The analog intelligence would have a plenary view of reality as including the seen as well as the unseen and their indices; but would see them as one whole.
6). The analog intelligence would naturally be interested in what the Holy Spirit has to say. He would immerse himself in Scripture, and would look for the analogs that would appear on the seen side: prophets, preachers, and other believers. He would recognize that time and space don’t shape people into eternal thinkers–our context does not have the ability to generate and maintain love, belief, joy. To the contrary, the fruit of a fragmented, contextual view of reality is a souring effect when one realizes that these qualities are not inherent to this world and cannot be maintained exclusively within the context.
7) The salvation of which Peter speaks was first a rhetorical, or representational reality. It was first and foremost the purpose, or agenda, of God’s relationship with the material world. The believers of his time weren’t walking around in heaven in the literal enjoyment of final salvation. It existed in rhetorical form only at that time, and yet God expected them to act upon it as if it were actual at that time. He urged them not to worry and to cast their cares upon Him because of His active concern for them.
Abraham experienced rhetorical realities, too. He was promised that he would become a great nation–something whose realization came long after his death. He is remembered as an example of faith because he acted upon rhetorical statements as if they spoke of earthly realities–words that preceded and formed reality upon the earth.
Another example of the compelling power of rhetorical realities is seen in the example of the 12 spies who returned with a report about the Promised Land. Each of them had to decide if the promises made to Abraham and others about that land were of more weight than the iconic representations they carried in their heads of the obstacles that also seemingly awaited them there. Ten of the spies did not acknowledge the divine promises as rhetorical realities, and were condemned as being unfaithful. Joshua and Caleb, however, operated on conviction of the reality of the promises as more than just a positive attitude but as a modus operandi.
In the book of James, we see the importance of singlemindedness of faith. James says that if you doubt, you cannot receive. Later in chapter 4, James shows the terrible result of operating on pride of one’s own sight and not consulting the will of God even in business affairs. God’s will, of course, is rhetorical reality; and those who operate autonomously outside of His will as rhetorical reality are like those who pray with no belief.
Rhetorical reality and actual reality (better defined as rhetorical reality which has taken physical or situational form on the seen side) are all part of one piece. Through our belief, God makes the rhetorical actual. That being the case, such things as healings should be the rule, not the exception in the life of a Christian, because of the rhetorical nature of promises God has made in Scripture to do so.
Consider the example of Rahab. When the spies came to her, all she had to depend on was the nature of the God who’d helped His people cross the Red Sea 40 years before. She had a pattern of words in her head that went something like this: “Their God is powerful. Since these people are coming, I must conclude that He’s still able to do what He did 40 years ago. The fall of my city isn’t actual yet–but it’s rhetorical; and I’ll do whatever is necessary to ally myself with the God of the Red Sea and His people; and thus I will save myself and my loved ones.” Thus the New Testament honors her as a woman of faith in spite of her sinful former life.
One of our greatest offenses against rhetorical reality is seen in the way that when children want to believe in rhetorical promises, we as a church and as a society socialize them into thinking that Scripture couldn’t really mean what it says because such things are outside our experience. We fragment reality by insisting on common sense, doctrine, ethics, and soteriology; and exclude the rhetorical promises that build faith and demonstrate the presence of a reality outside of our own experience.
The Holy Spirit desires a unity between Himself and revelation; and between our capacity to symbolize rhetorically and the external world. Revelation is itself a demonstration of how the rhetorical comes to bear upon the physical or actual. However, our natural tendency is to retard Biblical unity by allowing unanswered attacks upon it.
We operate in this world on the basis of observation–also called the scientific method–like people in a cloud, feet moving tentatively, arms outstretched, eyes straining–because we deal not directly with realities, only with representations. As Christians, we choose to operate on rhetorical realities: the representations of God.
We are taken out of that fog bank of observation by positionality. We stand as indices, between two worlds, between two intelligences–that of the contextual mind and the mind of God. Jesus Himself stood in this positionality as well on earth.
8). In crisis, in persecution as was suffered by first-century Christians, and in temptations, there is always a conflict of unities. For the Christian, he must by an act of the will establish and maintain unity: between the two worlds, and between his own mind and that of God, so that he can accurately assess his situations and live according to the rhetorical realities that God assures him are reality for him.
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