Expedition 44

Aliens and strangers Evangelism by behavior/christoformity • “Submission Authorities and Freedom 1st Century Slavery Treatment Suffering Favor with God Hypogrammos is the word for example here. It has a meaning of discipleship, a pattern to follow. Literally it means to follow in the footsteps. Peter’s use of Isaiah 53 Heb 9:28 uses the same word as 1 Peter 2:24, anaphero (bare/bore) Isaiah 53 and Atonement Conclusions Slaves (and all believers) are to be like Jesus displaying an attitude in suffering that does not fight back, knowing that through their suffering they may bring healing to the ones causing the suffering. And when one suffers unjustly, we know that God is a just judge who will do righteousness because he is the protector of our souls. 1 Peter 3:1-6- Believing wives and unbelieving husbands Unbelieving husbands and submission Adornment Abraham and Sarah Conclusion o A major take away is that all 3 of these examples (empire, slaves, and patriarchal household codes) were structures of human making. None of them are ordained by God. Christians might be called to endure this as they lived in these societies, but these structures were never said to be set forth by God in the Bible. o The Christian response to all of these structures were to live as witnesses and let the power of the Spirit change those who were in power. If these witnesses won over their governors, masters, husbands then we’d see the transforming power of God take place in the systems. God is not interested in “baptized” versions of these systems. 1 Peter 3:7- Believing husbands and wives Weaker body, vessel, person o Skeuos- does it mean body, vessel, or person? Fellow Heirs in Grace Your Prayers will not be hindered

1 Peter 1:13-2:10 Prepare your minds Future grace Obedient children Conformed Holiness and Sanctification • Watch Bible Project: Holiness • The root of holy (hagios) is the same word for saint. But a better term is to be a “holy one” Judgement based on works • Ransom: Lutron in Greek. Means the price of release or manumission (release from slavery). In its primary usage, the lutron/kōpher referred to neither a sacrifice for sin nor a punishment for transgression, but a price of release or a price of return. • Luke uses Lutrosin (from Lutron) to describe the Exodus in Luke 1:68 and 2:38, and the verb form in 24:21, and the compound in 21:28. Luke, Mark, and Matthew all use this word to talk about slaves being set free, specifically in an Exodus motif. • This is the ransom atonement theory which is often conflated with substitution. • To answer the age-old question- “who was the ransom paid to?” (God, the Devil, Death?) we need to look at the exodus because Peter is connecting this word ransom/redemption to Jesus’ blood. Blood and Exodus A few things to notice… • In this there is no one getting paid off. Not debts are getting collected. The gods are getting their butts kicked and slaves are being set free. • The blood represents life as we see in Leviticus. So, the blood/life of the lamb gives life to those in the house. Death does not touch them. • The blood has nothing to do with sin or forgiveness in Exodus. It’s about protection in a cosmic battle. It marks out God’s people from God’s enemies. Jesus as foreknown (Corporate election and participation) Last times? Obedience and Love Born again and seed Babies and Milk Jesus the living stone & the Church as living stones Priesthood and sacrifices Stumbling stone and offense at Jesus Chosen Race Royal Priesthood, Holy Nation, & God’s Possession Darkness, Light, and Mercy

1 Peter 1:1-12   Topics in 1 Peter 1:1-2  Aliens/Exiles  Elect/Chosen  Dispersed/Diaspora  Foreknown  Trinitarian action in sanctification   In his introduction Peter exhorts his audience to view themselves as exiles in society, to be defined as set apart for obedience to Jesus and displaying him.     Topics in 1 Peter 1:3-12  Born Again  Family language in 1 Peter  Salvation, inheritance, & resurrection  Faith and testing/trials  Prophecy   Application   We are primarily Gentiles living in a post-Christian nation, though still with less persecution than Peter or his audience, our “suffering” and social pressures may or may not be as intense as the author and audience. We do still face trials and share in the same hope as the author and audience and submit to the same authority of God and the same Spirit inspired texts.    We belong to a new family because of God. We should understand the magnitude of the inheritance.     Jesus is the hope of all ancient and modern eschatological expectations.   Sufferings in the present have a purpose, as they always have. The goal of our sufferings is to give honor, glory, and praise to God. Likewise, sufferings prove to be part of our sanctification: to be formed into the image of Christ. Christ suffered so we should be willing to suffer.    The sweep of human history points us to Christ. The testimony of the Spirit from the Old Testament to the present is Christ-centered, and so should we be Christoform too.

Significance of 1 Peter The life of Jesus and the believer’s life are inseparable in Peter’s thought. First Peter encourages a transformed understanding of Christian self-identity that redefines how one is to live as a Christian in a world that is hostile to the basic principles of the gospel. First Peter challenges Christians to reexamine our acceptance of society’s norms and to be willing to suffer the alienation of being a visiting foreigner in our own culture wherever its values conflict with those of Christ. The new birth that gives Christians a new identity and a new citizenship in the kingdom of God makes us, in whatever culture we happen to live, visiting foreigners and resident aliens there. Date and Authorship The weightiest evidence that 1 Peter is a pseudonymous work has rested on 3 points: (1) the Greek of the epistle is just too good for a Galilean fisherman-turned-apostle to have written. (2) the book’s content suggests a situation both in church structure and in social hostility that reflects a time decades later than Peter’s lifetime. (3) Christianity could not have reached these remote areas of Asia Minor and become a target for persecution until a decade or more after Peter had died, at the earliest. Date- Arguments for a 64-ish AD date Tradition universally has Peter in Rome at time of his death (66 a.d.) and the “coded” Babylon location is almost universally considered Rome (as in 2nd Temple literature and Revelation). Virtually silent that he was much anywhere else (Acts 12:17) except Jerusalem, Antioch, Corinth, etc. Peter could have easily traveled to and from Rome to Jerusalem and elsewhere after release in Jerusalem to his martyrdom. Paul and Peter may have overlapped areas, but not necessarily communities. Persecution in region fits Nero's early reign. Audience Arguments for a Jewish Audience The letter contains direct quotations from the OT and abounds in allusions to it, in phrases, characters (Sarah and Abraham), and in references that evoke Jewish history (dispersion, 1:1; exiles and aliens, 2:11; Babylon, 5:13). Absence in the letter of any reference to tension with Christians of Jewish origin, as one regularly finds in Acts and the Pauline epistles, for example, could also argue for a Jewish origin of the readers. Those who take a Jewish audience at times do so out of dispensational eschatology and “replacement theology” concerns putting a distinction between the church and Israel. Arguments for a Gentile Audience References to the unholy state of their pre-conversion life (e.g., 1:14, 18; 2:10, 25; 4:3–4) On the basis of 1:18, most modern commentators disagree that the audience was primarily Jewish Christian; that verse refers to the “the useless way of life you inherited from your ancestors” This understanding is reinforced by the further description in 4:3, “For the time past was [more than] enough to do what the Gentiles like to do, as you went along with acts of abandon, lust, drunkenness, revelry, carousing, and licentious idolatries.” Conclusions The metaphors of exile can be attributed to both Jews and Gentiles. Jews in the classical definition of being in exile (out of the promise land) and gentiles in the sense of being in exile in their homeland based on their citizenship in God’s kingdom. Regardless of whether the audience is primarily Jewish or Gentile it should be seen as written to the church, which is defined as Jew and gentile in the NT. Peter encourages these churches with phrases connected with God’s chosen people in the OT such as a kingdom of priests, a holy nation, God’s possession, and people of God.

What in world does God want?    We get 2 ditches: Legalism (Keep every law and be perfect) and Libertinism (Jesus paid it all so I do nothing). Both are wrong.      Walk before me and be perfect (Gen 17:1)  Be perfect, as your heavenly father is perfect (Matt 5:48)   Tamim  Shalem  Righteousness  Jesus and perfection   Fulfilling the Law   • The Hebrew and Greek terms we’ve looked at denote someone who is whole, intact, mature, and wholehearted. In no instance do they denote what our English word perfect communicates: flawless, without error.   • To Torah called for Israel’s faithfulness to God, for whole heartedness in relation to God and his ways, and for loving-kindness/mercy that reflected God’s character. This is expressed in the idea of tamim, shalem, and telios.   • What does God require? 12 And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God ask of you but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in obedience to him, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, 13 and to observe the LORD’s commands and decrees that I am giving you today for your own good? (Deut 10:12-13)   Tamim/Telios is to be of a God Centered, allegiant, loyal life and of God like impossible perfection.  It is about the trajectory of your life- the consistent path.

Christoformity  Image of God/Image of Christ   Bearing the Name/Faithfulness of Christ   The Example (Phil 2:1-11)/Kenosis Read Phil 2:1-11   The Kingdom of God and the Gospel   5 elements of the Kingdom   Kingdom as both present and future     The Gospel: Gospel mean good news. It was usually a royal announcement in the ancient world  The Way of the Exile    Nationalism is an “idol”   Mark of the Beast  Live as Exiles   Romans 12:2- Be transformed by the renewing of our minds… We don’t think in the ways of this world. We have the minds of the King and the Kingdom, with his rule in focus.

The importance of land begins early in the biblical narrative in Eden. This is where heaven and earth overlap. Where God dwells and walks with his priests in the garden which is sacred space. Sacred space is the place were God and humanity dwell together. With Israel the promise land, the land of Israel, was sacred space. God’s temple was there, and he dwelt with his people. The temple was the new place where heaven and earth overlapped. Israel was exiled for polluting the land with their false worship and God’s presence left. In Jewish thought the land is essential to their eschatology and their theology. It would be crazy to think that God is a king with no country. What is Salvation? Our idea of what salvation is plays a lot into the land. In the west our view of salvation has been based on what we are saved from. We know we are saved from Hell, sin, death, and the Devil. But what are we saved for? Many Christians believe we are saved for heaven but is this true? We are saved for the redemption of creation to image God. The narrative begins with Eden and ends with Eden. What is the purpose of Heaven? Heaven is usually understood as a transcendent realm beyond time and space. Heaven is primarily characterized by fellowship with and worship of God. The final destiny of the faithful is conceived of as an unending worship service in God’s immediate presence in another world. In the Bible we see heaven as God’s throne room but also as the place where his rule and reign are perfect… Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven (Lord’s Prayer). We see very few mentions of going to heaven in the Bible, but it has become a huge part of Christian theology. Redemption What is our future? Life after death is not the goal… life after life after death is! Rom 8:18-25. Liberation from decay and the redemption of our BODIES is the hope we are saved for. And Why? To be the image of God bodily on earth. Creation is longing for us to be redeemed so it can be redeemed too. Jesus speaks of the regeneration when he sits on his throne. To Jews this was when God would rule on earth again. (Matt 19:28) Acts 3:21 speaks also of the restoration of all things. Colossians 1:20 talks about all things reconciled in Christ. Eph 1:10 speaks of all things being summed up in Christ. In heaven and on earth. Heaven and earth is what is mentioned in Gen 1:1 for all of the cosmic creation so that is what Paul has in view of what is redeemed. God pronounces creation “very good” Gen 1:31. Our task is to steward that creation not to escape from it to heaven (escapism is platonic and gnostic thinking). Resurrection 1 Cor 15:44-55- spiritual body is not being disembodied but being imperishable. Phil 3:20- our body will be like his. Jesus was resurrected bodily. John 5:28-29 The dead in their graves will rise The importance of the resurrection is so that the image of God can be restored to its vocation perfectly when death is defeated. Our concentration in salvation is usually being saved from going to hell but we often leave the resurrection behind. Jesus died to defeat death. Death was the result of separation from God in the garden and that is what needs to be reversed. Why?... Image of God New Heavens and New Earth- What is our destination? Rev 21:1-7. Heaven comes to earth. Koinos (renewed) is used here. Isaiah 65:17-25- Consistent with the OT. The Jews didn’t have a disembodied view of being human. They believe in God restoring his Eden mission. The meek will inherit the Earth!

Law as Grace The Torah was Grace. God didn’t say get right and then I’ll free you from Egypt. Torah was Israel’s instructions on how to live in a wise way and how to properly represent God in the world. Not necessarily rules but a way of life. What is the Sermon on the Mount? The context is about the kingdom of God (Matt 4). So this is the kingdom ethos… the “law of the Kingdom” The Sermon on the mount is an all-out assault on the ego… a call to be crucified and live the Jesus way.  Beatitudes Makarios can mean happy or blessed. In classical Greek it meant the divine life… the life of the gods Poor in Spirit Kenosis (Phil 2/ foot washing) Poor= beggar… kingdom of the desperate This flows into all the other beatitudes Gentleness that renounces selfishness and my rights over others The capacity to mourn with the broken and not be obsessed with fixing them Mercy that puts aside dominance and coercion The hunger for justice and God to set things right as in the Amos, Micah, and Isaiah prophetic traditions. The pure heart of the peace maker who does not demand vengeance. Salt and Light Light bearers… it’s about reflecting God’s light to those we come in contact with… bearing the name, imaging God Salt is about impact. Salt was put on sacrifices (covenant), purified things, preserved and restored, was also a weapon of warfare (spiritual?), connected with friendship in the NT. Light was connected to the gentile mission and Israel’s calling to represent God and also connected to good works (1 Peter 2:11-12) Dealing with the heart issues Not legalistic but transformative Murder… Don’t hate… go even further, actively seek restoration (leave your sacrifice and go reconcile… remember communion last week) Adultery… Don’t lust Don’t make Oaths… Be a person of integrity From the heart your actions flow Enemy Love Eye for and Eye was about limiting retaliation in a violent culture. Jesus says don’t even get retribution even if you are entitled to it. This is a picture of Jesus forgiving enemies. Our love must be displayed as God did… kenosis, service, self-giving (not self-seeking) love. If this is our high calling, how do we treat those that the church has seemed to make into enemies… Muslims? Gays? Political opponents? … religious, political, and opposites in lifestyle? Jesus would eat with these people. Be perfect Telios means complete and the context of this is not moral perfection or without error, but it is about love. Luke 6 translates this same verse as be merciful as your father is merciful. The Jews concentrated on God’s mercy as his chief attribute and not his perfection, power, or sovereignty. For a Jew to be perfect was to be full of mercy. Conclusion (Matt 7:12-28) Jesus gives a few parables. Narrow and wide gates, true and false prophets (I never knew you), and wise and foolish builders We often hear these in the context of salvation… the real context is in living the way of Jesus, walking his path. The way of the sermon on the mount life is narrow (difficult) Believers can do miraculous things but might not know Jesus. Jesus is looking for the fruit of this sermon… Kenosis, Enemy love, surrender, taking up our cross, …. It’s the christoform life.

The Ekklesia is a group of Christ Followers who come together to be the living body of Christ. We image him by living in love and unity and continually being a witness to the Kingdom Rule of Christ in the world. 4 Things the church is: a Bride, a House, a Body, and a Family Bride Rev 19:7; Eph 5 House Ephesians 2:11-22; 1 Peter 2:1-10; 1 Cor 6:19 Body 1 Cor 12:12-30; Eph1:20-23; Col 1:21-29 Family The church is described as New Birth, Children of God, sons of God, brothers and sisters, fathers, an household in the New Testament: Gal 6:10; Rom 8:29, Eph 2:19, 1 Tim 5:1-2, 1 Tim 3:15, 1 John 2:12-13, 1 John 3:14 How should the church family act? The Members take care of each other. James 2:14-17, Eph 4:28, Gal 6:2, Rom 12:13 Spend time with each other. Acts 2:42,46 Show affection towards each other. Grow: internally (spiritually) and externally (in numbers) Share responsibility Reflect the triune God in their relationships 1 John 1:1-3, The Lord’s Supper In the Roman context they would have these banquets where there were 3 parts. First course was a meal together with people ranked from greatest to least (remember Jesus’ saying about not seating yourself in the pace of honor at a banquet?) Second part was when a cup was raised (drink offering) to Caesar and pledged allegiance to him Third part consisted of poems, songs, speeches and etc in honor of the emperor. The church's banquets (meetings) were subversive.  1 Cor 8-11 1 Corinthians 8 and 11:17-34: The importance unity in relationships and community when taking communion. 1 Corinthians 9 and 11:17-34: Communion represents the fellowship meal of the priesthood in the OT. The church is the priesthood and communion is our fellowship meal. 1 Corinthians 10 and 11:17-34: We connect with God and proclaim our allegiance to Him during communion. 1 Corinthians 11:1-16 and 11:17-34: the necessity for equality within the Church and the importance of meeting needs in the Body. We come to the table as equals. Gifts and Meetings Rom 12:6-6 1 Cor 12:8-10 1 Cor 12: 28-30 Ephesians 4:11 1 Peter 4:11 We need all the gifts in action because they display and model Christ. We cannot elevate one over another (such as pastor or teacher). Church Unity Rom 15:7; 1 Cor 1:11-13; John 17:20-23 In short, whenever the church gathers together, its guiding and functioning principal is simply to incarnate Christ (1 Cor 12:12)

We see that in the Biblical Narrative (and still true today) there are only 2 kingdoms: "The World" and the Kingdom of God. All the structures and systems of the world are influenced and run by Satan and the Powers. The Bible speaks of this often in the way it uses the word “kosmos” usually translated as World. It can mean a few things 1) the earth or creation, 2) The people of the earth, or 3) the systems of world (under the enemy). Examples of Kosmos: 1 John 5:19; James 4:4; Matthew 4:8; Mark 8:36; John 15:19; John 18:36; Gal 4:3; Col 2:8; 2 Pet 2:20 Baptism Baptism in the 1st Century was not only an outward sign of an inward faith or simply a religious ritual but it was a political pledge. “The early Church of the first century viewed baptism as their sacramentum to Jesus. Tertullian (160-225 AD) contrasted the Christian sacramentum with the Roman soldier’s pledge of loyalty to the emperor and the empire. He makes the case that just as a soldier, upon his oath of allegiance, was inducted into Caesar’s army, so a Christ-follower was initiated by the sacrament of baptism into God’s Kingdom. Each person vowed faithful (allegiant) service to his ruler and kingdom. Baptism into empire or baptism into Christ’s nation was the dividing line. Tertullian condemned any Christian who would be willing to swear the Roman sacramentum, since baptism was the only sacrament a Christian should observe. For the early Church, baptism was abandoning empire and claiming new citizenship in Jesus’s nation.” (RivalNations.org) 1 Peter 3:17-22 Babylon In the early church the phrase “Babylon” became the code word for the system of Satan or the kingdom of the world (kosmos). The Way of the Exile We need to view America less like a biblical Israel and more like a biblical Babylon. How do we live as exiles in the midst of empire? -Brian Zahnd Way not to live as Exiles Tribalism Political Parties Violence 7 Mountain Mandate Ways to live as Exiles Jeremiah 29:5-7 1 Peter Daniel Jesus calls us to radical allegiance to His Kingdom alone You cannot serve 2 masters (matt 6:24) Paul tells Timothy that as a soldier of God’s kingdom he should not be caught up in civilian affairs. (2 Tim 2:4) James says that friendship with the world is enmity with God (James 4:4) We are called to seek first God’s kingdom (matt 6:33) 5 differences between Kingdom and Empire 1. DIFFERENCE OF TRUSTS 2. DIFFERENCE OF AIMS 3. DIFFERENCE OF SCOPES 4. DIFFERENCE OF RESPONSES 5. DIFFERENCE OF BATTLES Honor and Pray for the leaders (Emperors) 1 Peter 2:17 1 Tim 2:1-2 We are not called to change the world’s systems but as the church to be the change and embody the kingdom here on earth Romans 12:2- Be transformed by the renewing of our minds… We don’t think in the ways of this world. We have the minds of the King and the Kingdom, with his rule in focus.