[sunday meditations]

1 PETER 2.1

So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander.

Keep in mind that when 1 Peter was originally written, there were no chapter breaks or verses. While the later addition of such divisions certainly helps us find what we’re looking for, a downside is that it can keep us from following the entirety of the argument when chapter breaks are included right down the middle of a letter’s flow. Think of it like this: the entire letter is a river that may very well have off-branching streams and tributaries and islands jutted about; but erecting a dam right across the river’s breadth can stifle the current and send it in foreign directions. Chapter breaks work like that sometimes, and mentally removing them as we continue through the letter will make the river flow as it’s meant to. What Peter writes now isn’t detached from what’s come before in Chapter 1; there’s no new argument, no new topic, just the continuation of an unbroken current.

Peter utilizes what’s called a “vice list,” a common Greek tool whereby one throws together a bunch of negative traits, creating a “list” of vices. It’s quite simple, really. He uses the word “So” to say that because of everything we’ve seen previously (specifically 1.23-25, which has as its centerpiece the fact that Christians are regenerate human beings, “born again”), the Christians in Asia Minor are to throw off like raggedy and moth-eaten garments the vices listed. There’s more to it than that, as we’ll see, but as we continue to explore this verse, the main point of it all cannot be missed. 

Surfing through the New Testament (as one is prone to do nowadays with the convenience of the bible on the internet, on IPhones, and IPADS), it’s easy to look at all the vices scattered through the bible as being chosen not for any particular reason but simply yanked out of some cerebral bucket and splashed into the letters without any reason or rhyme. A closer inspection will often reveal, however, that the vices listed aren't so random as we might think.

Remember: What was St. Peter just talking about? “Regeneration,” you reply; and you’d be correct. His inclusion of this vice list works on two different levels, both working together in simultaneous rhythm. The vices he chooses are chosen with purpose, building upon the subject of regeneration; and the nature of the command itself (i.e. the language Peter uses) speaks to a concrete Christian practice which carried more meaning back then than it generally carries today. We’ll start with the latter: baptism.

The Baptismal Echo. Never forget that these letters weren’t written with us in mind. Those things included—the explicit, the inferred, the echoed and the implied—are written for the original intended audience (here, the Christians in Asia Minor). The manner in which letters are written, and the ways that ancient writers would convey information, are different not just because of vast historical and cultural distances but also because the nature of letters themselves has changed. Ancient letter-writers (such as St. Peter) knew how to convey information in subtle ways which the original audience would immediately pick up on but which we modern folk, especially those of us who are westerners, will never see without some assistance from scholars, historians, and archaeologists. Thanks to recent work in these fields, this text has very recently come to life in all its glory, and it comes back to the early Christian practice of baptism.

Because St. Peter will come to baptism again, we won’t spend too much time on the subject here. Suffice it to say that baptism wasn’t a peripheral practice in the Christian communities as it is today. Baptism was a centerpiece of the Christian faith and practice, and it carried worlds of meaning, serving the Christian community in a variety of ways. Its importance is seen in the fact that it is baptism to which Christians are pointed to when they’re commanded to live as Christians should, and it’s also the moment wherein a person partakes in Christ’s death and resurrection. In the early church, baptism had past, present, and future aspects: as a past event, baptism is where a person participated in Christ’s death and resurrection to be born again into a new creation; as a present reality, baptism serves as an assurance of our salvation as well as a reference point for how we’re supposed to live our lives (since, in baptism, we were born again); and baptism points forward to the future, when what happened in baptism (regeneration) will be fully realized with our ultimate glorification. Suffice it to say, baptism was a pretty big deal, and this can’t be missed.

That Peter has baptism in mind is seen in his use of the phrase “put away” (rendered “put off”, “cast aside,” “put aside,” etc. in different translations). This isn’t just a clever little play on words but an echo of the baptismal ceremony. In the early church, converts would shed all their clothes—yes, all of them—and then be baptized, rising out of the water to be dressed in a white robe. Even the word he uses, translated “putting away”, literally means “to shed off one’s clothes.” The changing of clothes speaks to deeper realities than mere garments: the Christian has participated in Christ’s death and resurrection, and the result isn’t just a changed status but also the demand for a changed lifestyle. Putting aside the dirty garments of their paganism, the Gentile converts embraced the Christian modus vivendi, symbolized in the changing of garments. That baptism lies at the heart of all this is seen in how St. Paul directly connects this “putting on/off” with baptism in Galatians 3.27; and later on in the letter, as we shall see, Peter uses the Greek word that corresponds to “laying aside” when talking about baptism (3.21).

It simply cannot be missed: Peter’s pointing the Christians back to their baptism, reminding them of both what happened there in the metaphysical realm and that which was symbolized by the changing of clothes. His point is that now that they’ve participated in Christ’s death and resurrection, they are now to live as regenerate, born again human beings (St. Paul has the same sort of thing to say in Romans 6).

The Genesis 3 Echo. In 1.23-25 Peter brings to the forefront of the Christians’ minds their regeneration; in 2.1, with regeneration not tossed aside, he points the Christians to their baptism as a referent point for both the kind of life they’re to live (dead-to-sin resurrection lives, since they’ve participated, in a very real and concrete way, in Christ’s death and resurrection) as well as the reason they’re to obey his command: they’ve been baptized, they’re born again, so therefore they need to cast off these vices. The vices Peter chooses aren’t just grabbed at random: they epitomize not simply the human condition outside of regeneration but also point back to a pivotal story in the Judeo-Christian worldview: The Fall.

All the vices Peter lists are vices we see at work in the story of mankind’s fall in Genesis 3. That text is all about what happened when mankind decided they were going to overthrow God and take his throne (while a literal rendering of the story looks wildly different, the symbolism and imagery gives way to a much fuller, common-sense, and tragic rendering of the tale). This isn’t the place to get into all that, but Peter looks back to the Fall in choosing his vices, all of which were present in the “initial rebellion”, if you will:

Malice: hostility towards the creator in the desire to dethrone him. 

Deceit: the act of hiding, the birthplace of lying; what we see when Adam and Eve seek to cover their nakedness. 

Hypocrisy: seeking innocence before God, both Adam and Eve shifted blame off themselves, finger-pointing and scapegoating to try and get themselves out of the hole (or should we say grave?) they’d dug. 

Envy: the basic human sin coating the narrative like a microbial film; this is the desire to usurp God and take his place. Mankind envied God’s authority and power, and the initial temptation wasn’t a temptation for knowledge but one of God-like status (“You will be like God,” the serpent promised). 

Slander: a sin employed by all involved (except God, of course), as all the characters resorted to slandering one another to keep their own name pure.

“And what is the point of all this?” All these are characteristics of the rebellious heart, the source of our fall from “the glory of God” (genuine human being status) as well as the continuing well from which we drink in our fallen-ness, the engine pushing our dehumanization. Shedding off these things is the act of embracing our redeemed status, our act of living as genuine human beings. Christians are to shed off such ways of living, embracing a new sort of living, the sort of living God originally intended for us. Of course, this “putting away” is something we are to do daily; it’s not a one-time event, for these aspects of the rebellious heart are woven deep into the fabric of who we are.

All these vices listed are common to all people. Those things which we see at work in the Garden thrive in our own hearts. Don’t for a moment skim through the vices and think, Oh, okay, I’m not any of those things anymore. Malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, slander… The Greek philosophers knew very well that these things dwelling in our hearts drive our lives, and they give birth to all sorts of evils and chaos and pains, both in our lives and in the lives of others. These are characteristic to the human condition, to human beings enslaved to sin, and being redeemed from sin doesn’t mean these things are immediately yanked from our hearts; it means that now we have the power of the Spirit, so that we can overcome them as we deepen our roots in Christ and develop in our ability and desire to live as genuine human beings.