1 Peter Lesson 8 Transparency
1-peter-lesson-8-transparency
A STUDY OF FIRST PETER: THE RHETORICAL UNIVERSE
BY J. MICHAEL STRAWN
THE ANALOG INTELLIGENCE AND DEVELOPING TRANSPARENCY:
1 PETER 1:13-2:3
INTRODUCTION AND TERMINOLOGY:
Analog intelligence can be seen in one sense as a commodity in that it can be transferred from God’s mind to us. It gives us the ability to see beyond the contextual, or visible aspect of reality, and to escape the impact of the temporal upon us.
Analog intelligence also gives us the ability to achieve some sort of unity between the temporal and the unseen realms, which together form one reality: the part you see, and the part you don’t see. But the initial opacity of the temporal, which prevents us from seeing the eternal and its great import for our lives–this opacity must be dealt with in some way so that we can see the unseen. In other words, the temporal has to become a “non-factor” in our thought processes. Kant and others did just the opposite. In analyzing reality, Kant would “factor out” anything unseen as hypothetical, giving unique ontological status to the seen alone.
Verse 13 of the first chapter of 1 Peter lists characteristics that describe the analogic mind, and demonstrate its capacity to make the temporal transparent–not so that it disappears, but so that we can see through it. We give the unseen ontological or real status, and turn away from the state of being we call teleology.
Teleology–which has as part of its linguistic root the thought of distance (telephone, telegraph, etc.)–is goal-oriented, setting up what we might call a syntax or order of completion. But strangers who are looking beyond the seen have no compelling interest in such things.
BIBLE TEXT:
“Therefore, prepare your minds for action; be self-controlled; set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed. 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 man’s work impartially, live your lives as strangers 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 forefathers, 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 your brothers, love one another deeply, with all your hearts. For you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God. For,
All men are like grass,
and all their glory is like the wild flower;
The grass withers,
and the flower falls,
but the word of the Lord stands forever.
And this is the word that was preached to you. Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, jealousy, and slander of every kind. Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.
–I Peter 1:13-2:3.
ELEMENTS OF THE THEMATIC:
The thematic shows a believer whose line of sight can penetrate the temporal circumstances in front of him, and see clearly the eternal. The temporal realm becomes transparent to the analogic mind–it is as if such a mind’s range is increased to such power that the temporal fades before it. This cannot be achieved by behavior modification or any other practice of what the world would call “morality,” which is powerless to dissolve the opacity of the temporal but rather anchors people into the temporal.
Furthermore, it is God’s intention that analog intelligence form a unity between itself and the eternal. Because of this unity, people who operate on analog intelligence and see through the temporal to the eternal can act differently than those who operate on the basis of contextual intelligence.
GENERALIZATIONS DERIVED FROM THE TEXT AND THEMATIC:
There are at least five resultant characteristics of a person who operates on analog intelligence.
1) First of all, the analog intelligence which pierces the temporal has a unique quality of spiritual concentration. By setting the mind for action, being sober and self-controlled, and setting one’s hope fully on Jesus Christ as seen in 1:13, the attention is focused beyond the immediate and has the capacity to see it clearly. The model of seeing beyond the empirical focus is mirrored in the quality of faith itself, which always operates beyond the capacity of our own competence. Looking beyond the immediate, beyond our own resources and abilities, is achieved by an act of the will, by the exercise of faith.
Concentration on spiritual realities will automatically cause the mind to “factor out” the empiric as the focus looks beyond it. We are precluded from certain actions, and our faces are turned toward the grace we’ll have when the present ordeal ends.
2) Another characteristic is the formation of axioms, or truth statements, that do not have their origin from within the context. 1 Peter 1:14-16 sets the stage for the fervent love and other characteristics Peter will ask of his listeners by showing the axis upon which these behaviors must swing: that of holiness.
Again, this holiness is not a form of morality or rule-keeping imposed by the context. Nor is it based upon common sense. Rather, it has as its origin the quality of holiness that God Himself possesses. His holiness is not human.
There is an axis which runs between knowledge and revelation–the opposite of the “ignorance” Peter speaks of. “It is written” sets the stage for unique dependence on revelation from God, who is the source of all real knowledge. Obedience can be seen as looking beyond the transparent temporal realm, accompanied by understanding and following the axioms from Him, not our surroundings. In fact, we become an index connecting knowledge and revelation by our obedience.
Similarly, a unity is formed between us and God– when we are holy, as He is holy.
This would have been very important to the believers of Peter’s day–and to us as well. If we are controlled by information from our context, we try to remove persecution and other obstacles to contextual contentment. But when the context becomes transparent, the biological, financial, relationship, and other problems we face become transparent right along with it. When we operate on non-contextual axioms, we use the knowledge we have here to connect ourselves to revelation by individual acts of the will. This might look like foolishness to the contextual thinker to whom surroundings are a barrier to his sight, but it is a precious ability to focus our attention on the unseen. Then we can with full confidence do what Peter will later ask of believers–cast all our cares upon Him.
3) Another characteristic is non-contextual self-understanding as seen in verses 17-21. In the world’s way of thinking, self-understanding is accomplished by a process of socialization. The aggregate society acts upon the individual, instead of God’s ideal wherein individuals affect the aggregate.???????????????
There are four ways that self-understanding can be anchored:
a) Verse 17 speaks of believers as strangers who do not depend on what they see around them but rather are ruled by eternal verities, superintended by a Father and Judge. Because of that, life has to be lived in a certain way, because we are accountable to Him and not to the culture that surrounds us.
Quantum physics has permeated our culture’s thinking in many areas, but nowhere more perniciously in the concept that we are inherently self-organizing entities–great bundles of unlimited potentials. “Being all that you can be” is a reflection of this thinking; and children are encouraged to dream big dreams, believe that they can accomplish anything they want. Even in church, we have been told, “What the mind of man can conceive, the will of man can achieve.” But Christians must realize that we are dependent, surrendered beings who are contingent upon eternal verities and axioms.
This is difficult for many of us who want control, not dependency. But we can only think that way if the world hasn’t become transparent, factored out of importance. We measure ourselves according to the standards of a Father and Judge whose very presence shows us that we are not self-organizing; that we cannot control events, and that we are not drivers of our own destinies or those of anyone or anything else except through absolute obedience.
b) Verse 17 shows us how ontology replaces teleology. Teleology, that state of being that is concerned with planning and the syntax of completion, is foreign to the mind of the person concentrating on the unseen. That state where believers live, called in Scripture “reverent fear,” is one in which the unseen is given ontological or “real” status. Man’s primary responsibilities, therefore, are in linking self to the unseen, not to the seen. God actually forbids us to do those things that have as their end self-preservation, while commanding actions and thoughts that will cause us to see ourselves and our lives as relative to Him.
“Just trust God and everything will be okay?” is the question posed by many of us who were taught the temporal axiom, “God helps those who help themselves.” Our human tendency is to hold onto teleology when we do not have a firm grasp of ontology. That’s why we have such a fascination with our view of obedience as being something iterative. An iterative action is a repetition or a quoting of a concept or action. An example of this: we have taught that salvation is achieved by iterative action: we teach the five steps of salvation and then in essence say to the candidate for baptism, “Iterate this.” But we can see how iterative thinking trapped the Jews who were circumcised (for them, an iterative action) into pridefullness and ignorance. Obedience, as Jesus taught, is developing a state of being, in which this world is transparent. Thus we would willingly set aside all our supposed “potentials” for action and achievement and cling to an ontological status by means of analogic intelligence.
All of the great examples of faith in the Bible saw beyond their context, which had through their ontological faith and analog intelligence become transparent to them. People like Abraham in offering his son, Rahab in risking her personal safety, and the faithful at Kadesh acted as if their contexts were transparent.
Furthermore, Jesus wants us to understand that we were not placed upon this earth to develop personal creativity or achieve our dreams and goals. That’s “emptiness.” We are here to reflect God’s glory to one another and to an unbelieving world. God calls us away from teleology and to ontology in passages such as Matthew 6 and Luke 12 (don’t worry about tomorrow) and James 5 (seek spiritual solutions to temporal problems.)
Verses 18 and 19 show us the exact nature of the in
c) Ontological thinking naturally creates a unique psychology of time. Time is anchored not in measurement of successive events but to an incommensurable: the eternal. Verses 18 and 19 show us the exact nature of the situation: what redeemed us from our former empty way of life was not something commensurable with this world like gold or silver. In fact, nothing on this earth–including our own wisdom, experience, or common sense–can do what Jesus’ blood did.
God’s promises often seem incommensurable with our situations. We wonder how God can ever get us through difficulties and crises. It’s true, at first flush it is very hard to feel comfortable with assurances that don’t seem to “fit” with what we see around us. (Think how incommensurate manna must have looked to those who first saw it and asked, What is it?) But daily familiarity with trusting God truly lifts burdens as that trust is exercised day by day.
But if we allow the temporal to become opaque and to obscure our view of the preciousness of our saved state, the temporal will bear down on us, Satan will take the advantage, and we will fail. We can’t cast about for what worked for others–we must cling to the idea of the incommensurate at all costs, and be holy as God is holy.
We must also redefine “normalcy” in our lives. What the world calls normal is that which fits comfortably within its context. But God defines it as incommensurability developed by viewing a transparent context. The result? Our thinking, our lives, and our resultant experiences are shaped by this view and we naturally do not resemble others in the world. We know that we’ll achieve complete clarity when Jesus is revealed. Until then, we must set our minds to ignore the demands of the empiric except when it is subjugated to God.
d) As believers, we are anchored to a unique continuum, a special history. That continuum was purposed in eternity, in heaven before the creation of the world. As we anchor our actions in the eternal as well, we become part of that continuum.
That continuum contains the good along with the bad. As the sufferings of Christ demonstrate, we often participate in things we didn’t choose and might not think we deserve. Peter was part of that marbled continuum, as were the recipients of his letter–indeed all of Christian history is part of it. Each Christian who has developed transparent vision sees himself as contingent upon eternal verities, and knows that his best efforts must not be wasted in trying to change the circumstances of the continuum, but in the daunting task of keeping himself in the shadow of the eternal, dependent upon God, independent of teleology. His first focus is not upon acting, but upon being.
The shift from teleology to ontology is only accomplished through transparency. Like Israel in the desert who was called upon to trust God without visible water, we must often trust Him without visible money or options. We can’t make the mistake of Israel who, living within a rich context–the Promised Land–tried to make itself commensurate with all the worldly elements of that context. The result was that they lost the land by trying to hold onto it.
We know that the origin and control of our situations are not ultimately ours, but God’s. Christians are by nature non-contextual beings.
4) Such a transparent view provides the ideal rhetorical reference point, one which is removed from the fading power of the temporal. We all have rhetorical reference points in our lives: words that are intended to formulate and shape our actions. When I went away to college, for instance, my grandmother gave me a rhetorical reference point when she told me to be a good boy and to remember how I’d been raised.
God provides a unity, a rhetorical reference point for each of us when His words and His nature are linked to our lives. We can be holy as He is holy.
Scripture is of course the perfect rhetorical reference point. The Word is living and active, as Hebrews tells us, and is the standard against which all measurements and contexts must be viewed. The ability to have purity, obedience, love, and other qualities that Peter emphasizes–this ability is uniquely referenced to that Word. Since all temporal circumstances are also temporary, we need an eternal reference point. We learn to change man’s status before that reference point not by changing of circumstance, but by changing of intelligence.
Our unity to one another of like belief is a refuge in this temporal storm. That is only possible if we together acknowledge that the temporal is transparent, and that all the pain in it will pass away. Similarly, a Christian cannot take pride in good temporal circumstances. It’s glory, too, will pass away. Adam and Eve lived in the perfect temporal situation–and by refusing to operate on transparency and analog intelligence that God’s spoken words should have developed in them, they lost that perfection and plunged humanity into the beginning of a continuum of suffering.
All study of subsequent human history, for a Christian, is not in trying to look for historical facts. Rather, the Christian looks at past events as transparent, perhaps even magnifying the purposes of God. The raising of our children should be with the goal of helping them develop transparency through trust in the ideal reference point–God’s Word.
5) Verses 2:1-3 are a call to action–but a particular kind of action, analogic action. This action is achieved in three ways:
a) We break with the sociology of context by not accepting its axioms. Now, people within the context do not like it when others resist their axioms–and no one would have known that better than Peter’s readers who were suffering persecution for this precise reason. Because contextual actions begin with self (envy, malice, etc.), the analog intelligence can expect no better than the Master who Himself was persecuted and maligned for not “fitting in.” Using the Bible as the ideal rhetorical reference point will always lead to trouble, because we as analogs of God will be rejected by all contextual thinkers–in the church and out of it. But persecution itself must be transparent, as we dedicate ourselves to indifference to the context and sensitivity to God. That will involve inherently some repositioning of ourselves relative to the world, and deciding not to take any context-dependent actions. We must remind ourselves to ask, “Am I making this decision because of the context?”
The Bible is full of examples of those who weighed the context against the transparency of the eternal. In the valley of Elah, David’s brothers–indeed, all the Israelite army including its king, Saul–operated on the context that told them they’d better be afraid because they were outmanned and outgunned. David, though, took analogic action. Rahab who saw priests carrying a gold box around Jericho for days on end did not operate within her context, but from a rhetorical reference point: the promise of the men who were part of God’s protected people. Elijah took context-dependent action when he ran in fear from Ahab and Jezebel, but God tracked him down and showed him the transparency of that context.
For the believer, there’s constant conflict with the world–will you see it as transparent or not? It’s as if we need a special set of eyeballs that can see how the eternal subsumes the temporal, and gives us the courage to act from a non-contextual mindset.
At no time is this more important than in tragedy. When we lose loved ones, or face disappointing finalities, we must train ourselves to see these things as transparent, allowing us to look through them to an eternity where that which we have lost, is found. Chapter 4 of 1 Peter will show us how to suffer as participants with Christ. We hold on to precious rhetorical reference points: the promise that we’ll be given no more than we can bear; that God rigorously tests those He loves; and that we are visible symbols on this earth of how to stand between two worlds, looking through one to the other which we so earnestly desire.
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