Is Peter persnickety? If by defining him as, "requiring a particularly precise or careful approach," or “requiring great precision” then, by all means, he is particularly persnickety.
As we noticed in our last blog, Peter's Greek is the most excellent of all Greek New Testament writings. Yet, in Peter's persnicketiness, he mentions the difficulty of understanding some of the apostle Paul’s writings saying, “There are some things in them [Paul’s writings] that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.”
Even though Peter is writing about the apostle Paul, the same could be said of his very own persnickety writings. Because Peter’s first letter is such a well written letter using lofty, yet precise, complex and stylistic phrases, and displaying carefully formatted Greek grammar, it is sometimes easy to read the words on the page, yet have difficulty untwisting them to understand their meaning.
For instance, I found a few persnickety places just in the first chapter of 1Peter that seem to be easy to read, but particularly “hard to understand.” How are we to precisely understand these persnicketies?...
“born anew” (1:3)
“an inheritance kept in heaven for you” (1:4)
“ready to be revealed in the last time” (1:5)
“the outcome of your faith” (1:9)
“the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1:13)
“obedient children” (1:14)
“you were ransomed” (1:18)
“He was destined before the foundation of the world” (1:20)
So, it seems that even before we encounter Peter's careful approach to his remarkably precise grammatical constructions, we encounter some very basic questions that need answers before we are able to begin to understand the content of what he says.
Therefore, it might be agreed that Peter too has “some things in [his] letter that are and hard to understand,” which the reader needs to “untwist” to gain understanding, as we have to do for Paul in other Scriptures.
The reverse metaphor, “untwist,” or its synonyms, (disentangle, uncoil, unravel) might indicate the need for some sort of de-complexifying of a concept in order to single out basic principles that contribute to a multi-stranded idea.
For instance, it’s extremely difficult to find the beginning, end or middle of a single strand of fiber in a tangled, multi-stranded thicket of string-ball until each individual strand of fiber is separated from one another and laid out alongside one each other to form individual clear boundaries and patterns that make each string easily recognizable from one another. Only until the individual strands of the multi-stranded entanglement are fully separated from one another, does the entanglement become de-complexified bringing clarity and precision to the whole as its individual strands are laid out alongside one another.
The task of understanding scripture is like disentangling the contexts of word-strands, sentence-strands, or paragraph-strands, and laying out each biblical principle-strand therein alongside one another to form individual clear boundaries and patterns that make each biblical principle easily recognizable from one another. This de-complexifying of scripture is necessary in order to grasp some complex biblical principles and understand some of the “hard-to-understand” writings found in the New Testament.
In Peter’s introduction to his first letter, Peter gives us one of these “hard to understand” multi-stranded complex ideas. He says in 1:1 that his letter is written “to elect exiles of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia.”
To whom exactly is his first letter written? There could be a number of answers.
I need more information than just “elect exiles” and/or “elect exiles of the dispersion” for me to know exactly to whom Peter is writing. Why? Because to whom you speak matters in understanding the content of what’s said. To whom I speak matters greatly if my command to “Step on it” is to be understood. If I yell “Step on it” to my buddy driving a 1968 Volkswagen bug as he enters the middle of an intersection as the light changes yellow, “Step on it”, means one thing. It means something altogether different if I am speaking to the dishwasher in a dark back-kitchen of a greasy-spoon restaurant as I see a cockroach scurry across the floor seeking a hiding place under the sink. Even though a bug is involved in both situations, it will only make sense as I know to whom I am speaking and what the context of each situation is.
So, I read the words “to elect exiles of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia,” but I’m not sure I understand them. I still don’t know who those people are and what the context of their situation is.
We do know that those five areas (Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia) fall within the Roman Empire at the time of Peter’s writing in the late 60’s AD. However, still, more questions than answers arise from reading that sentence.
For instance, are we to understand that Peter is addressing ALL the people in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia because ALL those people are “elect exiles of the dispersion?” Or, are we to understand that from the people of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, there are SOME people in those Roman provinces who are “elect exiles of the dispersion?” and Peter is addressing only those “elect exiles of the dispersion,” among the total population of residents in those areas, but not others among them who are not “elect exiles of the dispersion?”
What’s more, are we also to understand that God has "elected" those “exiles (or foreigners)”, whoever they may be, and Peter is letting us know that those foreigners are identified as the “elected” (or chosen”) of God?
Or does Peter want us to understand that there are SOME “exiles (or foreigners)”, who are “elected” (or chosen”) of God among all the foreigners and it is only to those “elected” "exiles (or foreigners)”, to whom he is writing, but not the unelected foreigners?
Then again, are we to understand that God actually “elects” some people and not others? In what sense are we to understand Peter’s use of the word “elected/chosen” here?
If I could disentangle “elected” and “exiles (or foreigners)”, and find answers to these questions, perhaps I would even come to know a bit more about the “dispersion” to which Peter is referring.
In the New Testament both John and James use the word “diaspora” (John 7:35 and James 1:1) to refer to the Jewish people in their dispersed state throughout the world. We know that ever since the Assyrian and Babylonian captivities, the Jewish people had been displaced from their native land and forced to live as aliens in foreign lands. We know from Jewish history that the Kingdom of Israel was barbarically defeated by the Assyrians and Babylonians during the 8th-6th centuries BC and the kingdoms of Israel and Judah taken into exile and scattered throughout the empire. From that point on in Jewish history, the Jewish people became scattered or dispersed throughout the known regions of the world.
It is intriguing that Peter refers to “Babylon” in his letter here (1 Peter 5:13), most likely as a reference to Rome as the current historical Jewish dominator. Is this purposeful? If it is purposeful, does this lead us to the suggestion that he may have an affinity to the idea of connecting Rome to Babylon in some way as the current barbaric overseers and dispersers of the Jewish people in the Roman Empire?
Perhaps Peter is attempting to acknowledge the fate of the Jewish nation as a means of endearing himself to them in the beginning of his letter. So, it may be that Peter is using the term “exiles” referring to all Jews scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia who now reside in the regions of the Roman Empire under the tyrannical rule of the Roman government? This would seem to be a fitting the context in which to lay the content of Peter's first letter.
If you notice the two maps below, the regions of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia located there, fall pretty much within the regions of the Assyrian and Babylonian empires and specifically within the corresponding Roman empire. And so, it is not too farfetched to conclude that the Jewish exiles of the Assyrian empire now residing in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia in the Roman Empire are the recipients of his letter and Peter wants to acknowledge their history in order to gain their trust and attention from the very beginning of his letter.
So, is Peter talking to Jews here - in general - who throughout their history have been scattered abroad (Lev 26:33; Deu 4:27, Deu 28:64, Deu 32:26; Est 3:8; Psa 44:11; Eze 6:8; Joh 7:35; Joh 11:52; Act 8:4; Jas 1:1), and in particular to those Jews who eventually scattered as far as Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia and now residing in those regions?
We also know that in history more recent to Peter’s writing, the Roman Emperor Claudius evicted all Jews from Rome in 49AD. This eviction from Rome is most likely the eviction to which Luke was referring in Acts 18:1-3,
…Paul left Athens and went to Corinth. And he found a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to leave Rome.
So, it is possible that Peter, writing in the late 60’s AD could be referencing this more recent exile and dispersion of Jews to the regions in the Roman Empire.
In either case, Babylonian and/or Roman exile, both historical dates involve Jews being dispersed through exile.
But, what’s more to the point of identifying the exiles as Jewish people living as foreigners in these regions is Peter’s use of the word “elect” or “chosen.”
The Old Testament Scriptures are full of references to Israel holding a very special status as God’s chosen nation. Beginning with the choosing of Abraham as the father of the Jewish nation (Genesis 21:1-3) and the promise of the blessing the nations delivered to Abraham (Genesis 12:3), and to the future generations of Isaac (Genesis 22:18 & 26:4), Jacob (Genesis 28:14), and Joseph (Genesis 50:24), the emphasis that Israel is God’s chosen nation to be a light to the nations becomes the central focus of the Old Testament scriptures.
In Deuteronomy 7:6, as the Israelites are about to enter the Promised Land that God swore to Abraham to give him, Moses declares to the Jewish people,
“For you [Israel] are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession.”
Moses here specifically identifies the Jewish nation as God’s “chosen” or “elected” people.
Later in Jewish history, after God installed David as king, David reflects on God’s special “chosen” relationship with the nation of Israel...
“And who is like your people Israel—the one nation on earth that God went out to redeem as a people for himself… by driving out nations and their gods from before your people, whom you redeemed from Egypt? You have established your people Israel as your very own forever, and you, Yahweh, have become their God” (2 Samuel 7:23-24).
Notice again, here in Exodus as in Deuteronomy 7:6, God calls the nation of Israel His “treasured possession,” another referencing of Israel being God’s chosen people.
“Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession” (Exodus 19:5)
Untwisting Persnickety Peter’s use of “elect exiles of the dispersion”, and laying out side by side the words “elect”, “exiles”, and “dispersion” and examining each one, we have been able to make a fairly clear determination that the use of the word “elect” is a reference to the Jewish nation, elected/chosen by God. We have also been able to make a fairly clear determination that the use of the word “exiles/foreigner” is a reference to Jewish people who have been driven from their land and reside as non-citizens of the Roman Empire in the regions of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia outside of their homeland.
So, it seems that we have come to a basic conclusion that Persnickety Peter is writing to the chosen people of God, the Jewish people, having been exiled from Israel and/or Rome, and now living in the Roman-governed regions of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia?
Now that we have a pretty good idea, to whom Peter is writing, we are in a better place to understand other difficulties that we may find in Peter’s letters, such as what he means by the phrase “according to the foreknowledge of God” in the very next verse, 1:2 and to which our attention will turn in the next blog.
Comments