Metaphor and First Peter: the essential role of the minds of father- God’s children in spiritual conflict with a special focus on 1:13

Abstract

Section 1 of this thesis develops an eclectic meta-model of metaphor analysis that is subsequently applied to the paraenetic metaphors in First Peter. This comprehensive and broadly-based theory provides for the integration of First Peter‟s metaphors in the analysis of the epistle‟s persuasive, knowledge-change rhetoric. The bulk of this thesis is a largely suggestive and primarily inductive study of the major paraenetic metaphors within the conceptual and rhetorical world of First Peter, especially “gird up the loins of your mind” and “be sober,” which are crucially bound up with the epistle‟s first grammatical imperative: “hope on the grace to come …” (1:13). I argue that 1:13 is central to all of First Peter‟s paraenetic statements through a sequential survey of these injunctions in the order provided by the text. While “girding the loins” is capable of a more generic or other specific interpretations, I argue for a conflict connotation. First Peter presupposes a situation of spiritual peril, with the danger especially related to the “mind.” The greatest threat is not from persecution but from ignorance, an irrational fear of humans rather than a rational fear of God, along with other sinful “passions”–forces strengthened by the menacing Devil. By means of courageous faith believers must “stand firm” with a disciplined and focused mind oriented vertically towards and hoping fully upon God‟s present and future grace (5:12) to the exclusion of sin, ready for spiritual battle–just as Christ was (4:1). In addition, I maintain that honouring/glorifying God is the ultimate goal of First Peter‟s paraenesis. Consistent with this, the metaphorical organization of “space” in the letter gives evidence of the prioritizing of the vertical axis over the horizontal. In this connection, I challenge Troy Martin‟s view of the Christian life as a journey, finding First Peter to image it as essentially a stationary waiting for final salvation to come to them. Finally, I seek to demonstrate that the Fatherhood of God is the dominant metaphor for First Peter as a whole, a complex image that unites its metaphors, paraenesis, and overall message.