Introductory Material
I’ve learned one very valuable thing about myself over the past few weeks – I’m very impatient! One of the ways my impatience has manifested itself over the past few weeks (actually the past few years, it’s just become obvious to me in the past few weeks) is in the reading of commentaries. More often than not I begin reading a commentary on scripture excited to get to the interpretation of this or that text. However, before I can get to the interpretation of the text there is usually a chapter (or several chapters) devoted to introductory material, i.e. Author, date, recipients, occasion, etc. I must admit that I have only recently realized how valuable, and necessary, this introductory material is. In fact, this introductory material is crucial to a right interpretation of the text itself. One cannot simply jump to the text and expect to interpret it rightly unless he/she brings with them at least the preliminary presuppositions of Author, date of writing, audience, etc. The text of 1 Peter has really opened my eyes to this. Obviously, the author of any book of scripture is important becuase in many cases the identity of the author determines the authority of the text as Scripture. But there are also situations where other introductory material is crucial to textual interpretation. For instance, in The Apocalypse Code, Hank Hanegraaff’s interpretation of Revelation falls apart if the text was not written prior to 70 AD.
In like manner, critical to the interpretation of the text of 1 Peter is the intended original audience. Was 1 Peter written primarily to Jewish Christians, Gentile Christians, or a mixture of the two? At first this doesn’t seem to be that important of a detail, but when Peter starts applying Old Testament terminology that described Israel to his recipients, the identity of those recipients becomes of the utmost importance. If Peter is addressing ethnic Jews who have accepted Christ as the Messiah then it would only be natural for him to use such language. However, if Peter is addressing Gentile believers then his statements would seem to support the argument that the church is the new (or true) Israel.
Based on this revelation of the importance of introductory materials I intend to post a series of posts on the topics of Author, Recipients, Date of Writing, and Occasion for Writing. (I know I have been very sporadic in attempting to post here, so I make no promises about the consistency with which I will accomplish this, but I will try nonetheless to post on a regular basis as I study through 1 & 2 Peter.)
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